The Iron Boys in the Steel Mills; or, Beginning Anew in the Cinder Pits

  CHAPTER XVIII

  IN A FIERY RAIN

  Steve Rush did not know what a hang-over might be. He had just had apractical demonstration of what a flareback was. This, however, he didnot know was caused by an explosion of the molten metal, either from astream of water touching it or a too sudden inrush of cool air. At anyrate the metal in the furnace, just as the dolly was driven in, hadsuffered a partial explosion. The air was full of molten metal shootingin all directions. Some of the men back of where the monkey-man had beenstanding had been quite seriously burned in the explosion.

  Steve, seeing three of them flattened on the platform, dashed in at therisk of his own life, dragging the men to positions of safety.

  "Get under cover!" bellowed Pig-Iron. "Don't you know there's ahang-over?"

  "What's a hang-over--what am I to look out for?" shouted Steve.

  "That's an explosion at the top caused by a stoppage of the vents in thecharge," explained Peel, as the two hurriedly crawled in under one ofthe huge heating stoves. "It'll be raining coke here, in a minute, tillyou can't see ten feet ahead of you."

  "An--an explosion at the top of the furnace, do you say?" gasped Rush.

  "Yes. The whole business is blowing out of the top. Don't you hear itcoming?"

  The fiery rain of coke and ore had begun. It sounded like the roar of anapproaching storm as it beat on the metal sides of the big stoves.

  "But Jarvis is up there!" cried the Iron Boy, beginning to crawl fromunder the protecting stove.

  "No, he ain't. Come back! You'll be killed. Why, you wouldn't stand anymore show in that coke shower than you would to stand up under hot firein battle, and perhaps not so much. Fellers do git through a battlewithout being hit. Nobody ever was in a coke shower who didn't git moreor less hit, principally more."

  "I tell you, Bob is up there. I must go----"

  "No, he ain't."

  "He isn't? Then where is he?"

  "Oh, he got blowed off when the explosion--when the hang-over----"

  "Blown off?"

  "Sure. He couldn't hang on in a hang-over, could he?"

  Rush groaned. He ventured to peer from under the stove, up into the air.The top of the furnace was a volcano in full eruption. Fire, smoke andcoke were belching high up into the air, there spreading out like agreat umbrella and raining down over a wide area.

  Pig-Iron reached out a hand, jerking Steve roughly back.

  "Don't be a fool!" he growled.

  "Do--do you think Jarvis is killed?"

  "Most likely. Ought to be, if he isn't after getting that dose."

  All at once Rush broke away from the head melter, darted to the ironladder, and, regardless of the rain of coke, began running up theladder. The boy got blow upon blow over head and shoulders, as the stuffbeat down upon him, but he kept his head down and pluckily kept on upthe ladder.

  "Come back!" roared Pig-Iron, darting from cover at the risk of hislife. But Steve was too far up the ladder to be seen from below. Thehead melter again bellowed his command to Rush to return.

  In the meantime the boy had reached the top. Jarvis was not there. Stevecried out to him, but there was no response. With a catch in his breath,Rush turned and slid down the ladder to the base of the furnace. Hishead was cut and bleeding from the flying coke, and his shoulders werewounded in many different places.

  Steve staggered rather than walked over to the stove where he droppeddown.

  "Well, he ain't there, is he?" demanded Pig-Iron.

  "No; he isn't there. Where--where do you think he is?"

  "Most likely out in the yard somewhere. As soon as this black shower isover we'll go look for him. He's done for. Too bad, but them things willhappen."

  "I don't believe it!" answered the Iron Boy explosively. "It will takemore than a hang-over to kill Bob Jarvis. You'll find he is all right.But, if that is so, I don't understand why he did not answer me when Icalled."

  "I told you so. No use to cry over spilled coke. We'll pick him uppretty quick."

  "There, the shower is letting up. Shall we go, now?" demanded Steveimpatiently.

  The melter stretched forth a hand, drawing it back quickly.

  "Not yet! I don't propose to get my head cracked just for the sake ofbeing in a hurry."

  "Well, I am going, whether you are or not."

  Rush crawled from under the stove and straightened up. The metal wasstill running from the furnace, most of it having spilled off into theyard, for instantly the hang-over occurred the train crew had fled. Theyknew full well what was coming, and every man of them instantly took tocover. The metal ran over the first ladle. Instantly the car under theladle caught fire. In a few minutes the whole train was on fire. Theengineer, who had deserted his post with the rest of them, rushed backat the risk of his life, uncoupled his engine and started it away, thussaving the engine from being seriously damaged.

  Rush raised his voice in a long shout for his companion.

  "Bo-o-b! O-h-h-h, Bob!"

  "Hi, hi, catch me down there!" howled a voice from the air. It soundedright over the head of Steve Rush.

  Pig-Iron Peel heard it, too, and darted out. The two men glanced up intothe air. They saw a human form shooting down one of the wire braces thatextended up to the top of the stove to steady the metal chimney aroundwhich there was a network of the wires.

  "It's Bob!" howled Rush beside himself with joy. "Help me catch him."

  It _was_ Bob, and he was descending at a rate of speed altogether toofast for either comfort or safety.

  Steve leaped over to where the lower end of the guy-wire was anchoredand braced himself to meet the shock. Peel sprang behind him.

  Illustration: "It's Bob!" Cried Steve.

  "Steady, now!" warned the melter.

  "I'll catch you, Bob."

  "Look out!" howled Jarvis.

  His body seemed to leap from the wire. It landed against Steve Rush withthe force of a catapult. Steve went over like a ninepin. Behind himPig-Iron Peel shared the same fate, and in an instant the three were ina tangle.

  Jarvis was the first to extricate himself. He leaped to his feet andbegan dancing about, howling lustily.

  "What kind of a game is this that you've put me up against?" he yelled.

  The boy, with arms and legs wrapped around the guy wire, had shot downfrom the top of the stove. He was angry all through, more angry thanscared or even hurt.

  "What kind of a game is it, I say?"

  Rush and Pig-Iron were too busy picking themselves up from the floorwhere Jarvis's bump had landed them, to make reply.

  "What's the matter with you fellows? Did I bowl you over? Well, itserves you right if I did."

  "Bob," laughed Steve getting to his feet, "I knew nothing could do youup. You're too tough to be very badly hurt. What happened to you upthere?"

  "That's what I've come down here to find out. What happened down here?Was it an earthquake, or something of the sort?"

  "Something like that. Mr. Peel called it a hang-over up at your end."

  "Hang-over? Pshaw! It was a fall-over, so far as I was concerned."

  "How'd you git on that guy-wire?" demanded Peel, breaking into theconversation at this juncture. "The head of that is more'n twenty feetfrom where you were working?"

  "I took the air-line route," grinned Jarvis.

  "Tell us what happened?" urged Steve.

  "I was working over the top. Something all of a sudden went wrong, andthere didn't seem to be any smoke or anything coming out. I got up onthe edge of the crater----"

  "You mean the furnace?"

  "I mean what I said. It was a crater, and don't you forget it--a real,live crater. You'd have thought so if you had seen it spit fire andlava. Well, about the time I got up on the edge, pouf! slam, bang! Thewhole insides of the volcano popped up in my face. I must have fallenover in, for the eruption lifted me right out again. I did anotheraviation act. I spread my planes and sailed through the air----"

  "Was that--no, of course not. Where were
you all the time from theexplosion to just now, when you came down on the wire?"

  "I was roosting on that flange up there near the top of the stove."

  "What? Thrown way over there?" exclaimed Steve.

  "No; didn't I tell you I flew again? I'm getting to be an expert. FirstI flew over in the open-hearth building and landed on a girder. Thistime I tried a more ambitious flight, landing on a hot stove. All thestuff from the eruption fell down on me and woke me up after a little. Inearly fell off trying to reach the guy-wire that I knew was there. Youknow the rest. I took a slide down the wire that would have made aJapanese performer turn pale. Then you and I had a collision."

  "Well," laughed Steve, "it's all over now, you can get back to work."

  "What? Up there again?"

  "Of course."

  "No, siree! Not for Robert Jarvis. He knows when he has had enough. Hecan get into enough trouble right down here on the ground floor. Hedoesn't have to perch on the edge of a crater looking for trouble. Didanything happen down here?"

  "What did happen?" questioned Steve, turning to the head melter.

  "Flare-back and----"

  "What caused it?"

  "I don't rightly know--"

  "I know that your man on the rear end of the dolly nearly put an end tome by that last blow he struck with the mall. Whatever possessed him todo it!"

  "He must have misunderstood you. That was a close call. Did the juiceburn you?"

  "It scorched my cheek a little as it went by," laughed Rush.

  "What's that? Did you get singed again?" demanded Jarvis.

  "Yes; a little. But we must expect those things in the steel mills."

  "Hello, what's the matter over there?" cried Bob, running to the edge ofthe platform and looking down at the burning cars of the hot metaltrain.

  Pig-Iron explained that a flare-back had flooded the place with moltenmetal, setting everything inflammable on fire.

  The front of the furnace had been blown out and the platform waslittered with debris, brick, sheet-iron, metal that was still glowingand which would continue to glow for hours before it became cold andgray. The place looked a wreck, though conditions were not nearly as badas appeared to the inexperienced eye. There was little that could bedone to clear away until the metal had cooled.

  In the meantime, the head melter had sent one of his men to make areport of the occurrence to the superintendent of that division.

  "We will move over to number three. That is nearly ready to tap,"announced Peel.

  "If you don't mind I should like to ask a question or so before we startin," said Steve.

  "Sure thing. What is it?"

  "Did you see who was handling the mall when the dolly was hit that hardblow that did the business?"

  "No. Why?"

  "I should like to know."

  "We will find out mighty quick. Say, you fellows over there, who wasplugging the dolly?"

  "Don't know," answered a voice.

  "It was the relief man, Kalinski," answered another.