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

  CHAPTER V

  ON THE BRINK OF A VOLCANO

  Reverberating crashes rent the air. Workmen in that part of the millwere hurled violently to the ground. Yells and cries were heard on allsides. The interior of the mill was full of flying debris.

  Bob Jarvis had put too much water on the pit. The sudden contraction,down deep among the hot slag and cinders, had caused a tremendousexplosion, wreaking disaster for many feet on either side of the pit.Kalinski, in all probability, knew what would happen when he gave Jarvispermission to soak down the cinders, and no doubt that was why the bossmade such haste to get away from the spot. If he were not there, hecould not be held responsible for what had occurred.

  Fire spurted from the miniature volcano. Crash after crash followed, asparts of furnaces close by toppled over, though fortunately the insidewalls of the furnaces did not fall and liberate their tons of moltenmetal. Many lives would have been lost had that occurred. However, thedisaster was serious enough as it was, and several men had beeninjured.

  The red light was displayed at the top of the open-hearth building, butthis time it was another than Steve Rush who was hurrying to the sceneto gather the facts and give orders for the care of the injured.

  Steve was near the bottom of number seven pit with cinders and slagraining down on him in a perfect deluge. The lad instinctively pulledhis cap visor down over his eyes to keep the stuff from getting into hiseyes or burning his face. He had no idea what had happened, beyond thefact that there had been some sort of explosion.

  With quick presence of mind he grabbed up the plank, standing it againstthe side of the pit and began to climb. Quick as he was, he was notquick enough to get clear of the shower. It enveloped him; it choked andhalf smothered him as he fought manfully to gain the top of the pit.

  "It's gripping me," thought the lad. "I'll have a time getting out ofthis now."

  The stuff was up to his knees, Rush meantime kicking out vigorously,pulling himself up inch by inch by sheer strength of arms and hands. Hadhe not been such a muscular lad he would have been at the bottom of thepit at that moment, probably dead.

  The cinders and slag gained the boy's waist. He was nearing the top,but now he could make little or no impression. He shouted for help, butin the confusion none heard his call.

  Steve kept struggling. He would never give up as long as there was asingle breath left in him. Finally, however, he found that he was makingabsolutely no progress. The grip of the cinder and slag was gettingtighter and tighter as the stuff was packed about him.

  Suddenly through the pall of smoke and dirt a human face appeared,peering over into the pit. There was a bandage about the head of the manwho was looking down into number seven.

  "Is that you, Rush?" called a familiar voice.

  "Ye-yes," answered the lad, scarcely above a whisper, for he was fastgiving out. "Who--who are you? Help--help me out. I'm fa-fast and I--I'mburning u----"

  "This is Ignatz Brodsky. Sure, I help you. Reach up your hands. You mustmake hurry. We both get buried alive in the hot stuff."

  Steve stretched up his arms to the boy Ignatz, who had that morning comeout of the hospital and gone to work in the mill where he was employedon a furnace a short distance down the line from where the Iron Boysworked.

  Ignatz knew whose pit had blown up. He knew that Steve was in anadjoining one, because from where he was shoveling he had seen Rush godown into the cinder hole a little while before the explosion occurred.As for Bob Jarvis, he had not been seen since the black column hadlifted him from the floor.

  Young Brodsky grasped the outstretched hands and began tugging with allhis might. All his efforts were unavailing. Steve was being burieddeeper and deeper every second.

  "Hang on--I get somebody!" exclaimed Ignatz, darting away through theblack cloud.

  Kalinski, now running here and there, apparently very much upset overthe disaster, was the first man the Pole met.

  "Come quick!" he demanded, breathing hard.

  "What do you want?" snarled Watski.

  "The pit! There's a man in there and he can't get out!"

  "Who is it?"

  "Rush. He die pretty soon if we no get him out."

  "Go on! Get him out yourself. I've got plenty on my hands. I'll help youwhen I can get to it. There are others here who need me. Go along, now,and get the crazy fool out," added the pit boss, turning away.

  Ignatz did not seem surprised. He appeared more disappointed thanotherwise. That one of his countrymen should be so heartless made nogreat impression on the boy. What he was concerned in now was findingsome one who would help him get his young friend out of the pit.

  Brodsky ran here and there, with the result that he at last found twomill hands who hurried to the pit with him. It was no easy task, evenfor them, to get Steve out. The Iron Boy was still conscious, but he wasquite seriously burned about the body. Fortunately he had saved his headand face from being very badly scarred.

  After nearly pulling the boy's arms from his shoulders, working him fromside to side as they would a post that they were trying to pull out ofthe ground, the men dragged him to safety.

  "We take him to hospital," nodded Brodsky.

  "Is the ambulance here?"

  Ignatz nodded, whereupon the men carried Steve out and placed him in anambulance. A second ambulance had just arrived, so the surgeon of thatmade a quick emergency dressing of the lad's burns, directing him toremain in the ambulance. Rush felt no inclination to do otherwise atthat moment.

  "Ignatz," he called.

  "What is it?"

  "I want you to find Bob."

  "Where?"

  "I don't know."

  "Mebby Bob is killed."

  "Wait! Tell me what happened."

  "The pit he blow up."

  "What pit?"

  "Number eight."

  "Oh, that was the one Bob was sprinkling?"

  "Yes. Put too much water on. Bang!" exclaimed Ignatz, striking adramatic attitude.

  "Then he is surely killed or badly injured. Run, Ignatz! Find him. Don'tyou come back here until you have."

  "Ignatz find him," answered the Pole, darting back into the building,from which a dense cloud of smoke was rolling through the crevices inthe roof and from the doors and windows.

  No sooner had Brodsky left him than Steve pulled himself up and peeredout. There was no one in sight, so he slipped from the ambulance. He wasbarely able to stand alone, and for a moment clung to a rear wheel ofthe wagon for support.

  The boy's burns hurt him so that he winced. Every movement made him wantto groan, but he shut his lips tightly together and by sheer force ofwill pulled himself up.

  "I'm going in to look for Bob," he muttered, starting unsteadily for thedoor of the mill.

  The smoke was still so thick that Rush could not make out much ofanything. He staggered along until he reached the spot where theexplosion had occurred. There he found the accident man gathering hisfacts.

  "Hello, Rush! You're hurt, aren't you?"

  "Not much."

  "Then you can tell me all about this. You were in it, weren't you?"

  "I guess I was. But I can't tell you anything now. I'll tell you all Iknow later on. Have you seen Jarvis?"

  "No; where is he?"

  "That is what I want to find out. He was working on the pit that blewup."

  "I guess he is settled then."

  "I am afraid so."

  "Well, we will hope not. I would help you look for him, but you knowI've got my hands full," explained the man from the office.

  "Yes; I understand. Hunt me up after you get through, and I will giveyou all the information I have, which isn't very much."

  Rush started away. He came face to face with the surgeon who had dressedhis wounds.

  "What are you doing here, Rush?" demanded the surgeon. "You get back tothe ambulance."

  "I'm looking for Jarvis. You--you haven't found him, have you?"

  "No. Is he hurt?"

  "I think so."
br />   "That's too bad," muttered the ambulance surgeon, returning to his workof dressing the wounds of those who had been burned.

  Rush went on, asking every one he met if they had seen Jarvis. No onehad. Foley, Kalinski, all denied having seen the boy. Steve wasperplexed. By this time the smoke cloud began to grow thinner and moretransparent. One could see fully half way across the shop. As the cloudlifted, all became clear. The place looked as if it had been in the gripof a cyclone, though the damage was not nearly as great as had at firstappeared.

  "Who is killed?" asked Rush.

  "No one, so far as I know," answered the man addressed.

  "Have you seen Bob Jarvis anywhere about?"

  "Don't know him. Who is he?"

  "He was my partner. He was working on number eight when it blew up."

  "Then you'll need a basket to gather him up," was the cheerful answer ofthe mill hand. "The last time a pit exploded here we lost twelve men. Wefound the pieces of them, but somehow we never were able to put themtogether. The pieces wouldn't fit, nohow."

  Steve turned away. The lad's face was drawn and white, partly from thepain of his burns and partly from anxiety for Jarvis.

  "Ignatz!" he called, observing the Pole darting across to the furnaces.

  The lad halted sharply and glanced around to see who was calling him. Hecaught Steve's eye and hurried over.

  "Have you found Jarvis?"

  Brodsky shook his head.

  "Mister Bob not here," he said.

  "He must be," protested Steve.

  "Mebby Bob him run away," suggested the Pole.

  "No, Ignatz; he is not that kind. He is here somewhere and something hashappened to him or we should have seen him somewhere about. He wasstanding on the edge of the pit at the time it exploded."

  "I see him a minute before. He put too much water on," added the boy,with a shake of the head. "Bad, bad! Somebody tell him do that."

  Rush attached no especial significance to the suggestion at the moment.Later on, the words of the faithful Pole came back to him fraught withmeaning.

  "He must have been thrown up into the air. Perhaps he is down in the pitthere buried under the slag now," said Rush, a sudden, startledexpression flashing into his eyes.

  Brodsky instinctively glanced upwards.

  "Look! Look!" cried the Pole, dancing up and down and pointing excitedlyup above their heads into the thin cloud of smoke that hovered overthem.

  Steve looked. His heart sank within him as he did so and his head beganto whirl dizzily.