CHAPTER XV

MENACED BY A DOUBLE PERIL

"Look out!" roared the warning voice of the head melter.

Steve turned just in time to see a wall of golden metal almost towering over him. Even his quick mind did not grasp the meaning of the scene until it was too late. His muscles refused to obey his command, and for once in his life the Iron Boy stood with a sensation in his heart that was not far removed from fear. He did not know which way to turn for safety, even had he possessed the strength to escape from his perilous position.

Yells and shouts of warning from all sides merely served to confuse him the more. Had it been daylight Rush no doubt would have quickly thrown himself to one side.

Suddenly something came whirling through the air. The Iron Boy did not see it, and it is doubtful if more than one man about the furnace did. It was a dark object, and it smote Steve across the chest with terrific force.

The Iron Boy staggered backward, toppled over just as the molten flood from the furnace went hissing past. The boy did not stop there. His body began rolling down the incline leading to the jumping-off place, below which the tracks were located. His body shot over ahead of the metal, for that had to follow a circuitous course. There was little danger of its overtaking him, as a dam at the lower end was intended to check its flow until the train had backed in with the ladles to receive the ore. This train, as it chanced, was at the moment backing down to the furnace at high speed, for the train was late and the tapping of the furnace, the engineer knew, could not be delayed without perhaps doing great damage to the metal.

Bob Jarvis, from his perch high in the air, had caught sight of the scene that was being enacted below as a draught of air tore aside the curtain of smoke that during the evening had blotted out the lower end of the furnace. Forgetful of his duty up there Bob sprang to the ladder. He did not wait for the hot rungs this time; but, grasping the sides of the iron ladder, shoes on the outside pressed tight against the uprights, he dropped out of sight of the charging platform like a stone. The rapid descent was burning the skin from his palms and an odor of burning leather reached his nose faintly as the iron sides of the ladders burned through the shoes pressed against it.

Bob landed with a jolt. He dropped to the furnace floor, but was up in a twinkling. Leaping the saffron river he bolted across the intervening space and sprang straight out into the air, right in the face of the approaching train of flat cars thundering in.

There was a ten-foot drop to the ground. Jarvis did not know whether he was going to land in a pit of hot ore, cinders, or on a fence of iron that would end his career right there.

By the light from the opened furnace, as he was falling, he saw the tracks below him and the form of Steve Rush lying stretched across them. Bob saw something else too--the long line of flat cars swooping down on Steve.

Jarvis landed on all fours. He did not waste time in glancing about to see where the train was. Instead, he grabbed Rush, pitching him headlong out of the way. Steve landed on his head, pivoted for a second, and then fell over on his back.

Jarvis straightened up and started to leap clear of the track when he was struck a terrific blow from behind. The force of the blow lifted the boy from the tracks. As everything about him began to grow black he felt himself being hurled through the air.

There was no time to shout, nor opportunity to help himself. Bob had been struck by the train, the end beam of the leading car having caught him squarely across the hips. Bob landed some ten feet beyond the spot where Steve was lying. The latter, however, had been barely stunned. About the time Bob went soaring over his head, Rush scrambled to his feet and hands then got up limping a little.

But Steve was dazed. The glare of the intense light from the open furnace blinded his eyes so that he could not see a thing distinctly. He heard the shrill shriek of the shifting engine, then four quick, warning blasts. The Iron Boy ducked instinctively at the same time leaping to one side.

By this time objects began to grow out of the glare with more or less distinctness. Steve rubbed his eyes and blinked.

"I wonder what happened? I know--I got an awful rap from something."

His arms ached and his chest was so sore that the touch of his clothes gave him pain. About that time Rush discovered that raising his arms was attended with more or less pain also.

"Hello! Something is going on over there by the furnace. Now what in the world has happened? If Kalinski were anywhere about I should think he had been trying some of his tricks on me again."

Kalinski was not there, but three men who had climbed down from the brick and steel platform about the furnace came running around the lower end, heading for the spot where the Iron Boy was standing.

"Hi, whom are you looking for?" Steve called.

"Hello, who's that?" answered a voice.

"It's Rush. I'm all right. Something must have hit me and knocked me off the platform."

"I guess something did hit you," answered a voice that Steve recognized as belonging to the head melter, Pig-Iron Peel. "Where is the other boy?"

"What other boy?"

"Jarvis?"

"Why, he's up at the top of the furnace on the charging platform."

"Not much he ain't!" answered Peel. "He's down here, somewhere."

"Down here?" wondered Rush.

"Yes."

"How did he get down here?"

"He came over after you. Never saw such a quick move in my life. What's bothering me is how he ever got down the ladder soon enough to get you. He saved your life all right, boy."

"Hello, Bob!" shouted Steve, realizing all at once that something more had occurred than he knew about. "Bob!"

"Hello," answered a faint voice off in the darkness of the yard.

Rush darted forward, followed by the head melter and his two companions.

"Where are you, Bob?"

"I'm here--what's left of me, and that isn't much."

They found Bob on his knees, gingerly rubbing the injured portion of his anatomy.

"Are you hurt?" begged Steve solicitously.

"Hurt? Why, I'll never be able to walk again as long as I live! I'll have to sit around all the rest of my life."

Bob's companion was helping him to his feet, bringing groans of pain from the unfortunate Jarvis.

"Don't touch my hands; they're skinned. Oh, what a fool I am! Let me alone; don't you see I'm skinned alive?"

With Steve on one side of him, and Pig-Iron Peel on the other, Jarvis was led over to the stairs that extended up to the platform.

"Will you please tell me what happened to you?" demanded Steve.

"Ask the boss. I don't know. I think I must have been kicked by something. Are there any mules in the yards."

"No; no mules," replied Peel. "You were hit by a train."

"You don't mean it? I'll bet the train was wrecked! Nothing--no train could hit an object with the force that I was hit and not be bucked off the track. That's so; I remember, now, I was getting you off the track when I was struck."

"Yes; you would have been run over and killed on the spot if Jarvis hadn't got you when he did. How did you get down from the charging platform?" demanded the melter, turning to Bob.

"I shot the chutes and it was the hottest shoot I ever took. Look at my hands."

"So I fell on the track, did I?" questioned Rush.

"Yes."

"How did I happen to do that?"

"You fell over the edge right in front of the train."

"Yes, but something hit me and knocked me over. I remember getting a whack something like that described by Bob, only I wasn't struck in the same place."

"I hit you," spoke up the head melter.

"You did?"

"Yes. There wouldn't have been so much as a grease spot left of you, by this time, if I hadn't."

"What did you hit me with?"

"I threw the dolly at you, and it did the business. It knocked you plumb over on your back. The cast was right on top of you when I let go the dolly. You know the rest."

"Then you saved my life, too, Mr. Peel?"

"Well, something of that sort," grinned the head-melter.

"We're both entitled to hero medals, you see," added Bob.

"Thank you; I owe you both one for that. Well, Mr. Peel I am ready to go to work. How about you, Bob?"

Jarvis glanced up to where the ladder disappeared in the veil of smoke high above them.

"If I had an elevator I'd be all right, but I'll try it."

"You need not go up if you don't feel like it," said the melter. "I will send one of the furnace men up to finish your trick, if you wish."

"No, I'll go myself. There won't be any trouble about getting down. I can fall down, but the difficulty will be in climbing that ladder with the skin all off my hands. Say, those rungs are hot. Why don't you cool them off?"

"We'll play the hose on you while you are going up if you want."

"You'd better not, if you know what is good for you. If you even breathe on me I'll fall off. Well, here goes!"

Rush, followed his companion to the foot of the ladder.

"Are you sure you are all right, Bob?" he asked anxiously.

"No; I am not all right, but I'm right enough to beat this game. I can't do any more than break my neck, and I guess that isn't breakable. We have had our initiation ceremonies; now maybe we'll go along for a time without anything happening. Here goes!"

Bob, with evident effort, began climbing. Once he seemed to lose his grip and Steve, believing he was going to fall, started to run up the ladder.

"Quit that!" howled Jarvis, feeling the vibration on the ladder. "What are you trying to do--throw me off?"

"I thought perhaps you needed some help."

"I'll tell you when I do. What I want most just now is to be let alone."

Rush stepped back to the platform, but he remained standing there until finally Jarvis disappeared in the cloud of smoke and gas up near the top of the blast furnace. Then he turned back to the furnace work.

"What next, Mr. Peel?" he asked.

"Well, if you think you can get out of the way quick enough, you can begin to patch up the gutters again."

The hot metal train had long since pulled away over the bridge, on its way to the mills, where the ingots would either be rolled in their crude state or placed in the open-hearth furnaces to be transformed into ingots of steel.

"I guess I can keep out of the way, now that I know what to keep out of the way of."

"I'll put you on the dolly to-morrow, and make a monkey-man of you. If you don't get incinerated we'll make a real man of you."

"Thank you."

Peel did not know whether the remark was intended to be sarcastic or not, and Steve's impassive face gave him no clue to the truth.

For the rest of the night each of the Iron Boys labored faithfully, and that morning, the moment they struck their beds, they instantly fell into the deathlike sleep of the laborer in the steel mills.