CHAPTER IV

LAYING HANDS ON THE BOSS

It was Foley's place to order the pit boss to let the boys alone and attend to his own business. Instead, Foley turned and walked away. He did not go far, however. He made his way to one of the open-hearth furnaces, where, unobserved, he peered around the corner of the red-hot pile of brick.

Rush saw that an encounter was unavoidable. He was sorry, but he decided quickly to avoid coming to blows if possible.

Kalinski had stooped over to pick up a shovel. In his rage he was going to attack the boys with it. Steve was out of the pit in a flash.

"Keep out of this, Bob, unless the others mix in. I'll take care of that fellow."

When Watski straightened up he found the Iron Boy standing over him with a pleasant smile on his face.

"I wouldn't do that, were I in your place, Kalinski. I tell you it was an accident, and I am sorry I threw the cinders over you. I give you my word that it was an accident."

Watski dropped his shovel, and uttering a yell of rage, struck at Steve. The blow, had it reached its mark, would have knocked Rush backward into the hot cinder pit. He dodged the blow, however; then suddenly Watski Kalinski found his wrists in a grip that made him writhe. The Iron Boy's thumbs were pressing on sensitive nerves.

"Ouch! Ouch!" howled the Pole.

Foley, in his wonder, forgot to hide himself. He stepped from the protection of the furnace.

"Leggo my wrists! Leggo, I tell you!"

"Will you behave yourself if I----"

"I'll knock your head--ouch!"

The tears were actually running from the eyes of the pit boss. He was suffering great pain. But he got no sympathy from the mill hands who had gathered about. They were laughing and jeering at him, not especially because they sided with Rush, whom they did not know, but because Kalinski was not popular among them.

At this juncture Bill Foley came running forward. He saw that his pit boss was getting the worst of it, and that Rush would soon gain the sympathy of the crowd. He did not wish this to happen. Had it been the other way Foley would have been perfectly satisfied.

The furnace foreman dashed around the pit, headed for the humiliated boss. Jarvis saw him coming. Bob stepped in front of Foley.

"What are you going to do?" demanded the lad.

"Get out of my way before I hurt you!"

"And you keep out of this, or I'm likely to forget myself and hurt you. You know it wouldn't look well to have the foreman licked by one of his men," grinned Jarvis.

Foley gazed at the Iron Boy in astonishment. All at once he raised his foot, delivering a vicious kick. The foreman never quite understood how it happened, but the next second he found himself falling backwards into the pit, while the mill hands set up a roar.

Jarvis had been on his guard. When the kick was delivered, he caught the ankle of the foreman, giving it a quick jerk that threw the fellow off his balance. There could be but one result. Bill toppled over backwards, landing on his head in the pit.

"Get him out of there! He'll burn to death, Bob," warned Rush.

Bob helped the foreman out, but with reluctance.

"It would serve you right if you did burn. But don't you try any of your funny business on me again. You won't get off so easily if you try it on another time."

"Kalinski, do you think you can let us alone if I release you now?" questioned Steve.

The Pole did not answer, but if there ever was murder in a man's eyes it was in Kalinski's. Steve put on a little harder pressure.

"Yes, yes; leggo! I don't want anything to do with you. I----"

Rush released the man instantly. At first the Pole acted as though he was about to spring upon his remarkable young antagonist. He seemed to think better of it, however, after a glance into the unsympathetic faces about him, then into the smiling face of Steve Rush.

"Will you go to work, or must I throw you out of the mill!" snarled Kalinski.

"We shall be glad to go to work if you will let us alone. I wonder what the superintendent would say if he happened along about this time?"

"I shall fine both of you two days' pay," announced Foley, making a memorandum in a soot-soiled memorandum book.

"Very well, sir. That is your privilege. It is ours to protest, if we think best, which is not saying that we shall. We have been used most disgracefully, and----"

"You didn't think of that when you got me into trouble, did you?" sneered the foreman.

"So that is where the shoe pinches, is it? I begin to understand. You propose to get even with us? Well, all I have to say is that I should advise you not to try it. We have come here to work, and at our own request. If you become unbearable I warn you we are perfectly able to take care of ourselves, and we shall do so. We don't propose to submit to any insults from you or any one else, Bill Foley."

"Just put that in your pipe and smoke it!" chuckled Bob.

Steve was at work again. Jarvis slowly followed his companion to the pit, where both lads stood on the plank and shoveled out cinders. They gave no further heed to the foreman or the pit boss. The latter two had drawn back some little distance, where Kalinski was gesticulating and talking to Foley with considerable emphasis.

In a little while the shovelers had gotten down to where the pit was aglow with coals. The plank beneath their feet began to blaze up, the smoke getting into their mouths and noses, setting the lads to sneezing.

"I am going to get out of here," announced Bob. "This is worse than the stoke-hole."

"Oh, pshaw, it isn't nearly so hot, though it is about as dirty. I know, though, that the men do not work in a pit as hot as this one is. There must be some other way out of the woods. Yes; we will climb up now. We shall be burned to cinders soon if we don't."

"Is that a joke?" demanded Jarvis.

"Is what a joke?"

"Burned to _cinders_."

"Certainly not," answered Steve, placing the plank against the side of the pit. "Go on, Bob."

The latter lost no time in crawling from the hot hole. They were met by Kalinski at the top.

"Well, what is it now?" he growled.

"Isn't there some way of cooling that pit off a little? We can't work down there, or dig any deeper, until it gets cooler. Why, it will burn the clothes from our backs."

"Hope it does! Hope it burns you up," snarled the pit boss.

"I hope you haven't got your wishing cap on," answered Jarvis, with a grin that was intended to be humorous. "If you have, I'm through."

"Can you not put some water on the cinders? I see a hose right here," added Steve.

The boss saw that the boys were determined. He knew that there would be no more work done in the pit that morning, unless the pit was made livable for the men. He could not afford to have the work delayed, for that would reflect on him.

Watski took up the hose sullenly, turned a tiny stream, and with a finger over the nozzle gently sprayed the bed of hot coals. A cloud of steam shot up into the air, whereat he shut off the water instantly. Steve was watching the process interestedly.

"I wonder why he doesn't turn the water in full force?" mused the boy. He would not ask questions of the surly Pole, preferring to pick up what he could by observation. Bob had sat down on the floor, where he examined his burned clothes ruefully, at the same time gently rubbing the blistered spots on his skin.

"I wish I dared throw that animal into the pit head first," muttered Jarvis, eyeing the pit boss resentfully. "I wonder why they have such a beast at the head of anything."

The rumble of the charging machine, as it thundered along the tracks on the other side of the open-hearth furnaces with its load of pig iron and scrap for the furnaces, attracted Bob's attention for the moment. He was called to attention by the voice of the boss.

"Rush, get in there. It's cool enough now. Look here, you," he added, addressing Jarvis, surveying the lad from head to feet as if trying to decide upon the most vulnerable part of the young man's anatomy for an attack.

"I'm looking. What's the answer?" retorted Jarvis, gazing into the eyes of Kalinski.

"There ain't room for two such lummoxes as you in that pit now. You take the next one on number eight furnace."

"Is it as hot as this?"

"Hotter."

"Then I guess I will wait until it cools off," answered Bob, sitting down again.

Watski's face showed a dull red under the cinder soot.

"You get up and go to work, unless you want to lose your whole week's wages. What do you think this is--a baby hospital?"

"I didn't know but it might be, seeing you live here," retorted Jarvis, taking his time at getting up, but keeping a weather eye on Kalinski, who had a habit of suddenly forgetting himself, as Jarvis already had discovered.

"Shall I cool the pit off?"

"How?"

"With the hose."

The pit boss grinned.

"Think you can do it?"

"Of course I can do it. It doesn't take any great amount of skill or intelligence to handle an inch hose, does it?"

"Use it if you want to, but remember I warned you."

"Against what?" demanded Bob, eyeing the boss half suspiciously.

"Against using the water."

"Pshaw!"

Jarvis went over to the tap, turning on a full stream of water. When he straightened up he saw that Kalinski was walking rapidly away, so rapidly, in fact, as to be almost on a run. Bob gazed after him inquiringly.

"I wonder what ails that Indian?" muttered the lad. "He seems to be in a great hurry about something."

Bob's attention was attracted to the water, which was now spurting from the nozzle of the hose, the stream shooting right over where Steve was at work, sending a shower of fine spray down on him.

"Hey, what are you doing up there?" he shouted.

"Watering the plants," scoffed Jarvis.

"You just turn that hose the other way unless you are looking for trouble. Why don't you get to work?"

"Going to. I am at work already."

"Where is Kalinski?"

"He was sprinting down the shop the last I saw of him. He seemed to be in a mighty big hurry about something."

Bob dragged the hose over to the pit behind open-hearth number eight. Then he began playing the stream on the cinders full force. He did not know that this was a very dangerous proceeding. No one had told him, and the pit boss had merely intimated it when he said, "Remember, I warned you."

"This is fine," grinned the boy. "I could do this all day and not get a stitch in my back. Guess I will wet my legs."

He turned the hose on his blistered legs, the water feeling cool and refreshing, for the lad's burns were becoming more and more painful as the dust from the mill settled into them.

Jarvis shifted the nozzle to the other side and bathed the other leg, at the same time keeping a watch for the boss. The latter was nowhere in sight. He had gotten well out of harm's way, evidently knowing what was about to happen.

Having bathed himself to his satisfaction Jarvis began playing the hose on the cinder pile. The first contact of the water threw up a great cloud of steam, followed by a sharp, hissing sound. Steve knew by the sound that the other pit was being wet down, but it did not occur to him, either, that there was any danger in the operation. In fact, he was too busy shoveling the cinders from his own pit to give much attention to what was going on in the other.

Bob was humming softly to himself as he played with the stream, first sending it straight up into the air so that the spray covered a wide area by the time it reached the floor of the mill. No one chanced to get wet, however, save the two boys, Bob being the more so because he was right under the shower. Next he turned the stream straight into the pit, driving it down in one place, trying to bore a hole in the cinders and slag.

"Say, Steve!"

"What?"

"What do you think about----"

Puff!

A slender column of black smoke shot up from the centre of the pit that Jarvis was watering down. The lad stared at it in surprise.

"Look at the geyser!" he shouted.

Boom!

The ground under Bob Jarvis's feet rocked liked a cradle. A great, black column rose from under his very feet, lifting him from the floor and hurling the boy straight up into the air.