The chums had gone but a short distance when Rush caught the crackling sound of burning timber. The smoke was becoming suffocating and the boys were obliged to move with more caution.

"We can't get through there, Bob."

"No; this has started since I came through."

"We shall have to go around through the cross-cut. That isn't on fire, is it?"

"I don't know. It was not when I was over there last."

"How many levels are on fire? Do you know?"

"I guess most of them are. You see, the fire works down through the wooden rises, then scattering, sets the woodwork on each level ablaze."

This gave Steve Rush a sudden idea.

"They can't all be going. Get together a lot of the men. We'll station two or three at each rise with pails of water and the gangs ought to be able to head off the fire when it comes through."

"That's a good idea. I'm with you."

The Iron Boys hurried away. They found groups of excited men, so beside themselves with fear that they were powerless to think or to act.

Steve was obliged in some instances to handle the men roughly--men much larger and stronger than himself--in order to shake some courage into their trembling bodies.

Yet he did not blame them so much. It was a scene calculated to shake the nerves of the strongest men. The interior of the mine was a roaring furnace; the flames were crackling with a sinister sound, eating their way through the dry timber. Now and then a dull, heavy reverberation told where a drift or a level had caved in under the weight of the rocks above it.

In the meantime Rush had explained to the men what he wanted done. The mine captain was not in the mine and the men all seemed to have lost their heads completely. After a time, however, Steve succeeded in getting a number of them to the point where he thought they would be able to obey orders.

Rush headed the first shift and led the way to a rise on a level that had not been attacked by the flames. Stationing a squad there, he went on to other levels, and other rises, arranging his forces in the same manner.

While he was doing this, Bob Jarvis was performing a similar service.

The boys had no thought, apparently, for their own safety. They were working to save the company's property, and at the same time to make it possible for the men still in the mine to live. By this time the smoke had become so thick in the lumber shaft that it was impossible for anyone either to get up or down. The skips and the cage had stopped running altogether.

One of the foremen in the mines had been stationed at the only telephone that was working, where Steve directed him to keep the superintendent informed of the progress of the fire and of the work that was being done to check it. At the same time the Iron Boy was calmly demanding orders from his superior.

"Tell Rush I have no orders to give. What he cannot think of is beyond me," was the answer sent back to the mine from Mr. Penton.

No one knew how many lives had been lost, though everyone believed that a great disaster had overtaken the miners in the Red Rock Mine. This was true. Many had been cut off by the caving in of the roofs of the levels and drifts, while others, having been overcome by smoke, had fallen unconscious, some never to rise again.

Steve Rush, with his companion and a band of courageous men, was now fighting desperately to confine the fire to the eastern section of the mine, which was nearest to the shafts.

Both boys had thrown off their coats, they had lost their hats, their faces were black and almost unrecognizable, and the hair of each was badly singed.

"The telephone has gone out of business," announced the man whom Steve had a.s.signed to this work.

"Very well; we shall be in the same condition if we do not succeed in stopping the progress of the fire."

Every little while the workers were obliged to flatten themselves upon the ground for a breath of fresher air. Now and then one would topple over unconscious, to be dragged out of harm's way by a companion. On all this Steve kept a watchful eye. Thus far he had not lost a man, thanks to his watchfulness and bravery.

All at once a new idea occurred to Rush that startled him.

"Bob!" he called.

Jarvis was at his side instantly.

"What about the powder room?"

"The--the--the pow----" stammered Jarvis.

"Yes; what about it?"

"Why--why, the fire must be right on it at this very minute. I--I never thought of it before. I----"

"Then the whole mine will be blown up!" cried Steve. "_There are more than five tons of dynamite in that room!_"

CHAPTER VI

THROUGH TUNNELS OF FLAME

STEVE waited not a moment.

"Keep working, men!" he shouted, starting away at top speed.

"Come back!" yelled Jarvis. "You'll be blown to death."

"We'll all be blown to death if someone doesn't stop the fire before it gets to the powder room."

"Then I'm going with you," answered Bob Jarvis, following after his companion at top speed. "It isn't any worse for me than it is for you."

"Stay back there and handle the men!" flung back Steve over his shoulder.

Bob paid no attention to the command. He was running at full speed in order to keep up with his companion, for Steve, with a handkerchief stuffed in his mouth, was running on the toes of his heavy shoes, darting in and out of drifts, making sharp detours to get around a burning spot that was too hot to be pa.s.sed with safety.

"Keep shouting, or I'll lose you," cried Bob.

"I can't! I'll choke!" was the faint answer.

On raced the two boys, Bob gaining on Steve very slowly, struggle as he might to decrease the other's lead.

"We're too late!" groaned Jarvis, as the lads came to a sudden halt.

Before them the flames were crackling viciously in the dry woodwork of the drift leading into the earth for some sixty yards, where the powder room was located. "Get out of here, or we'll be blown to smithereens!"

"Bob, we've _got to_ find some way to save the magazine. Think what it will mean if we do not! Why, it will wreck the whole mine and the chances are that not a man of all the crew will get out alive."

"Yes, but how are we going to do it?"