"Yes, that's so. Well, then, the day after to-morrow will be time enough for us to look for another place. Fortunately we are not broke. We have enough money in the bank to keep us for a long time, but that isn't the question. The question is whether or not we are going to get a job."

"I hope we don't. I'd much rather be underground, digging ore or bouncing about on the Great Lakes."

"You did not like the Lakes any better, when you first went out on them.

Let's not confess that we are weak-kneed."

"No; but I've got a burned knee and it smarts," retorted Bob.

"So have I," laughed Steve. "I am behind you, though. You aviated yourself up to the roof, while I got buried in the pit. That was the time both ends did not meet. Well, I'm going home to clean up and dress.

I will come back later, and, if the doctors will permit you to leave the hospital to-night, I will take you with me."

"I'll go, whether they let me, or not," said Bob. "What's the use in hanging around here? If I'd broken my stanchions, or smashed in some of my plates, then things would be different. But I am all right. Never felt better in my life, except for the burns."

Bidding his companion good-bye, Steve left the hospital and went home.

His face was serious and thoughtful. On the way he stopped at the Brodskys, leaving word that he would like to have Ignatz come and see him that evening.

"Discharged!" muttered the Iron Boy. "Well, who would have thought it? I might go and see Mr. Keating--but no, I'll not play the baby act and squeal. I'll show McNaughton and his bosses that I don't ask any odds of their old mills. Yet I _did_ want to stay with the company. Well, we shall see what luck I have when I get ready to look around a bit."

Later in the day Rush returned to the hospital. Jarvis was permitted to go with Steve, with the understanding that the injured boy return on the following morning to have his burns dressed. Then the two went home.

Jarvis was weak and staggered a little, but he would not let Rush take his arm. He laughed at the suggestion. When they got home they found Ignatz at their boarding house. The Polish boy was delighted to see them.

"Bob, if it hadn't been for Ignatz, we should have been in a worse mess than we are. He's one of the white men in this smoky part of the country."

"I'll shake with you when my hands get well," laughed Jarvis. "I can't even shake my head now. I couldn't shake if I had an attack of chills."

"I suppose you know that we have lost our positions, don't you, Ignatz?"

asked Steve.

Brodsky nodded moodily.

"I hear men say you no work in open-hearth place any more."

"Well, it does look as if we shouldn't."

"Why?"

"I'll tell you all about it." Rush told the story fully, and without reserve, to their faithful friend, Brodsky listening attentively with emotionless face.

"Huh!" he grunted after the recital had come to an end. "Watski say you blow up pit?"

"Yes."

"Huh! Watski much liar! Foley, him liar, too. All liars. You see superintendent?"

"We saw Superintendent McNaughton. It was he who sent for us and discharged us."

"No, I mean Superintendent Keating?"

"No, Ignatz; we can't go to him with our troubles. That would be too much like whining, and we are not the kind of boys who go about crying because we have been whipped."

"You lick Kalinski?"

"To tell the truth, nothing would give me greater pleasure. But we are not going to do anything of the sort--that is, if he keeps away and lets us alone."

"I'd like to catch him on the hot metal bridge some fine night when there wasn't anybody near," growled Bob, shaking his padded fist.

"What I sent for you for, Ignatz, was to ask you about some of the other mills. I have not been here long enough to know about them. Will you tell me what the other mills are, and whom to see? I am going to try to get a job."

Brodsky named the independent mills. There were ten of them in all. He knew the names of some of the foremen, and said he would get the names that he did not know.

"You want me more?" demanded the Pole, rising abruptly.

"No, but we should like to have you spend the evening with us, if you have no other place to go," said Steve.

Brodsky shook his head.

"Must go home split the wood for my mother. She take a club to me if I don't. I see you bimeby, mebby to-night, mebby the day after to-morrow."

The boy turned and left the room at a trot. Bob laughed heartily after he had gone.

"There's an odd lad," he said.

"He's true-blue, Bob. Under all his stolidness he is every inch a man, as I have said many times before. He is more cut up over our hard luck than we are. I hope he doesn't try to induce Kalinski to take us back.

That would please the pit boss, because he would think we had asked Ignatz to intercede for us. I would rather never have a job again than to ask either of those three men to take us back."

"I wonder what the general superintendent will say when he hears about it?" asked Jarvis.

"He will not be likely to hear of it at all, unless some time he happens to think about us and asks. Even then he will be given the same story that Foley and Kalinski told Mr. McNaughton. I hope he doesn't hear it, for then our friends at the mines will learn the same story, and we shall be disgraced in their eyes."

"No, we won't! I'll see to it that we are not."

"I think we had better postpone our picnic to-morrow, seeing that you have to go to the hospital to have your burns dressed. That will give me an opportunity to visit some of the other mills, and I'll wager I'll come back with a job for both of us in my pocket to-morrow night."

"All right; I don't care. I'm getting so that everything goes and nothing matters at all. I'm getting to be an old man--a feeble old man, Steve Rush," said Bob, in all seriousness.

Rush laughed heartily.

In the meantime Ignatz Brodsky had left the house. Strangely enough he appeared to have forgotten his promise to go home and split wood for his mother, the widow Brodsky. Instead, he started in the opposite direction. Ignatz was nodding to mill men whom he knew, now and then halting to speak to one, asking a question of another, but keeping on his way.

All at once his stolid face melted into a smile so soft and pleasing that no one would have thought him incapable of feeling. The object that had brought the smile to the face of the Polish boy, however, was none other than Watski Kalinski swinging down the street. Ignatz pretended not to see the pit boss. As they were pa.s.sing Brodsky lurched against the boss.

"What for you b.u.mp me?" demanded the lad, in an angry tone.

"Git out of the way before I hit you!" growled Kalinski.

"What for you run against me?"