"Don't be a fool!" he growled.

"Do--do you think Jarvis is killed?"

"Most likely. Ought to be, if he isn't after getting that dose."

All at once Rush broke away from the head melter, darted to the iron ladder, and, regardless of the rain of c.o.ke, began running up the ladder. The boy got blow upon blow over head and shoulders, as the stuff beat down upon him, but he kept his head down and pluckily kept on up the ladder.

"Come back!" roared Pig-Iron, darting from cover at the risk of his life. But Steve was too far up the ladder to be seen from below. The head melter again bellowed his command to Rush to return.

In the meantime the boy had reached the top. Jarvis was not there. Steve cried out to him, but there was no response. With a catch in his breath, Rush turned and slid down the ladder to the base of the furnace. His head was cut and bleeding from the flying c.o.ke, and his shoulders were wounded in many different places.

Steve staggered rather than walked over to the stove where he dropped down.

"Well, he ain't there, is he?" demanded Pig-Iron.

"No; he isn't there. Where--where do you think he is?"

"Most likely out in the yard somewhere. As soon as this black shower is over we'll go look for him. He's done for. Too bad, but them things will happen."

"I don't believe it!" answered the Iron Boy explosively. "It will take more than a hang-over to kill Bob Jarvis. You'll find he is all right.

But, if that is so, I don't understand why he did not answer me when I called."

"I told you so. No use to cry over spilled c.o.ke. We'll pick him up pretty quick."

"There, the shower is letting up. Shall we go, now?" demanded Steve impatiently.

The melter stretched forth a hand, drawing it back quickly.

"Not yet! I don't propose to get my head cracked just for the sake of being in a hurry."

"Well, I am going, whether you are or not."

Rush crawled from under the stove and straightened up. The metal was still running from the furnace, most of it having spilled off into the yard, for instantly the hang-over occurred the train crew had fled. They knew full well what was coming, and every man of them instantly took to cover. The metal ran over the first ladle. Instantly the car under the ladle caught fire. In a few minutes the whole train was on fire. The engineer, who had deserted his post with the rest of them, rushed back at the risk of his life, uncoupled his engine and started it away, thus saving the engine from being seriously damaged.

Rush raised his voice in a long shout for his companion.

"Bo-o-b! O-h-h-h, Bob!"

"Hi, hi, catch me down there!" howled a voice from the air. It sounded right over the head of Steve Rush.

Pig-Iron Peel heard it, too, and darted out. The two men glanced up into the air. They saw a human form shooting down one of the wire braces that extended up to the top of the stove to steady the metal chimney around which there was a network of the wires.

"It's Bob!" howled Rush beside himself with joy. "Help me catch him."

It _was_ Bob, and he was descending at a rate of speed altogether too fast for either comfort or safety.

Steve leaped over to where the lower end of the guy-wire was anch.o.r.ed and braced himself to meet the shock. Peel sprang behind him.

Ill.u.s.tration: "It's Bob!" Cried Steve.

"Steady, now!" warned the melter.

"I'll catch you, Bob."

"Look out!" howled Jarvis.

His body seemed to leap from the wire. It landed against Steve Rush with the force of a catapult. Steve went over like a ninepin. Behind him Pig-Iron Peel shared the same fate, and in an instant the three were in a tangle.

Jarvis was the first to extricate himself. He leaped to his feet and began dancing about, howling l.u.s.tily.

"What kind of a game is this that you've put me up against?" he yelled.

The boy, with arms and legs wrapped around the guy wire, had shot down from the top of the stove. He was angry all through, more angry than scared or even hurt.

"What kind of a game is it, I say?"

Rush and Pig-Iron were too busy picking themselves up from the floor where Jarvis's b.u.mp had landed them, to make reply.

"What's the matter with you fellows? Did I bowl you over? Well, it serves you right if I did."

"Bob," laughed Steve getting to his feet, "I knew nothing could do you up. You're too tough to be very badly hurt. What happened to you up there?"

"That's what I've come down here to find out. What happened down here?

Was it an earthquake, or something of the sort?"

"Something like that. Mr. Peel called it a hang-over up at your end."

"Hang-over? Pshaw! It was a fall-over, so far as I was concerned."

"How'd you git on that guy-wire?" demanded Peel, breaking into the conversation at this juncture. "The head of that is more'n twenty feet from where you were working?"

"I took the air-line route," grinned Jarvis.

"Tell us what happened?" urged Steve.

"I was working over the top. Something all of a sudden went wrong, and there didn't seem to be any smoke or anything coming out. I got up on the edge of the crater----"

"You mean the furnace?"

"I mean what I said. It was a crater, and don't you forget it--a real, live crater. You'd have thought so if you had seen it spit fire and lava. Well, about the time I got up on the edge, pouf! slam, bang! The whole insides of the volcano popped up in my face. I must have fallen over in, for the eruption lifted me right out again. I did another aviation act. I spread my planes and sailed through the air----"

"Was that--no, of course not. Where were you all the time from the explosion to just now, when you came down on the wire?"

"I was roosting on that f.l.a.n.g.e up there near the top of the stove."

"What? Thrown way over there?" exclaimed Steve.

"No; didn't I tell you I flew again? I'm getting to be an expert. First I flew over in the open-hearth building and landed on a girder. This time I tried a more ambitious flight, landing on a hot stove. All the stuff from the eruption fell down on me and woke me up after a little. I nearly fell off trying to reach the guy-wire that I knew was there. You know the rest. I took a slide down the wire that would have made a j.a.panese performer turn pale. Then you and I had a collision."