"Then he is surely killed or badly injured. Run, Ignatz! Find him. Don't you come back here until you have."
"Ignatz find him," answered the Pole, darting back into the building, from which a dense cloud of smoke was rolling through the crevices in the roof and from the doors and windows.
No sooner had Brodsky left him than Steve pulled himself up and peered out. There was no one in sight, so he slipped from the ambulance. He was barely able to stand alone, and for a moment clung to a rear wheel of the wagon for support.
The boy's burns hurt him so that he winced. Every movement made him want to groan, but he shut his lips tightly together and by sheer force of will pulled himself up.
"I'm going in to look for Bob," he muttered, starting unsteadily for the door of the mill.
The smoke was still so thick that Rush could not make out much of anything. He staggered along until he reached the spot where the explosion had occurred. There he found the accident man gathering his facts.
"Then you can tell me all about this. You were in it, weren't you?"
"I guess I was. But I can't tell you anything now. I'll tell you all I know later on. Have you seen Jarvis?"
"That is what I want to find out. He was working on the pit that blew up."
"Well, we will hope not. I would help you look for him, but you know I've got my hands full," explained the man from the office.
"Yes; I understand. Hunt me up after you get through, and I will give you all the information I have, which isn't very much."
Rush started away. He came face to face with the surgeon who had dressed his wounds.
"What are you doing here, Rush?" demanded the surgeon. "You get back to the ambulance."
"I'm looking for Jarvis. You--you haven't found him, have you?"
"That's too bad," muttered the ambulance surgeon, returning to his work of dressing the wounds of those who had been burned.
Rush went on, asking every one he met if they had seen Jarvis. No one had. Foley, Kalinski, all denied having seen the boy. Steve was perplexed. By this time the smoke cloud began to grow thinner and more transparent. One could see fully half way across the shop. As the cloud lifted, all became clear. The place looked as if it had been in the grip of a cyclone, though the damage was not nearly as great as had at first appeared.