"Hello! Something is going on over there by the furnace. Now what in the world has happened? If Kalinski were anywhere about I should think he had been trying some of his tricks on me again."
Kalinski was not there, but three men who had climbed down from the brick and steel platform about the furnace came running around the lower end, heading for the spot where the Iron Boy was standing.
"Hi, whom are you looking for?" Steve called.
"It's Rush. I'm all right. Something must have hit me and knocked me off the platform."
"I guess something did hit you," answered a voice that Steve recognized as belonging to the head melter, Pig-Iron Peel. "Where is the other boy?"
"Why, he's up at the top of the furnace on the charging platform."
"Not much he ain't!" answered Peel. "He's down here, somewhere."
"He came over after you. Never saw such a quick move in my life. What's bothering me is how he ever got down the ladder soon enough to get you. He saved your life all right, boy."
"Hello, Bob!" shouted Steve, realizing all at once that something more had occurred than he knew about. "Bob!"
"Hello," answered a faint voice off in the darkness of the yard.
Rush darted forward, followed by the head melter and his two companions.
"I'm here--what's left of me, and that isn't much."
They found Bob on his knees, gingerly rubbing the injured portion of his anatomy.
"Are you hurt?" begged Steve solicitously.
"Hurt? Why, I'll never be able to walk again as long as I live! I'll have to sit around all the rest of my life."
Bob's companion was helping him to his feet, bringing groans of pain from the unfortunate Jarvis.
"Don't touch my hands; they're skinned. Oh, what a fool I am! Let me alone; don't you see I'm skinned alive?"
With Steve on one side of him, and Pig-Iron Peel on the other, Jarvis was led over to the stairs that extended up to the platform.
"Will you please tell me what happened to you?" demanded Steve.
"Ask the boss. I don't know. I think I must have been kicked by something. Are there any mules in the yards."
"No; no mules," replied Peel. "You were hit by a train."
"You don't mean it? I'll bet the train was wrecked! Nothing--no train could hit an object with the force that I was hit and not be bucked off the track. That's so; I remember, now, I was getting you off the track when I was struck."