"Let them! I hope they do. It relieves me of a disagreeable job that sooner or later it will be necessary to tackle. Brodsky, you are a good boy. I shall look into your case and see what can be done for you."
"You are at work already. I will see to it that you are paid for the time you have been off. It was a rank injustice. But I am going to shift you to another department. How would you like to try the blast furnaces?"
"We are ready to go wherever you put us," answered Rush.
"You proved that by taking the job in the pits. That will take them out of your department, McNaughton."
"Yes; I am sorry, too, for I rather hoped to be able to make up for my shortcoming in this matter."
"You were not to blame, sir," said Steve. "We are very grateful to you for your kind words to-day. Shall we begin in the furnaces to-morrow, Mr. Keating?"
"No, Monday will do. In the meantime I will have your time corrected, so that you will have lost no time by the mistake that threw you out. McNaughton, you will attend to Foley and Kalinski at once?"
"Thank you, Mr. Keating. We are more grateful than we know how to express. We will show you that we are both appreciative, and I hope you won't have to be told that we are not doing our duty."
Bowing their thanks the boys left the office, Brodsky having already sneaked out ahead of them. They espied him lurking around the turn in the hall, watching for their coming.
"Ignatz, you rascal!" called Bob. "I ought to give you a good thumping. You don't deserve to be let off with a scolding. How would you like to have me tell your mother you have not been at work to-day?"
"No she won't," interjected Steve, "for I am going to pay your wages for just this one day. You come with us. We are going on a picnic."
Three happy boys started off for a place they knew of up the river, where they were going to spend the afternoon. Steve bought some cakes and sandwiches at a baker shop, and a few bottles of mineral water, then off they went for their holiday.
In the daytime a row of tall black, cone-shaped chimneys might be seen across the river from the mills themselves. At night these chimneys were pyramids of yellow and red fire.
These were the blast furnaces. In them, the ore, as it came from the mines far away on the Minnesota iron ranges, was reduced to pig or pig iron, by smelting at a temperature of fifteen hundred degrees centigrade--about twenty-seven hundred degrees Fahrenheit. This great temperature boils the slag or impurities out of the metal, and after it has been drawn off into ladles it becomes "pig."