"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 passing Brodsky lurched against the boss. "What for you bump 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?" "I didn't. You run into me. You're a _li_----" Whack! Ignatz was a stocky boy, even though he was only seventeen years old. He had been used to heavy work all his life; in fact, he had had little schooling, having had to earn his living since he was ten years old, at which time his father had been killed in the mills, leaving Mrs. Brodsky with a brood of young Brodskys, of whom Ignatz was next to the eldest. It therefore devolved on him to share a good part of the burdens of the home, the elder brother, Paul, having a wife of his own to care for.