"Not now. Perhaps some other time. The man might not like to hear it, you know." Peel regarded his young charge suspiciously. "Isn't it about time we made a cast? The ore smells to me as if it were about ready." Pig-Iron sniffed the air with a snort. "Get ready for a cast!" he bellowed. "Boy, you'll do. You've got the nose that smells, you have. Heave up that dolly bar. How's them gutters? You, Kalinski, there, see that slag trough is open. Bud, get your cinder-ladle ready. Come, now, the whole bunch of you is half-asleep. Anybody'd think you'd been out to a party all day long. Come, Rush!" "I am here, sir." "Git that dolly against the furnace dam, and get ready to jump when things are hot enough." "I will jump, never you fear," answered Steve laughing. The Iron Boy turned his back to the men and placed the dolly bar against the clay dam after facing the glaring heat at close range long enough to place the end of the bar on exactly the right spot. "All ready, sir." "Drive it! Steady there," warned the voice of the head melter. "Keep watch, Rush, and sing out when you get enough." After a moment the compressed air drill was put on, and after wearing the dam thin, the dolly was once more resorted to as that could be withdrawn much more quickly than could the compressed air drill. Haste was necessary, or the lives of the men would be in great peril in case the molten metal squirted from the dam around the sides of the dolly. The furnace men, especially those on the tapping job, would be likely to get the full charge in their faces. "Clank, clank, clank!" sounded the steel mall as it beat against the end of the bar held by Steve. "Tap lighter," ordered the boy. The sound of the blows grew fainter. "That will do. We can poke out the opening after we step to one side. We shall then----" "Bang!" The mall struck the end of the dolly a terrific blow. The bar was driven through the thin shell of dolmite right into the hot metal of the furnace. Like a projectile the dolly was wrenched from the hands of the Iron Boy. It was shot through the air, right past him at tremendous speed. Steve was about to shout, "Stop it!" but he was too late. The bar of iron was soaring out over the mill yard. The head melter's voice was raised above the din. "Who did that? Who hit that bar?" But Steve did not hear. For a brief second after the escape of the dolly he stood still on the bushing. With an angry hiss a stream of white hot metal shot past his head as though projected through the nozzle of a hose. It was a narrow escape, for, if the metal had struck him in the face, it would have gone clear through him. A dull report sounded in the furnace itself. "Look out for the flareback!" roared Pig-Iron Peel. "Run for it!" Now a new sound smote their ears. It was a rumbling noise that seemed to start away down in the foundations of the blast furnace, working upward at a rapid rate.