"Get in! Got your shovels?" "No." Growling and making faces to himself the Pole walked abruptly away, returning a few minutes later with two shovels. He handed them to the boys, giving the lads a shove toward the cinder pit. "Be good enough to keep your hands off me, and at the same time kindly tell me exactly what you wish me to do," demanded Steve. "Wooden-heads! Fools! There is the shovels and there is the cinders. Get them together; shovel the cinders out; then if you don't get enough work shovel them back again. Oh, such----" "Come on, Bob; Watski is getting excited. He is likely to throw a fit and fall on a hot plate, or something." Steve walked over to the pit, surveying it questioningly. "That looks pretty hot to me, sir. Is it ready to be thrown out?" Bob was standing on the edge gazing at the cinders. A faint cloud of steam was rising from the pit, on which the hose had been played gingerly for some time. Watski gave him a push, Jarvis jumping to save falling in on his face. The drop was not more than two or three feet to the cinder bed, which was some fifteen feet broad at its top, tapering slightly toward the bottom. Bob went in up to his knees. No sooner had he done so than he uttered a wild yell. "It's on fire! I'm burning up!" he howled. "Help me out of this hole! Wow!" Steve saw that Bob really was in distress. "Jump out, if it's too hot." "I can't. I'm stuck fast." Watski was doubled up with laughter. He howled with delight, sitting down on the cinders with arms about his knees rocking back and forth with shouts of merriment. In the meantime Steve threw his shovel into the pit, and crawling into the pit, used the shovel for a support while he pulled his companion out. Bob's trousers were burned to the knees; his underclothing was burned and the skin of his shins was blistered from contact with the hot cinders and slag. Steve was so angry that he could scarcely control himself, but he was determined to avoid a fight if possible. "Did he do that on purpose?" demanded Jarvis. "He was in a hurry for us to get to work, and----" "Get busy there, you lazy louts or I'll dock you for lost time!" "You pushed me in!" shouted Bob. "You'd better not dock me. I'll have something to say about that." "What is this disturbance about?" demanded Foley, coming up at that moment. "Watski, why aren't these men at work?" "No good. Afraid of hot cinders." "Does that look like being afraid?" interjected Steve, pointing to his companion's burned trousers. "I call that an outrage. However, we'll not trouble about it this----" "You'd better not," growled Kalinski. "This time," added Rush. "But I hope nothing of the sort will happen again. We are used to taking care of ourselves, and if we think we are being imposed upon we are likely to take matters into our own hands." "Is that a threat--a threat directed at Kalinski?" questioned Foley, ironically.