"That is what I want to find out. He was working on the pit that blew up." "I guess he is settled then." "I am afraid so." "Well, we will hope not. I would help you look for him, but you know I've got my hands full," explained the man from the office. "Yes; I understand. Hunt me up after you get through, and I will give you all the information I have, which isn't very much." Rush started away. He came face to face with the surgeon who had dressed his wounds. "What are you doing here, Rush?" demanded the surgeon. "You get back to the ambulance." "I'm looking for Jarvis. You--you haven't found him, have you?" "No. Is he hurt?" "I think so." "That's too bad," muttered the ambulance surgeon, returning to his work of dressing the wounds of those who had been burned. Rush went on, asking every one he met if they had seen Jarvis. No one had. Foley, Kalinski, all denied having seen the boy. Steve was perplexed. By this time the smoke cloud began to grow thinner and more transparent. One could see fully half way across the shop. As the cloud lifted, all became clear. The place looked as if it had been in the grip of a cyclone, though the damage was not nearly as great as had at first appeared. "Who is killed?" asked Rush. "No one, so far as I know," answered the man addressed. "Have you seen Bob Jarvis anywhere about?" "Don't know him. Who is he?" "He was my partner. He was working on number eight when it blew up." "Then you'll need a basket to gather him up," was the cheerful answer of the mill hand. "The last time a pit exploded here we lost twelve men. We found the pieces of them, but somehow we never were able to put them together. The pieces wouldn't fit, nohow." Steve turned away. The lad's face was drawn and white, partly from the pain of his burns and partly from anxiety for Jarvis. "Ignatz!" he called, observing the Pole darting across to the furnaces. The lad halted sharply and glanced around to see who was calling him. He caught Steve's eye and hurried over. "Have you found Jarvis?" Brodsky shook his head. "Mister Bob not here," he said. "He must be," protested Steve. "Mebby Bob him run away," suggested the Pole. "No, Ignatz; he is not that kind. He is here somewhere and something has happened to him or we should have seen him somewhere about. He was standing on the edge of the pit at the time it exploded." "I see him a minute before. He put too much water on," added the boy, with a shake of the head. "Bad, bad! Somebody tell him do that." Rush attached no especial significance to the suggestion at the moment. Later on, the words of the faithful Pole came back to him fraught with meaning. "He must have been thrown up into the air. Perhaps he is down in the pit there buried under the slag now," said Rush, a sudden, startled expression flashing into his eyes. Brodsky instinctively glanced upwards.