The Iron Boys in the Steel Mills: or, Beginning Anew in the Cinder Pits (The Boys of Steel Series)

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by James R. Mears

CHAPTER I

TOO SLOW FOR HIM

THE telephone bell rang sharply. Its very insistence seemed to indicate the nervous haste of the person on the other end of the line.

"Hello!" growled the boy, looking longingly out of the office window as he clapped the receiver to his ear. "What's that? What building? Pity they couldn't pick out a hot day, while they were about it. Yes, I'll tell him. 'Yes,' I said. Can't you hear?"

Several clerks, with coats and vests off, were lounging about the office of the great steel works in the accident department. The sun beat down on the building with relentless energy, and there was scarcely a breath of air stirring. There was little incentive to work, and hardly any one was making the slightest pretext at it.

Steve Rush and Bob Jarvis glanced inquiringly[8] at the telephone operator. Being in the accident department, they were interested every time they heard the telephone bell ring. It was their duty, immediately upon an accident being reported in any of the mills, to proceed to the scene at once and gather all the facts for the future use of the company. Furthermore, they were allowed considerable latitude in the disposal of persons who had been injured.

"Anything doing?" questioned Jarvis.

"Accident," answered the operator in a tone that led one to believe that the mere effort of speaking gave him pain.

"Where?"

"Number twenty-four," meaning the building bearing that number. "That's in your district, Rush."

Bob Jarvis grinned.

"I am in luck that it isn't in my division. It's hot enough here, but excuse me from going into the mills on a day like this. Want any help, Steve?"

"No, thank you. And besides, you are too lazy to work to-day. You would only be a handicap to me. What is the accident, did they say?"

The operator shook his head wearily.

Steve Rush, picking up a pad of paper which he stuffed in his pocket, hurried from the office[9] and started across the street on a run. As he did so he saw a red light burning dimly at the peak of one of the long row of soot-blackened mills that made up the plant of the Steelburgh mills, a signal indicating that a disaster of some sort had occurred in that building. Seeing that signal it was the duty of the Iron and Steel Police, who kept order in the mills, to report the fact to the accident department at once.

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