"Then the whole mine will be blown up!" cried Steve. "_There are more than five tons of dynamite in that room!_"
"Keep working, men!" he shouted, starting away at top speed.
"Come back!" yelled Jarvis. "You'll be blown to death."
"We'll all be blown to death if someone doesn't stop the fire before it gets to the powder room."
"Then I'm going with you," answered Bob Jarvis, following after his companion at top speed. "It isn't any worse for me than it is for you."
"Stay back there and handle the men!" flung back Steve over his shoulder.
Bob paid no attention to the command. He was running at full speed in order to keep up with his companion, for Steve, with a handkerchief stuffed in his mouth, was running on the toes of his heavy shoes, darting in and out of drifts, making sharp detours to get around a burning spot that was too hot to be passed with safety.
"Keep shouting, or I'll lose you," cried Bob.
"I can't! I'll choke!" was the faint answer.
On raced the two boys, Bob gaining on Steve very slowly, struggle as he might to decrease the other's lead.
"We're too late!" groaned Jarvis, as the lads came to a sudden halt. Before them the flames were crackling viciously in the dry woodwork of the drift leading into the earth for some sixty yards, where the powder room was located. "Get out of here, or we'll be blown to smithereens!"
"Bob, we've _got to_ find some way to save the magazine. Think what it will mean if we do not! Why, it will wreck the whole mine and the chances are that not a man of all the crew will get out alive."
Steve stood thoughtful for a moment, while second by second the flames were eating farther and farther into the drift, drawing nearer and nearer to the deadly stuff that was piled in cases behind the wooden partition that stood in the drift beyond the flames just around the bend.
"I'm going through," announced Steve firmly.
"You are not going to try to get through that burning drift, are you?"
"That's exactly what I am going to do. It's our only hope, old man. We're surely doomed if I don't. If I fail then I shall have done my best. Take off your shirt."
"That is exactly what I am going to do," answered the lad, proceeding to strip off the garment. "Be quick! We've no time to lose."