The Iron Boys drew a deep sigh as the operation was concluded. Four hours would elapse before another cast would be made from number four furnace, but here and there along the row of huge cones stars were bursting, streams of hot, yellow lava flowing and men shouting, snarling or begging for water.
"It is terrible, yet grand!" exclaimed Steve Rush, wiping the perspiration from his brow. Even where they stood, at one side of the furnace, the heat was well-nigh unbearable.
"It strikes me as being grandly hot," answered Jarvis. "Whew, a fellow doesn't need his winter underclothing on in this job, does he?"
"The furnace men don't seem to wear any at all," laughed Rush. "I should think they would burn their skin off. I don't know whether I can stand this game or not, but I'll try it. I wonder what we are going to do?"
The foreman was not on hand at the moment, but the head melter, known under the name of Pig-Iron Peel, had received orders regarding the Iron Boys.
He motioned them to approach, when a furnace hand told him who they were. He asked the name of each boy in a hoarse, gruff voice.
"I'm the Pig," answered the melter, his red face wrinkling into a grin, which was quickly smoothed out as if the effort hurt him.
"We are ready to work if you will tell us what to do," said Rush.
"You can pack the sand gutters after the charge is loaded into the ladles. Either of you ever worked on a furnace before?"
"Well, Jarvis, I'll put you up on the charging platform. You won't have much to do there----"
"Where is the charging platform?" interrupted Bob.
"At the top of the furnace, fifty feet up there in the air. How do you like it?"
"Fine!" answered Jarvis, though without his usual enthusiasm. "What am I do when I get there?"
"Dump the charges into the furnace. The skips you have nothing to do with, except to ring a bell when you are ready for them. They will dump four loads of red ore into the furnace; then you throw in a layer of coke and limestone, the latter being called 'flux.' This makes what we call the charge. Is that clear?"
"You do it all over again and you keep doing it until another man comes to take the job off your hands."
"Huh! Lucky for me I'm on the night trick, so I can't see, or I'd surely fall off."