"No," answered Merriwell, "we're making it all right."
"Drop him over the side," called Pardo, "here, over in this direction. There's a tank of clear water next to the solution vat, and the quicker your friend rinses that cyanide out of his clothes, the better."
"Oh, hang the cyanide!" shouted Ballard. "I was only half into the stuff, anyhow. Stop Porter, if you can. The brute is guilty of something or he wouldn't act like that."
"Drop into that tank of water, Pink," ordered Merry, "or I'll throw you in."
Ballard, without further discussion, lowered himself down into the reservoir of water that supplied the mill and kicked around in it for a few moments; then, drawing himself up on the rim of the vat, he jumped off to the ground at the superintendent's side. Merry and Clany quickly joined him.
"Say," cried the startled Pardo, grabbing Ballard by the arm, "did you swallow any of the solution?"
"How could I?" was the answer. "I only went in to the waist."
"Got any cuts or sores on the lower part of your body?"
"No."
"By gorry." declared Pardo, "you're a lucky kid all right. Cyanide of potassium is the most virulent poison known. If a person scratches his finger on the tin in opening a case, and gets some of the solution in the cut, in less than fifteen minutes he's a goner. You don't know, son, how much you've got to be thankful for."