Rush restrained himself with difficulty. The skip came up with a bound and the lad jumped into it, bracing his feet on the narrow flooring, grasping the shelving steel over his head.
"Drop me to the twentieth. Let her go full speed."
"You'll be killed," warned the skip-tender.
"Do as I tell you, and be quick about it, unless you want to answer to me here and now. I'll——"
Steve's words were cut short. The skip-tender threw his throttle wide open. The skip shot down at a frightful rate of speed. The rapidity of his descent took the boy's breath away. He gasped, opening his mouth wide to fill his lungs with air. But he did not succeed very well. He feared that he would fall from the skip in his dizziness, there being no guards to prevent his doing so. The front of the scoop-shaped skip was not protected in any way, and the slightest slip would send the solitary passenger to his death.
The skip stopped with a jolt that hurled Steve Rush forward on his face. He thought that was to be the last of him. A moment later, however, the brave lad discovered that the skip had stopped at the twentieth level, and that he had been thrown out into the level itself.
Scrambling to his feet, the lad uttered a shout to attract the attention of anyone who might be near.
There was no reply. Steve nearly strangled from the smoke he had drawn into his lungs. The drift was silent and deserted, the electric lights gleaming dimly in the thick veil of smoke that hung over everything.
"I wonder where they are?" breathed the lad, keeping his lips tightly shut. "They must be trying to work their way up by the ladders."
Running to another part of the level, the Iron Boy sprang up a ladder and once more uttered a long-drawn shout.