"Isn't it about time we made a cast? The ore smells to me as if it were about ready."
Pig-Iron sniffed the air with a snort.
"Get ready for a cast!" he bellowed. "Boy, you'll do. You've got the nose that smells, you have. Heave up that dolly bar. How's them gutters? You, Kalinski, there, see that slag trough is open. Bud, get your cinder-ladle ready. Come, now, the whole bunch of you is half-asleep. Anybody'd think you'd been out to a party all day long. Come, Rush!"
"I am here, sir."
"Git that dolly against the furnace dam, and get ready to jump when things are hot enough."
"I will jump, never you fear," answered Steve laughing.
The Iron Boy turned his back to the men and placed the dolly bar against the clay dam after facing the glaring heat at close range long enough to place the end of the bar on exactly the right spot.
"All ready, sir."
"Drive it! Steady there," warned the voice of the head melter. "Keep watch, Rush, and sing out when you get enough."
After a moment the compressed air drill was put on, and after wearing the dam thin, the dolly was once more resorted to as that could be withdrawn much more quickly than could the compressed air drill. Haste was necessary, or the lives of the men would be in great peril in case the molten metal squirted from the dam around the sides of the dolly. The furnace men, especially those on the tapping job, would be likely to get the full charge in their faces.