A few minutes later a cast was being made from number three. This time Bob worked on the gutters while Steve continued at his post as monkey-man, toiling in the burning heat, with parched, cracking lips and burning cheeks. Morning found all hands ready for home and bed.
"I wish I knew whether it would be right to see the superintendent," said Steve, as he was walking along with Mr. Peel on the way out.
"What for?"
"I think I have an idea that will perhaps make a great improvement in the furnace end of the business."
Pig-Iron laughed.
"Boy, there's bigger heads than yours that have been working on all the problems for a long time. What they haven't thought of you never would. But, if you think you've got an idea in your head, just go see the super, and get it off your mind. I know how you feel."
"Thank you; it isn't troubling me to that extent."
Pig-Iron first went to the offices of the company to make his personal report of the hang-over and the flare-back that had so upset their night's work. He made his report to Superintendent Keating direct, as was the custom after the formal report had been made to the division superintendent.
Mr. Keating asked Peel about the Iron Boys, whereupon Pig-Iron, in his blunt way, told the general superintendent about Steve's plucky fight for the mastery of himself before the furnace and of his eventual winning out. He told the official some further facts that interested Mr. Keating very much.
About four o'clock that afternoon as the Iron Boys were eating their breakfasts, or in this case their dinners, a messenger called at the Brodsky house with an order for Steve Rush to call at the office of the superintendent before he went to the mills to work.