"Yes, I should think I were about finished if I had such a burn as that. The pig raked you there, didn't it?" asked Mr. Phillips.
"Yes, sir. But it doesn't matter much. It smarts a little, that is all. It isn't the first time I have been burned. Shall we go on to the furnaces?"
"We certainly shall not," emphasized Mr. Keating. "You are going to the hospital and have that wound dressed before you get it ground full of dirt and contract blood-poisoning. We will stop in here at Mr. McNaughton's office."
Steve did not want them to give so much attention to him. He was anxious to get to the furnaces and talk over his plan with the chief engineer and the superintendent. Instead, the superintendent was at that moment telephoning to the company's hospital, ordering a surgeon to come to the division superintendent's office to dress a burn.
The three sat down to talk while awaiting the surgeon. Of course Steve steered the conversation around to the plan he had proposed. Mr. Keating watched the boy's face narrowly. He could not understand how Rush could sit there so calmly and indifferently with a wound such as he had, but the only indication that the Iron Boy felt the slightest discomfort was a twitching of his face, now and then, as sharp pains shot through the wound.
"You haven't told us yet, how you got out from under the pig, Rush," questioned Mr. Phillips. "To me that was a most remarkable escape."
"Not so very. I did the only thing I could do under the circumstances. I dived through the ties under the car. I did not dare jump in either of the other three directions for fear the mold would fall on me. The train was still moving, so it was a question of taking a chance of being run over by the train or hit by the pig. I decided to take a chance under the train. Did you see me drop?" asked Steve with a laugh.
"No; we did not."
"I must have made an exhibition of myself. I turned so many somersaults going down that I lost myself completely. It was a clumsy tumble."
The two officials looked at each other wonderingly. At that juncture, Mr. McNaughton broke in.