He turned the hose on his blistered legs, the water feeling cool and refreshing, for the lad's burns were becoming more and more painful as the dust from the mill settled into them.
Jarvis shifted the nozzle to the other side and bathed the other leg, at the same time keeping a watch for the boss. The latter was nowhere in sight. He had gotten well out of harm's way, evidently knowing what was about to happen.
Having bathed himself to his satisfaction Jarvis began playing the hose on the cinder pile. The first contact of the water threw up a great cloud of steam, followed by a sharp, hissing sound. Steve knew by the sound that the other pit was being wet down, but it did not occur to him, either, that there was any danger in the operation. In fact, he was too busy shoveling the cinders from his own pit to give much attention to what was going on in the other.
Bob was humming softly to himself as he played with the stream, first sending it straight up into the air so that the spray covered a wide area by the time it reached the floor of the mill. No one chanced to get wet, however, save the two boys, Bob being the more so because he was right under the shower. Next he turned the stream straight into the pit, driving it down in one place, trying to bore a hole in the cinders and slag.
"Say, Steve!"
"What?"
"What do you think about——"
Puff!
A slender column of black smoke shot up from the centre of the pit that Jarvis was watering down. The lad stared at it in surprise.
"Look at the geyser!" he shouted.