Page:McClure's Magazine volume 10.djvu/294

There came a cracking sound, and the man jumped clear of the sand, holding one hand to a bleeding ear.

"Anybody else care to call me?" said Ottenhausen, as he swung two shiny weapons again towards the crowd.

The furnace-keeper opened the vent, and a smoking stream of slag flowed forth. A single blast of the whistle, and the top-filler lowered the bell. A pillar of flaming gas showed thirty sullen faces and one face calm and determined.

"Open the iron notch, you fellows," snapped Ottenhausen, indicating three men by as many pokes of a revolver barrel.

"i'll kill the first man who disobeys orders."

Two men bare to the waist hammered with heavy sledges until steel bars were slowly forced into the hard clay which sealed the lower gate of the furnace. The earthen stopper became a glowing shell. The men drew back. The third man stepped to one side, plunged an iron bar into the furnace's mouth, and gave it a quick turn. A fiery flood issued from the notch, and poured along the channel of sand, hissing and roaring and sending forth rays of blinding light. It separated into scores of branches as it reached the sandy bed of open molds. The white glare changed to a crimson flush, and then the cast-house was illumined by a glow which grew fainter and fainter. Darkness came where there had been light. The men shoveled sand over the tracery of iron. Cut off the blast! Slow the engines down! Stop up that iron notch!" were the commands of Ottenhausen, given in quick succession.

The men lost no time in obeying him. Standing with his back to a mass of iron, Ottenhausen saw the form of James Hunt. Behind the superintendent were a score of men in dress suits, and further back Ottenhausen beheld several young women. He caught a glimpse of the girl who had clung to the sapling that September afternoon. Their eyes met. Then Ottenhausen turned again to the work which he had in hand. The report of the pistol had set the house party at Eagle's Nest in an uproar. Hunt started for the scene, and his guests followed him.

"Only a little unpleasantness," remarked Ottenhausen to the superintendent. "We're getting along all right now."

James Hunt, being an altogether discreet person, stood back and permitted Ottenhausen to finish a most disagreeable task. The young women were sent back to the house. The men in dress suits were with them.

"Now, men," said Ottenhausen, "we're getting things in shape again. Suppose a couple of you take out that tuyere."

There was almost a cheerful alacrity in the way in which the men now obeyed Ottenhausen's orders. The tuyere, with its nozzle and cut water pipes, was taken out. The section of the jacket was removed. Sledges and crowbars, manipulated by strong, albeit unwilling, arms, soon broke away the mass of iron which had choked the front of the aperture. Another tuyere was fitted, the water connections made, and the jacket replaced. A cooling stream was soon coursing through a new nozzle, and not many