The Iron Boys on the Ore Boats Part 22

"Idle! Humph! After swimming half way across Lake Huron, being drowned into the bargain, walking almost across the state of Michigan, going without food for twenty-four hours, not to speak of a few other little things--then to talk about being idle. Go back and tell the cook to set up the best on the ship. After you have had a good meal you may go to work, if you wish. I suppose you'll not be satisfied unless you do. Go on with you. Tell the first mate I want to see him."

An hour later found Steve in his working clothes. The cranes for unloading were just being moved into place when he reached the deck.

These were huge affairs, each provided with a giant scoop that gulped a little mouthful of some fifty tons of ore every time its iron jaws were opened.

There was a rattle and a bang as the hatch covers were being ripped off and cast to the far side of the deck; men on the trestles were shouting, whistles were blowing in the harbor, gasoline launches conveying ship's officers to and from the other side of the inlet, were exhausting with vicious explosions. Steve thought he had never seen such confusion before, yet he knew full well that there was in reality no confusion about it. Everything was being worked out in keeping with a perfectly arranged system.

"Rush, you get down in the hold and take charge of the unloading,"

ordered the mate.

Steve hurried below. The hold was dimly lighted by an electric light at either end. He did not know exactly what he was expected to do. The great scoop dived down, swallowed a mouthful of ore and was out with it like some huge monster, almost before Rush realized what was going on.

"Whew! That's going some!" he exclaimed. "There comes the thing again.

h.e.l.lo, up there!" cried the boy, with hands to mouth. "Hadn't you better take out some from the other end so as to unload the boat evenly?"

"Yes, that's what we've got you down there for, to watch things,"

shouted a voice from the deck. "You're all right. Keep it up!"

"I don't know whether I am, or not," muttered the boy making his way over the ore to the stern of the hold. "This strikes me as being a dangerous sort of spot."

He watched the huge steel lips of the scoop as it felt about like the lips of a horse gathering the oats from its manger, quickly grabbing up its fifty tons of ore then leaping for the trestle some fifty feet above, where it dropped its burden into cars waiting to transfer the ore to the furnaces.

Load after load was scooped up. The rattle and the bang of the unloader was deafening. It made the Iron Boy's ears ache.

"According to the speed at which we are unloading, now, we should be finished in about four hours," he said. "This is the most wonderful mechanism I ever saw!"

There came a lull, during which the ship was moved further astern, in order that the unloader might pick up ore from the forward part of the hold. By the time this had been done, and the huge crane shifted to its new position, nearly an hour had been lost.

The boy pondered over this for some time. It seemed to him like an unnecessary loss of time.

"Why, so long as they have one crane at an unloading point, should they not have more?" he reflected. "This is worth looking into."

He thought he saw where a great improvement could be made, and he decided to think it over when he had more time. Perhaps he could suggest something to the officials that would be of use to them after all.

Steve and his companion, while working as ordinary seamen, were drawing the same fine salaries that they had received in the mines. Therefore the boys felt it was their duty to earn the money being paid to them by doing something worth while. They were getting three times as much as was paid to the other men doing similar work.

As Rush was thinking all these things over the lights in the hold suddenly went out, leaving the place in absolute darkness.

"Lights out!" he shouted.

A rush of air fanned his cheek. He raised a hand to brush away some object that seemed to be hovering over him. It was as if invisible hands were groping in the dark, feeling for the Iron Boy's face to caress it.

Steve instinctively crouched down as low as he could on the ore. There was little of it beneath him, the greater part having been removed by the giant sh.e.l.l of the unloader.

Suddenly with a groan and many creakings the object whose presence he had dimly felt now closed over him.

"The unloader!" cried Steve. "It's caught me! It's caught me!"

CHAPTER XIV

STEVE SAVES THE CAPTAIN

FORTUNATELY for Steve Rush the load scooped up by the unloader, chanced to be a light one, only a few tons being in the scoop itself. That left him head room so that he was not crushed against the upper side of the giant sh.e.l.l. Still, his quarters were cramped and the sensation was, if anything, more trying than had been that when he found himself alone in the waters of Lake Huron.

"I'm done for this time, I guess. h.e.l.lo, there! Stop the machine! I'm caught!" he shouted.

In the groaning and creaking of the great crane his cries for help were unheard. Steve felt himself being borne swiftly through the air. Up, up swung the great sh.e.l.l, swaying dizzily from side to side after it left the deck of the ship. As it pa.s.sed out of the hold Steve uttered a shout louder than the others. He was not frightened, but, as was quite natural under the circ.u.mstances, he wanted to get out of his unpleasant predicament.

Bob Jarvis, who was at the rail, heard the cry. He divined the truth instantly. Springing to an open hatch he leaned over, bellowing out the name of his companion into the hold. There was no response. Bob did not believe there would be.

"Stop it! Stop it!" he shouted.

It is doubtful if the crane man heard, and if he did he failed to understand, for the big sh.e.l.l kept on mounting to the top of the trestle.

"What's the matter!" demanded the mate. "You're enough to raise the dead."

Jarvis did not stop to answer. He sprang for the side of the ship, leaped over the rail, and, catching the sides of the ladder, shot down to the pier without touching a single rung of the ladder. The instant his feet touched the pier the lad darted off to the trestle. A cleat ladder extended up the side of the trestle to the top. Bob ran up it like a real sailor and rushed over the ties to the place where the train was being loaded for the furnaces.

In the meantime, Steve Rush had been hoisted to the top. He knew what was coming. The lad braced his feet and shoulders against opposite sides of the scoop, hoping thereby to hold himself in place. He had forgotten that the sh.e.l.l would open up at the proper moment in order to discharge its load--would open up so wide that not even a fragment of anything would be left within it.

Suddenly the great jaws of the sh.e.l.l opened with a crash and a bang.

There followed the roar of rushing iron ore as it dropped into the waiting ore car on the track.

Rush dropped like a stone. He landed in the railroad car, half buried under the ore, dazed and bleeding from the sharp pieces of ore that had hit him on the head during his descent.

"Hey there, stop it, stop it!" shouted Jarvis, running toward the spot as the crane was swinging the scoop off toward the ship for another load.

"Stop what?" demanded the foreman of loading.

"You've dumped a man from that scoop! Which car was it?"

The foreman laughed easily.

"I guess you must be crazy."

"Which car is it, I say? Answer me quick. He may be killed, or----"

"That's the car right there, the last one filled and----"

But Bob was bounding toward the place with desperate haste.

"Steve! Steve!"

"Ye-yes, I'm IT again," answered a m.u.f.fled voice, dragging himself from the ore, shaking the dirt from him.

"Look out for the sh.e.l.l! It'll be on you again before you know it,"

warned Jarvis. He had heard the creaking and groaning of the machinery, sounds, which told him the big scoop was on its way upward again with still another load of the red ore.