  On a work bench before the window in the laboratory there rested an instrument the like of which Johnny had never seen before entering the factory for work. The main body of it was a black drum about a foot long and ten inches in diameter. Out from this drum there ran a tube which, bending first this way, then that, passed into a bottle, then out of it into a second, then out again and so on until six or eight bottles had been included in its route. “Let’s see,” said Johnny. “This one catches the carbon, this one, tungsten, this, water vapor, this, iron, and so on. Guess the thing’s all set for taking off the different known elements that are likely to be found in any steel. But how about those unknown elements? Here’s a wild shot in the dark.” Taking down three bottles from the wall, he poured a little from each into a fourth bottle. He then replaced the three bottles and, by the aid of two short tubes, inserted the bottle he had just filled into the circuit running from the drum. Repeating the operation with a new set of bottles he added a second bottle to the circuit. “There,” he smiled, “if there are any strange atoms floating around, those ought to give them a home. Now for it!” Pushing open a slide in the side of the drum he adjusted his bit of steel in a position between two electrical poles and directly before a small nozzle. He then shut the drum, turned on a switch which started a low snapping sound inside the drum, turned a valve which set a slight roar resounding within the drum, then sat back to watch. Presently a greenish gas could be seen passing along inside the glass tube. “Working!” he smiled. “Pretty slick arrangement! Electric spark sets fire to the metal, oxygen feeds the flame. Burn up anything that way. That gas was the hardest, most flexible steel in the world a moment ago.” As he sat there watching the process go forward, hearing the hum and snap inside the drum, now and then catching the roll of thunder from the storm that raged outside, he thought of the three Shakespearean witches and their steaming caldron. He liked to think of himself as a modern wizard with his smoking electrical caldron. But something caught his eye. The color of the liquid in one of the bottles of chemicals he had mixed at random was turning from white to a dull brown as the gas from burning steel passed through. “Catching something!” he ejaculated. “Wonder what it may be?” For ten more minutes he sat watching. Then, when all the gas had apparently passed off he turned the valve, threw out the switch, and sat there lost in thought. It was interesting, this experiment. This instrument had always fascinated him. He felt that it might be that he had made a discovery. But thus far he could go, no farther. Of chemical analysis he knew nothing. Already he had made a vow with himself that, as soon as his debt of honor was paid, he would begin somewhere, somehow, a study of those sciences which were so closely related to industry—chemistry, metallurgy, engineering, mechanics, physics. But now he was stuck. He had never really been given permission to work in the laboratory alone at night and he was loath now to admit he had done so. “Oh, well,” he sighed, “probably nothing to it, anyway. I’ll just label you and put you up here for the present.” He scrawled a few words on a label, pasted it to the bottle containing the dull brown liquid, then set it upon an upper shelf. “Some day,” he smiled, “perhaps I’ll have the nerve to tell Mr. Brown about it, but not now.” Brown was the head of the laboratory. He went out into the aisle and began walking slowly up and down before the vault. He was sleepy and tired. This night work was telling on him. “Wish it was over with,” he muttered. “Anyway,” he smiled, “I’ve got something to show them this time,” and he patted the steel bar in the right-hand pocket of his blouse. * * * * * * * * “You say someone drove the traveling crane down the loading-room and helped you chase that man!” the manager exclaimed next day after Johnny had told the story of his queer night’s adventures. “That seems incredible!” “Maybe so, but it’s true!” “There are only three men in our employ who can run that crane and they, I am sure, were not there.” Johnny smiled. “Can’t explain it; all I know is, it’s true.” “I’ll put a double guard on the place. Can’t have things going on like that.” Johnny smiled again. He had told of the double struggle with the snake-like adversary, of the chase, of the ride on the traveling crane, and the recovery of one steel bar, but had not mentioned the “white fire” nor the steel test he had made. “What’s the use?” he had asked himself. “Who’d understand a thing like that ‘white fire’?” “Well,” said his employer, “I’m glad you recovered one of the bars; I only wish you had secured the other. One may do us all the harm possible.” “You never saw such a man,” Johnny half-apologized. “Like an eel, he was, a regular contortionist. I’ve handled a lot of fellows, but never one like him.” “It wasn’t your fault,” Mr. McFarland reassured him. “You did better work than many persons twice your age might have done. Well,” after a moment’s thought, “you keep that bar until this evening, then, when you go to work, give it to Marquis and have him put it in the vault. Your work will be as before until further orders.” Johnny was disappointed. He had hoped to be relieved from this task, which would grow doubly monotonous since it was definitely known that the remaining bar of steel had been carried from the factory. He managed to conceal his disappointment, however, and went his way, to sleep the day through with the bar of steel beneath his pillow. He did not return the bar to Marquis, the day keeper of the vault, as he had been instructed to do. When Johnny arrived he found the vault locked, its keeper gone. “Well, old precious one,” he smiled, patting the bar of metal, “it’s one more night in my company for you, whether you like it or not.” It was that same night, in the long, silent hours just following midnight, that something happened that was destined to change the entire course of Johnny Thompson’s life. He was sleepy—sleepier than usual, for his sleep had been broken into that day. “If only I had another shaving off that steel bar,” he thought to himself, “I’d do that experiment again, and try for a different result.” As if expecting the miracle to repeat itself, he walked to the forge-room and placed the bar of steel on the little heap of coals at the center of the same forge that had burned so mysteriously the previous night. Then with a laugh, which told plainer than words that he thought he was kidding himself, he turned and strolled away down the aisle among the forges. No room held such an endless fascination for him as this forge-room. In the day, especially toward evening when the outer light was failing, when the forge fires burned brightly, and the white hot metal on the dies glowed at each stroke of the massive hammers, when the whang-whang-whang of steel on steel raised a mighty clamor, then it was a place to conjure about. But even now, in the dead still of the night, the powerful hammers resting from their labor, the long line of forges with fires burned out spoke to him of solemn grandeur and dormant power. He had just made the length of the room and had turned about when from his lips there escaped a muffled cry. Instantly he broke into a run. Once more, as on the previous night, the forge on which the steel bar lay was a mass of white and red fire. By the time he had reached the spot, the bar of metal was a glowing white mass from end to end. His first thought was to seize the tongs and drag the bar from the forge to the floor; his second was a bolder one. It caused his heart to thump loudly, his breath to come quickly. Dared he do it? He put his hand to an electric switch by the side of the trip-hammer nearest the forge. The answer was a snap and a spark. “Current’s on,” he murmured. “I could do it. Old McPherson taught me how when I was in the salvage department—but dare I?” To the lower surface of the hammer was attached a nickel-steel die. To the surface on which it fell was bolted another. The two matched. A white-hot bit of steel placed upon the lower die at just the right spot, then struck; then moved and struck again; moved and struck two times more, would be no longer a clumsy bar of steel, but a rough-finished connecting-rod for an automobile. The white-hot bar of steel before him was just the right length and thickness. Dared he do it? As in a dream, he seized the metal with the tongs, lifted it, swung it about to the proper position on the nickel-steel plate, touched a pedal with his foot, heard the whang of steel on steel, saw the hammer rise again, moved the white-hot metal, touched the pedal, heard the whang again; twice more repeated the operation, then tossed the bit of metal, still glowing white-hot, upon the sanded floor; a perfect connecting-rod as to shape—but as to composition? His breath came hard. Had the bit of metal been spoiled in the heating and the forging? And, if it had, how could he ever square himself? To quiet his wildly beating heart he took a turn about the factory, then returned to the forge-room. He was just re-entering the forge-room when something caught his eye. What was it? Had his eye deceived him, or had he caught sight of a furtive figure dodging behind the sheet-metal press over at the right? In a moment he would investigate, but first he must make sure that the newly forged connecting-rod of priceless steel was safe. Quickly his heart beat as he lifted the now thoroughly cooled steel, and allowed it to fall upon the cement floor. “Sounds like real steel,” he exulted. He picked it up and examined it closely. “Not a flaw. And real steel—the best steel on earth—and I forged it! But how?” He paused, a puzzled look overspreading his face. “How shall I tell them I heated it? What good will one forging do with no means of forging more?” “Oh, well!” he murmured, at last, “I’ll tell them, anyway. And now,” dropping the connecting-rod in his pocket, “the next thing is something else. I wonder what it will be!” He left the forge-room and walked cautiously toward the sheet-metal press. As he neared it, a dark object, like some wild animal leaping from its hiding-place among the crags, leaped out, and away. Who was this? Was it his contortionist-enemy returned in hopes of retrieving the lost bar, or was it some other intruder? Johnny did not waste time on idle questions, but sprang away in hot pursuit. |
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