dodged and ran away from their posts of duty.

There was a reason for this. One end of the big shaft nearest the engine had dropped. The jar of the engine had either broken a connection of the shaft or it had slipped a bearing. At all events, the shaft had taken a sidelong swing and had struck the floor, reducing a plank to splinters. There it turned, wobbled about and slammed up and down, smashing everything that came in its way.

“Do something, men!” shouted Martin Hardy, head machinist of the auto works.

As he spoke Mr. Hardy started on a run for the rear of the machine shop, but he was anticipated. His son, Ben Hardy, had arrived on the scene just in time to take part in the thrilling event of the moment.

It was after school hours, and Ben always had free run of the plant. His father was an expert in his line and an old and valued employee, and his son, with his cheerful, accommodating ways, was always[Pg 3] a welcome visitor with the workmen, with whom he was a general favorite.

[Pg 3]

Ben was familiar with every turn and corner of the shop. In a flash his eye took in the unusual situation as it presented itself. He guessed out the cause of the commotion intuitively.

“Don’t go, father!” he cried, seizing his father’s arm and detaining him. “I know the way.”

Ben did, indeed, know the way. A sliding iron door separated the engine room from the machine shop. Above it was an open space, and through this the steam was pouring. Ben knew that it was many chances against one that the iron door was caught on the other side. Besides this, the wobbling shaft piece was still threshing about, a formidable barrier, although the power was dying down as the connecting dismantled shafts revolved less rapidly.

In a far corner of the machine shop there was a sashless window frame. Through it Ben had clambered many a time. It was used for ventilation. It opened upon the roof of a small brick oven which was used to bake the sand cores used in the molding flasks.

Ben leaped through the aperture and landed on the roof in a second. Beyond it rolled the iron drum which ground the fine charcoal for the dust bags employed in drying the wet sand in the molding frames. This Ben cleared at a bound.

He heard a timber fall in the machine shop, and[Pg 4] there 

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