He touched his guide upon the arm and pointed.  “Isn’t that dangerous?” he shouted.

“It’s against orders,” said the man.  “But they will do it.”

And even while the words of a reply were upon his lips, something happened which turned the sound into a scream of horror.  Montague stood with his hand still pointing, his whole body turned to stone.  Instantaneously, as if by the act of a magician, the man upon the ladder had disappeared; and instead there was a hazy mist about the shaft, and the ladder tumbling to the ground.

No one else in the mill appeared to have noticed it.  Montague’s guide leaped forward, dodging a white-hot plate upon its journey to the roller, and rushed down the room to where the engineer was standing by his machinery.  For a period which could not have been less than a minute, Montague stood staring at the horrible sight; and then slowly he saw what had been a mist beginning to define itself as the body of a man whirling about the shaft.

Then, as the machinery moved more slowly yet, and the din in the mill subsided, he saw several men raise the ladder again to the shaft and climb up.  When the revolving had stopped entirely, they proceeded to cut the body loose; but Montague did not wait to see that.  He was white and sick, and he turned and went outside.

He went away to another part of the yards and sat down in the shade of one of the buildings, and told himself that that was the way of life.  All the while the din of the mills continued without interruption.  A while later he saw four men go past, carrying a stretcher covered with a sheet.  It dropped blood at every step, but Montague noticed that the men who passed it gave it no more than a casual glance.  When he passed the plate-mill again, he saw that it was busy as ever; and when he went out at the front gate, he saw a man who had been pointed out to him as the foreman of the mill, engaged in picking another labourer from the group which was standing about.

He returned to the president’s office, and found that Mr. Andrews had just arrived.  A breeze was blowing through the office, but Andrews, who was stout, was sitting in his chair with his coat and vest off, vigorously wielding a palmleaf fan.

“How do you do, Mr. Montague?” he said.  “Did you ever know such heat?  Sit down—­you look done up.”

“I have just seen an accident in the mills,” said Montague.

“Oh!” said the other.  “Too bad.  But one finds that steel can’t be made without accidents.  We had a blast-furnace explosion the other day, and killed eight.  They are mostly foreigners, though—­’hunkies,’ they call them.”

Then Andrews pressed a button, summoning his secretary.

“Will you please bring those plans?” he said; and to Montague’s surprise he proceeded to spread before him a complete copy of the old reports of the Northern Mississippi survey, together with the surveyor’s original drawings.