to do so as the water glided up
after us like a huge serpent. Any one ten feet behind us would have been
lost beyond a doubt. I glanced back at the train when I had reached a
place of safety, but the water already covered it and the Pullman car in
which the ladies were was already rolling down the valley in the grasp
of the angry waters. Quite a number of us reached the house of a Mr.
Swenzel, or some such name, one of the railroad men, whom we afterward
learned had lost two daughters at Johnstown. We made ourselves as
comfortable as possible until the next day, when we proceeded by
conveyances as far as Altoona, having no doubt but what we could
certainly proceed east from that point. We found the middle division of
the Pennsylvania Railroad was, if anything, in a worse condition than
the western, so we determined to go as far as Ebensburg by train, whence
we reached Johnstown to-day by wagon."

Mrs. G.W. Childs' Escape.

Mrs. George W. Childs, of Philadelphia, was also a member of the party.
She was on her way West, and reached Altoona on Friday, after untold
difficulties. She is almost prostrated by the severe ordeal through
which she and many others have passed, and therefore had but little to
say, only averring that Mrs. Wilcox and her friends, who were on the
lost train, had passed through perils beside which her own sank into
insignificance.

[Illustration: SWEPT AWAY ON THE TRAIN.]

Assistant Superintendent Crump telegraphs from Blairsville Junction that
the day express, eastbound from Chicago to New York, and the mail train
from Pittsburgh bound east, were put on the back tracks in the yard at
Conemaugh when the flooded condition of the main tracks made it
apparently unsafe to proceed further. When the continued rise of the
water made their danger apparent, the frightened passengers fled from
the two trains to the hills near by. Many in their wild excitement threw
themselves into the raging current and were drowned. It is supposed that
about fifteen persons lost their lives in this way.

After the people had deserted the cars, the railroad officials state,
the two Pullman cars attached to the day express were set on fire and
entirely consumed. A car of lime was standing near the train. When the
water reached the lime it set fire to the car and the flames reaching
the sleepers they were entirely consumed.

Exhuming the Dead.

Three hundred bodies were exhumed to-day. In one spot at Main and Market