ad,
seized a hatchet, and for some time would let no one enter the place,
claiming that the people were lying to him and wanted to rob him of his
father and mother.

One sad incident was the sight of two coffins lying in the Gautier
graveyard with nobody to bury them. A solitary woman was gazing at them
in a dazed manner, while the rain beat on her unprotected head.

CHAPTER XIV.

Hairbreadth Escapes.

So vast is the field of destruction that to get an adequate idea from
any point level with the town is simply impossible. It must be viewed
from a height. From the top of Kernville Mountain just at the east of
the town the whole strange panorama can be seen.

Looking down from that height many strange things about the flood that
appear inexplicable from below are perfectly plain. How so many houses
happened to be so queerly twisted, for instance, as if the water had a
whirling instead of a straight motion, was made perfectly clear.

The town was built in an almost equilateral triangle, with one angle
pointed squarely up the Conemaugh Valley to the east, from which the
flood came. At the northerly angle was the junction of the Conemaugh and
Stony creeks. The Southern angle pointed up the Stony Creek Valley. Now
about one-half of the triangle, formerly densely covered with buildings,
is swept as clean as a platter, except for three or four big brick
buildings that stand near the angle which points up the Conemaugh.

Course of the Flood.

The course of the flood from the exact point where it issued from the
Conemaugh Valley to where it disappeared below in a turn in the river
and above by spreading itself over the flat district of five or six
miles, is clearly defined. The whole body of water issued straight from
the valley in a solid wave and tore across the village of Woodvale and
so on to the business part of Johnstown at the lower part of the
triangle. Here a cluster of solid brick blocks, aided by the
conformation of the land, evidently divided the stream. The greater part
turned to the north, swept up the brick block and then mixed with the
ruins of the villages above down to the stone arch bridge. The other
stream shot across the triangle, was turned southward by the bluffs and
went up the valley of Stony Creek. The stone arch bridge in the meantime
acted as a dam and turned part of the current back toward the south,
where it finished the work of the triangle, turning again to the
northward and bac