d. Their dear little faces are before me now,
distorted in a look of agony that, no matter what I do, haunts me. O, if
I could only have released myself at that time I would have willingly
died with them. I was rescued some time after, and have been here ever
since. I have since learned that my friend who so bravely endeavored to
save two of the children was lost with them."

CHAPTER XV.

Terrible Pictures of Woe.

The proportion of the living registered since the flood as against the
previous number of inhabitants is even less than was reported yesterday.
It was ascertained to-day that many of the names on the list were
entered more than once and that the total number of persons registered
is not more than 13,000 out of a former population of between 40,000 and
50,000.

A new and more exact method of determining the number of the lost was
inaugurated this morning. Men are sent out by the Relief Committee, who
will go to every abode and obtain the names of the survivors, and if
possible those of the dead.

The lack of identification of hundreds of bodies strengthens the
inference that the proportion of the dead to the living is appalling. It
is argued that the friends who might identify these unclaimed bodies are
themselves all gone.

Another significant fact is that so large a number of those whom one
meets in the streets or where the streets used to be are non-residents,
strangers who have come here out of humane or less creditable motives.
The question that is heard very often is, "Where are the inhabitants?"
The town does not appear to have at present a population of more than
10,000.

It is believed that many of the bodies of the dead have been borne down
into the Ohio, and perhaps into the Mississippi as well, and hence may
finally be deposited by the waters hundreds of miles apart, perhaps
never to be recovered or seen by man again.

The General Situation.

Under the blue haze of smoke that for a week has hung over this valley
of the shadow of death the work which is to resurrect this stricken city
has gone steadily forward. Here and there over the waste where Johnstown
stood in its pride black smoke arises from the bonfires on which
shattered house-walls, rafters, doors, broken furniture and all the
flotsam and jetsam of the great flood is cast.

Adjutant General Hastings, who believes in heroic measures, has been
quietly trying to persuade the "Dictator"--that is, the would-be
"Dictator"