the
roof, and in another moment our house floated away. It started down with
the other stuff, crashing, twisting and quivering. I thought every
minute it would go to pieces.

"Finally it was shoved over into water less swift and near another
house.

"I found that less drift was forced against it than against ours, and
decided to get on it. I climbed up on the roof, and in looking up saw a
big house coming down directly toward ours, I called to sister to be
quick. She was lifting mother up to me. I could barely reach the tips of
her fingers when her arms were raised up while I lay on my stomach
reaching down. At that moment the house struck ours and my loved ones
were carried away and crushed by the big house. It was useless for me to
follow, for they sank out of sight. I floated down to the bridge, then
back with the current and landed at Vine street.

"I saw hundreds of people crushed and drowned. It is my opinion that
fully fifteen thousand people perished."

When the whistles of the Gautier Steel Mill of the Cambria Iron Company
blew for the shutting down of the works at 10 o'clock last Friday
morning nearly 1400 men walked out of the establishment and went to
their homes, which were a few hours later wiped off the face of the
earth. When the men to-day answered the notice that all should present
themselves ready for work only 487 reported. That shows more clearly
than anything else that has yet been known the terrible nature of the
fatality of the Conemaugh. The mortality wrought among these men in a
few hours is thus shown to have been greater than that in either of the
armies that contended for three days at Gettysburg.

"Report at 9 o'clock to-morrow morning ready for work," the notice
posted read. It did not say where, but everybody knew it was not at the
great Gautier Mill that covered half a dozen acres, for the reason that
no mill is there. By a natural impulse the survivors of the working
force of the steel plant began to move from all directions, before the
hour named, toward the general office of the company.

What the Superintendent Saw.

This office is located in Johnstown proper and is the only building in
that section of the town left standing uninjured. It is a large brick
building, three stories high, with massive brick walls. L.L. Smith, the
commercial agent of the company, arrived at eight o'clock to await the
gathering of the men, pausing a minute in the doorway to look at two
things. O