tch from Governor Foraker offering 2,000 trained
laborers for Johnstown, to be sent at once if needed. The despatch
further stated that if anything else was needed Ohio stood ready to
respond promptly to the call.

What Clara Barton Said.

"It is like a blow on the head; there are no tears, they are stunned;
but, ah, sir, I tell you they will awake after awhile and then the tears
will flow down the hills of this valley from thousands of bleeding
hearts, and there will be weeping and wailing such as never before."

That is what Clara Barton, president of the National Red Cross, said
this afternoon as she stood in a plain black gown on the bank of Stony
Creek directing the construction of the Red Cross tents, and she looked
motherly and matronly, while her voice was trembling with sympathy.

"You see nothing but that dazed, sickly smile that calamity leaves," she
went on, "like the crazy man wears when you ask him, 'How came you
here?' Something happened, he says, that he alone knows; all the rest is
blank to him. Here they give you that smile, that look and say 'I lost
my father, my mother, my sisters,' but they do not realize it yet. The
Red Cross intends to be here in the Conemaugh Valley when the pestilence
comes to them, and we are making ready with all our heart, with all our
soul, with all our strength. The militia, the railroad, the Relief
Committees and everybody is working for us. The railroad has completely
barricaded us so that none of our cars can be taken away by mistake."

When the great wave of death swept through Johnstown the people who had
any chance of escape ran hither and thither in every direction. They did
not have any definite idea where they were going, only that a crest of
foaming waters as high as the housetops was roaring down upon them
through the Conemaugh and that they must get out of the way of that.
Some in their terror dived into the cellars of their houses and
clambered over the adjoining roofs to places of safety. But the majority
made for the hills, which girt the town like giants. Of the people who
went to the hills, the water caught some in its whirl.

[Illustration: A WOMAN'S BODY LODGED IN A TREE.]

The others clung to trees and roots and pieces of debris which had
temporarily lodged near the banks, and managed to save themselves. These
people either stayed out on the hills wet, and in many instances walked
all night, or they managed to find farmhouses which sheltered them