and about these crowds are clustered
as best they can. A big policeman stands upon a raised platform made of
small boxes, and as he is supplied with goods from the station he throws
about in the crowds socks, shoes, dresses, shirts, pantaloons, etc.,
guessing as rapidly as possible at proportion and speedily getting rid
of his bundle. Around the corner, on a street running at right angles
with the tracks, is the provision department. These two are sample
stations. They are scattered about at convenient points, and number
about ten in all.

CHAPTER XVII.

One Week After the Great Disaster.

By slow degrees and painful labor the barren place where Johnstown stood
begins again to look a little like the habitations of a civilized
community. Daily a little is added to the cleared space once filled with
the concrete rubbish of this town, daily the number of willing workers
who are helping the town to rise again increases. To-day the great
yellow plain which was filled with the best business blocks and
residences before the flood is covered with tents for soldiers and
laborers and gangs of men at work. The wrecks are being removed or
burned up. Those houses which were left only partially destroyed are
beginning to be repaired. Still, it will be months, very likely years,
before the pathway of the flood ceases to be perfectly plain through the
town. Its boundaries are as plainly marked now as if drawn on a map;
where the flood went it left its ineffaceable track. Nearly one-half of
the triangle in which Johnstown stood is plainly marked, one angle of
the triangle pointing to the east and directly up the Conemaugh Valley,
from which the flood descended. Its eastern side was formed by the line
of the river. The second angle pointed toward the big stone arch bridge,
which played such an important part in the tragedy. The western ran
along the base of the mountain on the bank of Stony Creek, and the third
angle was toward Stony Creek Valley.

Miles of Buildings in the Wreck.

Imagine that before the flood this triangle was thickly covered with
houses. The lower or northern part was filled with solid business
blocks, the upper or southern half with residences, for the most part
built of wood. Picture this triangle as a mile and a half in its
greatest length and three-quarters of a mile in its greatest breadth.
This was the way Johnstown was ten days ago. Now imagine that in the
lower half of this triangle, where the