E LAW.

Another is as follows:

PRIVATE PROPERTY.

NO FISHING OR HUNTING ON THESE PREMISES, UNDER
PENALTY OF THE LAW, $100.
SOUTH FORK HUNTING AND FISHING CLUB.

Only an Earthwork.

Strenuously as the club insisted upon exacting the full penalties and
extent of the law for encroachments upon its privileges, it was quite
heedless of the rights of others. There probably never was in the world
a case of such blind fatuity as that of the South Fork Fishing and
Hunting Club in building and maintaining its dam. From the first it must
have been known to every member of the club, as it certainly was to
every resident of the South Fork and Conemaugh Valleys, that if the
water ever began to run over the breast of the dam the dam itself would
give way. The dam was only a clay embankment. There was no masonry
whatever--at least there is none visible in the break. The bottom was of
brushwood and earth--some people in the South Fork valley say hay and
sand. In consequence, the people below the dam who knew how it was built
have always regarded it as a menace to their safety. Indeed, one man
employed in its construction was discharged by the club or its
contractor for protesting against the dam as insecure. His crime
consisted in declaring that an embankment made in that way could not
resist the force of an overflow. He was telling the simple truth, which
was clear to every one except men disposed to take chances.

CHAPTER XVIII.

A Walk Through the Valley of Death.

In the following graphic narrative one of the eye-witnesses of the
fearful ruin and slaughter represents himself as a guide, and if the
reader will consider himself as the party whom the guide is conducting,
a vivid impression of the scene of the great destruction may be
obtained.

"Hello, where on earth did you come from? And what are you doing here,
anyhow? Oh! you just dropped in to see the sights, eh? Well, there are
plenty of them and you won't see the like of them again if you live a
century. What's that? You have been wandering around and got tangled up
in the ruins and don't know where you are? Well, that's not strange. I
have been lost myself a dozen times. It's a wonder you haven't got
roasted by some of those huge bonfires. But here, you come with me. Let
me be your guide for the afternoon and I'll put you in the way of seeing
what is left of Johnstown.

"First, let's climb up this bluff just before us and we shall have a
first-