ng. She was laughing over the
adventure she and her children had. They floated down the creek to the
bridge and then floated back again, and were finally rescued in boats. I
asked her how she could joke about it.

"'Oh!' she said, 'I am never bothered about anything. I was as cool then
as I am now, and rather enjoyed it.'

"But she wasn't very cool. She was bordering on the hysterical. She and
her children are now living with friends, for their house was completely
wrecked.

A Telegraph Office.

"A good many people had experiences similar to hers before the river
broke through the railroad embankment just above the bridge here and
swept tracks and everything else down upon the Cambria Iron Works. There
they are, just behind us. I will mark them on the map--No. 11. Then the
flow rushed through Cambria City, just below. That place is in a
horrible condition--houses wrecked and streets full of debris. But there
is no necessity of going there. You can see all the horrors you want
right here.

"Look across the bridge, up the hill a little way. Do you see that old,
tumble-down coal shed? It is where the Western Union established its
office, and in that neighborhood most of the reporters have been
living--sleeping in brick-kilns, hay lofts, tents, anywhere in fact.
What a nice time they have had of it. They have suffered as much as the
flood victims.

"Phew! What a stench. It comes from the debris in the river. It is full
of the dead bodies of horses, dogs; yes, and of human beings. We hear
stories occasionally of women being taken from that mass alive. They are
false, of course, but there was one instance that is authentic. A woman
was found one week after the flood still breathing. She had been caught
in some miraculous way. She was taken to Pittsburgh, where she died. I
was kicking about over the debris a day or two ago, and heard a cat
mewing under the debris somewhere. I know half a dozen people who have
rescued kittens and are caring for them tenderly. A flood cat will
command a premium before long, I have no doubt.

"Ha! What's that? Yes, it is a body. The sight is so common now that
people pay no attention to it. We have been living in the midst of so
much death, of so many scenes of a similar character, that I suppose the
sensibilities have become hardened to them. There, they are placing the
body on a window shutter and are carrying it up to the school-house. It
will be laid on a board placed over the tops