f ruins. There is where many people were
saved. The current carried scores of men, women and children past it,
and those who had strength deserted their rafts and wrecks of houses and
crawled into its windows.

"Now our progress is blocked. That immense pile of wreckage is by no
means as high as it was; but you don't want to crawl over it yet. Phew!
Let's get out of this. How those piles of rubbish do smell. You know the
Board of Health says there is nothing the matter with Johnstown, but if
the Board of Health would only take the trouble to nose about a bit it
might learn a thing or two. You notice there have been grocery stores
and markets around here, and you notice, too, the pile of decaying
vegetable matter from them. These are worse than the dead bodies.

Horrible Scenes.

"Are there bodies under these ruins? Lots of them. There! what do you
see this minute? Those workmen have discovered one in the ruins of the
Merchants' Hotel. Poor fellow. He was pinned by falling walls, probably.
A man was found there the other day with his pockets full of money. He
had tried to save his fortune and lost his life. Near by a man was found
alive after an experience of a week in the debris. He called for water,
but never drank it. His tongue was too stiff, and he had not strength to
move a muscle. He died almost as soon as he was found.

"Well, did you ever see such a mass of wreckage? It doesn't look as if
there were twenty houses fit to live in all over this flat. But a good
many will be patched up after a fashion, no doubt. And this is only one
street out of several in the same condition.

"Hello! Those workmen are digging out of a cellar some barrels of
whisky. That liquor will be guarded, for the old policemen and the 'tin'
deputies have been having high old times with the liquor they have
unearthed. There were formerly forty-five saloons in this town. Do you
know how many there are left? Three. That's all. One saloon-keeper found
$1,700 in the ruins of his place.

"Gracious! There is a freight car. It was caught up half a mile or more
away and dumped down in this street. And there is a piano sticking out.
Hello! What have you found there? Oh, a looking glass. Yes, you find
plenty of them in the rubbish almost as good as new. A friend of mine
pulled out a glass pitcher and two goblets from that terrible mass at
the bridge, and there wasn't a crack upon them. Queer, isn't it? But so
it goes. Fragile things are not inju