he said, "can
we not find men. Will not some of you men help? Look at these men who
have not slept for three days and are dropping with fatigue. We will pay
well. For God's sake help us." Tears rolled down his cheeks as he spoke.
Then he would threaten the group of idlers standing by and again plead
with them. Every man it seems wants to be a policeman.

CHAPTER VII.

Burial of the Victims.

Hundreds have been laid away in shallow trenches without forms,
ceremonies or mourners. All day long the work of burial has been going
on. There was no time for religious ceremonies or mourning and many a
mangled form was coffined with no sign of mourning save the honest
sympathy of the brave men who handled them. As fast as the wagons that
are gathering up the corpses along the stream arrive with their ghastly
loads they are emptied and return again to the banks of the merciless
Conemaugh to find other victims among the driftwood in the underbrush,
or half buried in the mud. The coffins are now beginning to arrive, and
on many streets on the hillside they are stacked as high as the second
and third story windows.

At Kernville the people are not so fortunate. It would seem that every
man is his own coffin maker, and many a man can be seen here and there
claiming the boards of what remains of his house in which perhaps he has
found the remains of a loved one, and busily patching them together with
nails and hoops or any available thing to hold the body.

When the corpses are found they are taken to the nearest dead house and
are carefully washed. They are then laid out in rows to await
identification. Cards are pinned to their breasts as soon as they are
identified, and their names will be marked on the headboards at the
graves.

Wholesale Funerals.

There were many rude funerals in the upper part of the town. The coffins
were conveyed to the cemeteries in wagons, each one carrying two, three
or more.

At Long View Cemetery and at one or two other points long trenches have
been dug to receive the coffins. The trenches are only about three feet
deep, it being thought unnecessary to bury deeper, as almost all the
bodies will be removed by friends. Nearly three hundred bodies were
buried thus to-day.

There will be no public ceremony, no funeral dirge, and but few weeping
mourners. The people are too much impressed with the necessity of
immediate and constant work to think of personal grief.

The twenty-six bod