elegram from
England gives $1,000. I will issue a general appeal to the public
to-night. Help comes from all quarters. Its universality greatly
encourages our people. I will communicate with you promptly if anything
unusual occurs.

"JAMES A. BEAVER."

CHAPTER X.

Thrilling Experiences.

JOHNSTOWN, Pa., June 3, 1889.--Innumerable tales of thrilling individual
experiences, each one more horrible than the others, are told.

Frank McDonald, a conductor on the Somerset branch of the Baltimore and
Ohio, was at the Pennsylvania Railroad depot in this place when the
flood came. He says that when he first saw the flood it was thirty feet
high and gradually rose to at least forty feet.

"There is no doubt that the South Fork Dam was the cause of the
disaster," said Mr. McDonald. "Fifteen minutes before the flood came
Decker, the Pennsylvania Railroad agent read me a telegram that he had
just received saying that the South Fork Dam had broken. As soon as he
heard this the people in station, numbering six hundred, made a rush for
a hill. I certainly think I saw one thousand bodies go over the bridge.
The first house that came down struck the bridge and at once took fire,
and as fast as the others came down they were consumed.

Saw a Thousand Persons Burn.

"I believe I am safe in saying that I saw one thousand bodies burn. It
reminded me of a lot of flies on fly paper struggling to get away, with
no hope and no chance to save them.

[Illustration: THE WRECKED HOUSES BURNING AT THE PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD
BRIDGE.]

"I have no idea that had the bridge been blown up the loss of life
would have been any less. They would have floated a little further with
the same certain death. Then, again, it was impossible for any one to
have reached the bridge in order to blow it out, for the waters came so
fast that no one could have done it.

"I saw fifteen to eighteen bodies go over the bridge at the same time.

"I offered a man $20 to row me across the river, but could get no one to
go, and finally had to build a boat and get across that way."

It required some exercise of acrobatic agility to get into or out of the
town. A slide, a series of frightful tosses from side to side, a run and
you had crossed the narrow rope bridge which spanned the chasm dug by
the waters between the stone bridge and Johnstown. Crossing the bridge
was an exciting task. Yet many women accomplished it rather than remain
in Johnstown. The bridg