d by the instruments with unflinching
loyalty and undaunted courage, sending words of warning to those in
danger in the valley below. When every station in the path of the coming
torrent had been warned she wired her companion at South Fork, "This is
my last message," and as such it shall always be remembered as her last
words on earth, for at that very moment the torrent engulfed her and
bore her from her post on earth to her post of honor in the great
beyond.

Another Hero.

A telegraph operator at the railroad station above Mineral Point, which
is just in the gorge a short distance below the dam, and the last
telegraph station above Conemaugh, had seen the waters rising, and had
heard of the first break in the dam. Two hours before the final break
came he sent a message to his wife at Mineral Point to prepare for the
flood. It read: "Dress the three children in their best Sunday clothes.
Gather together what valuables you can easily carry and leave the house.
Go to the stable on the hillside. Stay there until the water reaches
it; then run to the mountain. The dam is breaking. The flood is coming.
Lose no time."

His wife showed the message to her friends, but they laughed at her.
They even persuaded her to not heed her husband's command. The wife went
home and about her work. Meanwhile the telegraph operator was busy with
his ticker. Down to Conemaugh he wired the warning. He also sent it on
to Johnstown, then he ticked on, giving each minute bulletins of the
break. As the water came down he sent message after message, telling its
progress. Finally came the flood. He saw houses and bodies swept past
him. His last message was: "The water is all around me; I cannot stay
longer, and, for God's sake, all fly." Then he jumped out of his tower
window and ran up the mountain just in time to save himself. A whole
town came past as he turned and looked. Great masses of houses plunged
up. He saw people on roofs yelling and crying, and then saw collisions
of houses, which caused the buildings to crush and crumble like paper.

Racing with Death.

All the time he felt that his family were safe. But it was not so with
them. When the roar of approaching water came the people of Mineral
Point thought of their warning. The wife gathered her children and
started to run. As she went she forgot her husband's advice to go to the
mountain and fled down the street to the lowlands. Suddenly she
remembered she had left the key of