rate view of things. Skip across this little temporary bridge over
this babbling brook and now--climb! Whew! that takes your breath,
doesn't it? But it is worth the trouble. Now you see we are standing on
an embankment perhaps thirty feet high. We are in the midst, too, of a
lot of tents. It is here that the soldier boys are encamped. Off to one
side you see the freight depot of the Pennsylvania Railroad and the
tracks, you notice, run along on the top of this embankment. It is in
that freight depot that Adjutant General Hastings has his headquarters.
We will walk over there presently, but first let's take a look at our
surroundings.

Prospect Hill.

"You notice, I suppose, that this flat spreading out before us at the
bottom of the embankment is inclosed on all sides by mountains. They are
shaped something like a triangle and we are standing at the base. Here,
let me make a rough sketch of it on the back of this envelope. It will
help us out a little. There! That figure 1 is the freight depot, near
which we are standing. Towering up above us are houses and up there a
canvas city for refugees. There is a temporary hospital there, too, and
a graveyard, where many a poor victim of the flood lies. The background
is a high hill. The people here call it Prospect Hill. The flood!
Gracious! what a view the people up the hill must have had of it as it
whirled, and eddied, and roared and rushed through the town, for this
great flat before us was where the main portion of Johnstown stood.

[Illustration]

"You notice that there are gaps in the mountain chains which form the
sides of the triangle. Through the gap at our left comes the Conemaugh
River, flowing from the mountain on its way westward. River, did I say?
I don't wonder you smile. It doesn't look much like a river--that little
bubbling stream. Can you imagine it swelling into a mighty sea, that
puny thing, that is smiling in its glee over the awful havoc it has
created? Now you are beginning to understand how it is that Johnstown
proper lies within the forks of two streams. The Conemaugh runs by us at
our feet to the right. See, there is a wrecked and overturned car down
there. If thrown across the stream it would almost bridge it. That is
Stony Creek on the other side of the flat, running down through that
gap which forms the apex of the triangle. It skirts the mountains on the
right and the two streams meet. You can't see the meeting point from
here, for our emba