ore bodies were awaiting burial. Passing
from one to another, she finally lifted the paper covering from the face
of a woman, young and with traces of beauty showing through the stains
of muddy water. With a cry of anguish she reeled backward, to be caught
by a rugged man who chanced to be passing. In a moment or so she had
calmed herself sufficiently to take one more look at the features of her
dead. She stood gazing at the unfortunate as if dumb. Finally turning
away with another wild burst of grief she said:--

"And her beautiful hair all matted and her sweet face bruised and
stained with mud and water."

The dead woman was the sister of the mourner. The body was placed in a
coffin a few minutes later and sent away to its narrow house.

These incidents are but fair samples of the scenes familiar to every
turn in this stricken city.

[Illustration: THE AWFUL RUSH OF WATERS.]

CHAPTER III.

The Horror Increases.

During the night thirty-three bodies were brought to one house. As yet
the relief force is not perfectly organized and bodies are lying around
on boards and doors. Within twenty feet of where this was written the
dead body of a colored woman lies.

Provision has been made by the Relief Committee for the sufferers to
send despatches to all parts of the country. The railroad company has a
track through to the bridge. The first train arrived about half-past
nine o'clock this morning. A man in a frail craft got caught in the
rapids at the railroad bridge, and it looked as if he would increase the
already terrible list of dead, but fortunately he caught on a rock,
where he now is and is liable to remain all day.

The question on every person's lips is--Will the Cambria Iron Company
rebuild? The wire mill is completely wrecked, but the walls of the
rolling mill are still standing. If they do not resume it is a question
whether the town will be rebuilt. The Hungarians were beginning to
pillage the houses, and the arrival of police was most timely. Word had
just been received that all the men employed by Peabody, the Pittsburgh
contractor, have been saved.

The worst part of this disaster has not been told. Indeed, the most
graphic description that can be written will not tell half the tale. No
pen can describe nor tongue tell the vastness of this devastation.

I walked over the greater part of the wrecked town this morning, and one
could not have pictured such a wreck, nor could one have imagined