ce between so-called modern
warfare and the present street-fighting and sky-scraper fighting that
was taking place all over the city. I followed them intently, fixing up
my hair at the same time and pinning together my torn skirts. And all
the time the killing of the wounded went on. Sometimes the revolver
shots drowned the voices of Garthwaite and the officer, and they were
compelled to repeat what they had been saying.

I lived through three days of the Chicago Commune, and the vastness of
it and of the slaughter may be imagined when I say that in all that time
I saw practically nothing outside the killing of the people of the abyss
and the mid-air fighting between sky-scrapers. I really saw nothing of
the heroic work done by the comrades. I could hear the explosions of
their mines and bombs, and see the smoke of their conflagrations, and
that was all. The mid-air part of one great deed I saw, however, and
that was the balloon attacks made by our comrades on the fortresses.
That was on the second day. The three disloyal regiments had been
destroyed in the fortresses to the last man. The fortresses were crowded
with Mercenaries, the wind blew in the right direction, and up went our
balloons from one of the office buildings in the city.

Now Biedenbach, after he left Glen Ellen, had invented a most powerful
explosive--"expedite" he called it. This was the weapon the balloons
used. They were only hot-air balloons, clumsily and hastily made, but
they did the work. I saw it all from the top of an office building. The
first balloon missed the fortresses completely and disappeared into the
country; but we learned about it afterward. Burton and O'Sullivan were
in it. As they were descending they swept across a railroad directly
over a troop-train that was heading at full speed for Chicago. They
dropped their whole supply of expedite upon the locomotive. The
resulting wreck tied the line up for days. And the best of it was that,
released from the weight of expedite, the balloon shot up into the
air and did not come down for half a dozen miles, both heroes escaping
unharmed.

The second balloon was a failure. Its flight was lame. It floated too
low and was shot full of holes before it could reach the fortresses.
Herford and Guinness were in it, and they were blown to pieces along
with the field into which they fell. Biedenbach was in despair--we heard
all about it afterward--and he went up alone in the third balloon. He,
too