e got our
names in a paper the people in Ridgeville would know as much about our
business as we do ourselves. There are several reporters here jotting
down names and telegraphing them. I made a point of not registering just
now--paid in advance to get around it."

Young as she was, Dora understood what he meant. The supper came, was
eaten, and they gave their places to other applicants for seats at the
table. Dora looked tired and he sent her to her room. He had decided to
sit up all night, but he did not tell her so. He saw a stream of
sight-seers going toward the flaring gorge, and he joined them. More
than a thousand persons were now massed along the brink of the ravine,
in the depths of which lay a vast heap of coals, red-hot iron, twisted
steel rails, and the burly outlines of the unconsumed locomotive, over
which the ashes and coals had settled like a pall of scarlet.

In the light of a lantern held by a trainman a reporter on the steps of
the chair-car sat rapidly making notes on a pad with a pencil. Suddenly
he saw a man passing and called out to him:

"Hey, Timmons!" he cried. "Any more names?"

"Oh yes! I was looking for you," the man addressed answered, and he drew
a slip of paper from his pocket. "Here you are. Take 'em down quick. I
have to wire my own list in right away. T. B. Wrenshall, wife and child,
St. Louis. Got that? Begins with a W, not an R. They say he was a
traveling-man, but that doesn't matter. It is the list my people want.
Here is another: Mrs. Marie Dugan, Nashville, also Miss Satterlee,
Atlanta--a school-teacher, they say, but I'm not sure, so leave that
out."

"All right. Thank you, Timmons," and the two reporters parted.

John paused, leaned against the car near the man with the pad, and idly
watched his rapidly moving pencil. Something, he knew not what, seemed
to hold him there as for some occult purpose. A conductor of one of the
sleeping-cars approached. "Press?" he asked, hurriedly.

"Yes, here I am," muttered the reporter.

"Here is a complete list of all my passengers," the conductor said, "all
alive and checked up."

"All right, but it is the dead ones I'm after," the reporter said,
taking the paper and pinning it to his notes.

John moved a few feet away. Again he viewed the red ruins, peering over
the brink as into the heart of an active volcano. A thought had come to
him, but he was irresolute. He looked back at the reporter. The man was
still on the steps at work.