CARE OF THE SURVIVORS.
An engine house stood on the bank. It was the place where water was
pumped from the river to the tank, at the depot buildings. It was a
little brick building with a stone floor and a large boiler and engine
occupying the middle of the room. Into this building, the wounded were
taken, and were laid on the cold, damp floor,--a ghastly throng. As
citizens came, they found them there, suffering from the cold as well
as from the shock and wounds. The effort was made to take them to
places of more comfort, but where to take them was the question. No
one was there at the time to command. A few men were there to assist;
some were there to plunder, and more had come not knowing for what they
came. A long, weary flight of steps led from the gorge to the track
above. Up this flight the wounded were taken. On the other side the
access to the wreck was only through the deep snow and down the steep
bank. A line of men was formed at last. Up both sides of the track the
wounded are helped, passed from hand to hand where they are able to
stand. Others were borne by the citizens, and so by degrees, with pains
and groans and amid the wild excitement, the most of them were removed.
The nearest house to the scene was a place called the “Eagle Hotel,”
kept by Patrick Mulligan. Into this, by some chance, eleven of the
wounded were carried. It was a horrid place. A dirty bar-room. Rooms
which had never known a carpet, but whose floors were soon covered with
snow and water; little bed-rooms just large enough to hold a bed and
wash-stand, without carpets or stove; beds that consisted of filthy
sheets and miserable straw ticks. It was a house forbidding in every
respect. Into this place the wounded were taken, bleeding and gashed,
and laid two by two on the miserable pallets. There they lay in the
clothes which they had on, covered with blood, cold and cheerless,
while crowds of curious spectators trooped in and out through the weary
hours of the long and dreadful night.
Others fortunately were taken to better quarters, but even some of
these were robbed on the way of the money which they had in their
pockets by the very persons who pretended to assist them in their
helpless state.
Teams were secured. A road was broken. Into the gorge sleds are with
difficulty taken down, and into these the badly wounded are placed.
The two little children who had escaped are also taken in these, badly
burned and insensible, and placed with their father in a private house.
The mother is moved, and laid in another house, and lies in great
agony. A young girl, timid and frightened, whose limbs are broken,
is separated from her aunt, and placed among strangers. Amid great
confusion those who are able, walk to the hotel, some of them pursued
by those who would rob them. A father calls out from a stretcher for a
daughter whom strangers are taking in another direction, and becomes
almost frantic with excitement until the girl is brought back to him.
The poor burned woman whose children are dead is borne to the “Culver
House.”
The bruised, gashed and bleeding passengers are at last removed from
the valley. They are distributed through the neighborhood. Upon couches
and beds of the few hotels; upon the counters of stores; on the floors
of private houses; and even in the saloons--they are scattered until
the whole vicinity becomes a hospital. The surgeons are all at work.
The wounds are hastily dressed. The blood is washed away. Many are
wrapped in warm coverings. Comparative quiet and rest settle down. The
spectators have left the smoking ruins, and in curious crowds have
trooped through the houses and have gradually disappeared. Those on
the abutment returned to their homes. The firemen themselves disperse.
The last one in the engine house has gone. Only a very few are left to
guard the dead.
A wild and lonely scene remains. The dead are left there alone. The
snow drifts toward the smoking ruins. Nature weaves a white shroud.
Night draws down a black pall. The silence of the grave settles upon
the lonely spot. A flickering light from the funeral pyre sends up a
glare through the darkness, and the dead stare from the blackened bars
with eyeless sockets, and the bodies are left to burn.
It is a horrible, heart-sickening sight, the bodies still smoulder in
the burning grave, and the smell of their flesh arises on the darkening
air.
[Illustration]