THE ROBBERS.
The fire continued to burn. For a time the wreck was left unguarded.
When it was, that so much plundering occurred no one knows. The flames
were lifting up their lurid light, and covering the ghastly scene with
a sickening glare. The dead lay in every direction amid the driving
snow. A skull lay by itself amid a blackened heap, whitened by the
fire. The heap of bodies lying in the sleeping-coaches were still
burning, and yet this appalling scene did not intimidate the human
vultures who were looking for their prey. The ravening wolf that prowls
at night would be driven from such a horrid place by very fear. The
hearts of men were on that fearful night more greedy than wolves or
vultures are, for amid that awful wreck they sought for spoil. One and
another of the wounded had been robbed. Men were more merciless to
their fellows than the cruel flames.
One young man, who had lost both mother and sister, was suffering from
four broken ribs and a severe gash in the head. As he looked up and saw
the men standing and watching, the thought of robbers crossed his mind.
He had a valuable watch, a present from his father, and two purses,
one containing fifty dollars in bills, and the other a few dollars in
change and his mother’s jewelry. As the thought of thieves came up, he
turned around with his back to the crowd and dropped his watch down his
neck inside his shirt, and there left it suspended by the chain next
to his person. One purse he placed inside his vest and in an inside
pocket, and the other was left in the pocket of his pantaloons.
Some one offered to assist him up the stairs. As he reached the top
this person disappeared and another came. Taking him by the arm, the
robber drew it out in such a way that the broken ribs gave intense pain
and caused the poor boy to faint and fall. As he fell, he remembers
to have felt a hand reached into his bosom, and then he became
unconscious, and lay upon the snow. When he came to himself, his purses
and his ticket to California were gone, and all he had left was the
watch he had hidden and the clothes he wore. Among strangers, with
mother and sister both dead, the poor young man was at last taken to a
hotel and telegraphed the sad news to his father in the distant home.
Another gentleman, as he was being helped to a hotel, was robbed of
all that he had in his vest pocket, on the side towards the one who
supported him. Still another was followed by a person who pretended to
be a physician and offered to assist, but escaped by threats and such
speed as he could command.
Much valuable property was removed from the bodies of the dead. One
gentleman had upon his person a valuable diamond pin, a commander’s
badge, a Sir Knight’s pin and other valuable jewelry, but when his body
was found, nothing was left except a cheap pair of celluloid sleeve
buttons.
Watches were removed from chains, and the jewelry in trunks was taken
or mysteriously disappeared. More than $1,500 worth of valuable
articles were afterwards recovered by the Mayor by a proclamation, and
by detectives. A saloon keeper was found to have appropriated shawls
and satchels, and others were found to have diamonds and jewelry in
their possession which had been stolen.
A young man who had a splinter from the cornice of the car driven
through his collar bone was robbed of $300 in money at the Eagle Hotel
where he lay, and a gentleman from Hartford had his boots taken from
his feet and carried away.
The dead in the valley and the wounded in the streets, and the
survivors in other places were alike subject to this villainous
pillaging. A pair of dominos, or black masks, were found, showing how
deliberate had been the robbery with the villains who were out that
night.
Scarcely anything of value was left after the wreck. One gentleman who
had $7,000 on his person was killed and his pocket book found, but
the money was gone. Trunks containing the wardrobes of brides, and
the jewelry of the wealthy, were burned and destroyed. Watches were
burned in the fierce flames until the gold was melted into nuggets,
and everything that could be treasured by friends, whether it was the
clothes of the dead or the precious keepsakes they had, or the bodies
which were more precious than jewels, all disappeared and not a relic
or trace could be found.
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