The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1900-09-18

get mama, it makes no difference. about
me-"
These were the last words the noble
girl ever uttered, for since that moment
neither Of them have been seen and
Henry Ripley, after conducting his
mother to a place OF safety, turned back
to rescue them and was drowned.
will not attempt to describe the
scenes of that fearful Sunday or the day
following or the fruitless, desperate
search Bert kept up for the lost ones,
visiting all the morgues and looking into
upturned faces of hundreds of the dead.
I viii hasten on TO Monday evening,
when a young man named S. D. Arnold
who resides in Houston. and is a distant
kinsman and a. very dear friend of the
family with whom we were staying, ar
rived and offered to make the effort to
get US to Houston. He said the attempt
would be dangerous, but I told him
would rather face death a hundred times
than remain. So we decided to start at
once, but all our pIeadings failed to get
the two Brown children to 60 Bert
said that he would not leave until Mr..
Bryan come, and nothing could induce
Bessie to leave her brother. So after
fearful parting, we walked to the bay,
where Mr.. Arnold had a small sail boat.
Besides myself, there was a Mrs Mitch
ell and her niece. Miss Lila Gibson. We
entered the boat and Mr.. Arnold took
the tiller and<we started across the bay.
The father was comparatively quiet but
during the trip we passed hundreds OF
human bodies floating with upturned
faces upon the water, besides hundreds
Of carcasses of dead animals and much
wreckage I thought as we passed along
that we would be out Of these horrors
when we reached the beach, but was
sadly mistaken, for when we touched
shore there were human bodies every
where. The horror seemed greater.
Above 500 bodies were gathered up and
buried in trenches at Virginia Point.
When we landed it was quite dark A
big freight engine stranded, but upright,
stood near and we were lifted into the
cab. There were several newspaper cor
respondents there waiting for some
means TO get across the bay. There was
also a crowd of rufians who had Sc
curd a barrel Of whiskey which had been
washed UP by the waves, and they were
very drunk and were fighting and swear
ing around the cab and making the night
hideous with their cries. 1t was said
to be seven miles to where the RELIEF
| train was waiting, and we determined
| that we would not pass the night at
! that beach, and against the protests Of
! the correspondents, when the moon
| came UP we started on our long weary
march along the tracks where the rail-
road had been We arrived there soon
! after y o'clock and found that the re-
lief train had been gone an hour and
half Two railroad officials were there
working a gang Of la1borers on the track
They had a big fire. some whiskey and
a basket Of lunch. They made the party
welcome and gave us their coats to use
as wraps for protection from the heavy
dew and after making US swallow some
whiskey to stimulate US. opened up their
lunch baskets. and after our hunger had
been aDpea sed, fearing to let US go to
! sleep these two good samaratans kept
up the fire. sang coon songs, told stories
and did everything in their power to en-
terrain us and keep US awake until day.
| They made a big kettle Of strong, black
coffee. which we drank with relish.
| Then after awhile the relief train from
| Houston, with it's long line of sleepers,
and day coaches flied to the roof with
men, rolled up, and as quickly as pos
sible we got on a sleeper, where the
trainmen gave us every attention