Waterbury Democrat., 1901-03-02

l large strikes had ever been SucceSSful. But he hoped the owners might make such concessions that the union would agree to go back on large rise in pre- yioUs wages.
 So the week following communion Sunday opened with special meaning | to Stsart. It was a memorable week for Champion. The fever epidemic had reached it's height Most of it's victims were children. The number of deaths daily was appalling. Andrew, Eric, the doctor, the nurses, Rhena and Stu art, with all the available help from the Christian people in the town, were battling with the enemy with all the might of skill and the exercise of all that money and watchfulness could accomplish.
 Stuart and Rhena had met several times that week. Nearly always it was by the side of some dead or dying child. They said little. Each seemed to be waiting for something. Rhena was worn and thin, but there had come 1 into her eyes look she dared not let Stuart see. The winter had it's infiu- ence in addition to all this to repress and bear down the hearts of the peo- ple Never had such snowdrifts been known in Champion or such severe | cold. The nights set in with bitter winds sweeping down the hills, and after the evening train had plowed it's way out of the station on it's dreary trip westward Champion seemed to be abandoned by God and man. All con nectiOn with the outer world seemed cut off the iron hills shut down hard and close about the town, and the long, | terrible night began, a night of agony to those who lived and those who died. | The date of the great strike. and the great fever will never be forgotten by the children who were left untouched by the grim death.
 One night that week Stuart had come home very late, thoroughly exhausted, with the frost chill in his bones, the benumbing sense of his responsibility weighing him down and his heart cry ing out 70 Lord, how long, how long" He had gone up to his room and had sunk into q heavy sleep. He wakened between ? and 3 o'clock with a feeling of something wrong. It was so press ing that he rose and dressed and went to the window that looked out on the town. The night was one of the bitter l ing an icy gale through the valley. Even the Duncan mansion, warmed as it was with the best and most eXpen- give apparatus, felt the shock of the almost solid cold that struck through everything.
 Suddenly Stuart saw a light in the lower end of Cornishtown. The min CTS houses or cabins there were-built for the most part of logs or slabs from the mill They were crowded very close together at the lower part of the town. AS he looked the light famed up higher, and his heart bounded as he realized that one of the cabins was on | fire. The horror of it as he considered what such an accident meant on such a night stupefed him, but only fC.' second. The next instant he was down stairs, had flung himself into his ovG- coat, was out Of the house and speed ing down the road.
 | When he reached the square. lights were springing up in the windows all about. The alarm had reached the people, and they were rising. By the time he reached Cornishtown half a dozen houses were blazing. The min CTS had turned out in q body and were fighting the fire like fiends, but the in- tense cold, the high wind and the near ness of the cabins to one another at this part of the settlement made the fight most hopeless one.
 Stuart ordered all the sick and aged to be carried out of the houses nearest ! the fire and he himself worked like ten men, There was no water available. ! The engine and hose companies had made a desperate effort to reach the settlement, but the tremendous drifts ! and the condition of the roads made it ! impossible The snow itself was the only weapon within reach. It was piled over the low roofed cabins by the excited miners, who saved some houses on the edges by this novel method. But the wind swept everything before it in the center of the fire, and at last all that the men tried to do was to rescue the inmates.
 Stuart was helping some one carry a l dying child out of a cabin when q great blazing timber was caught up by the hurricane and flung as if by some giant hand right over the couch on which the child was lying and struck Stuart, knocking him off his feet and l other end of the burden to stagger and 1 fall. Stuart did not rise. At that ma ment pr. Saxon was coming out of the adjoining cabin. The man who had been helping Stuart rose and yelled for the doctor He came over and picked up Stuart as if he had been little boy and carried him clear down the path | to Fries cottage. The miners said afterward that Saxon's face, as it blazcd in the light of that horrible fire. was the face of one who looked both death and he'll in the countcnance and defied them to steal away his beloved. | Fries cottage was out of the line of | the wind and fire that night. The doctor laid Stuart down. As he did I so a woman rushed into the cottage and flung herself down by the side of the body. It was Rhena, and she | E IT a \