Cameron County press. [volume] (Emporium, Cameron County, Pa.) 1866-1922, 1902-02-20
CHAPTER XIV,

the track cf it, nerveless and horror
! shaken. The sun was shining as
| brightly as before, and the Sabbath
stiffness was in the air. 1t seemed
inconceivable that, but a few mo-
ments before, the great ravine had
been the scene of a tragedy in which
three lives had gone out like match
! flares in a tornado. In the basin be-
tween the mountain and the hog
back, fumes, bitches and trail had
disappeared, and the very face of
nature was changed. Where Mac
pherson's placer bar had been there
was now gullying eddy; and a new
bar had formed farther down the
! stream.
| was obliged to head the northern
gulch to reach the gap in the hog
back, and when the strath of the set
tlement came in view | scarcely recog-
nized it. The tidal wave released by
the crumbling dam had been checked
for an instant by the narrow gap in
the ridge, and its charge upon the
titled lands beyond had been like the
bursting of a second barrier. | can
compare the devastation to nothing
but the track of a crevasse on the
lower Mississippi. Settlers holding,
and the two farms adjoining, were
swept clean, not only of buildings
and fences, but of the very son in the
fields. bitches were gone, boundaries
obliterated, the great barrack below
the engineers camp was demolished,
and as far as the eye could reach
down the valley the main canal was
filled and leveled until its course
could scarcely be traced. But for
the gathering at the schoolhousc on
the knoll, the loss of life must have
been terrible: and as it was, | could
scarcely hope that the tragedy of
which | had been an awe-striclten
witness was the only one.
When | topped the shoulder of the
hog back the schoolhouse knoll and
the bit of road beyond the flood level
were black with hurrying figures.
Macpherson was the first to meet me
as l picked my way across what,
few minutes earlier, had been the
Setter infeld. His greeting was an
incoherent upbubbling of thankful
ness, since he had taken it for grant
ed that | had been swept away with
the Setter house. There was no time
for explanations, and / made none.
Angus told me where to find his
team and blackboard, and, asking me
to look after the women at the
schoolhouse, hurried away to organ
ize a rescue party. | found the team,
did what there was to be done, and
when the excitement had little sub
sided took Winifred in the blackboard
and set out to find shelter for her
and for myself. We found accommo-
dation at the Byres ranch, whose
house was farthest removed from the
scene of devastation, and there con-
tented ourselves as best we might
while the details of the disaster
tricled in by Titles. 1t was soon dis
covered that only Setter and his
daughtera the engineer were miss
ing, but it was not until the evening
Of the following day that Angus
came to make his report. l saw him
coming and went few rods down
the road to meet him.
1.-TWO sure, and a possible third"
he said, anticipating my query.
"They're all accounted for except
three, and two of the three were
found on the bar below the engi-
neer's camp this afternoon"
"Wykamp?" l asked.
"Yes; Wykamp and Nan Setter.
They must have been overtallen to-
gether somewhere"
"They WERE" | said; and I told
| hn OF ,f tT-aC in,
canyon so far as it touched these
two.
"You say he tried to save her?
There was a bit of the man in him,
after all, wasn't there?"
Angus had shown no disposition
to go up to the farmhouse, where
Winifred was sitting on the porch,
and we had drawn aside to sit on
the embankment of the dry Byres
ditch.
"He did save her. I rejoined; "she
would have gone down in the first
rush of the wave over the top of the
dam if he hadn't reached her just in
the nick of time and carried her be-
yond the sweep of it,
"And after that, they stopped to
look at it, you say. That was the en-
gineer in him; betting on his own
game to the very last"
"They were safe enough, so far as
the cloudburst was concerned" |
amended and then: "Have you
found Selter?"
mo; and that's bit curious. His
wife says he went hunting on the
| t,;,
ing"
You'll never find him-alive."
"What! How do you know?"
"Answer me one question, and
then I'll tell you. Does anyone sus-
pect that it was more than cloud
burst?"
"Why, of course not. 1t was
cloudburst. Kilgore and the Barnes
boys have been up the canyon beyond
| the dam, and the track of it can be