Arizona republican., 1904-08-09
THE RIVER OF DEATH.
The Doomed Train Approached in Sil-
 cnce and Darkness.

Pueblo, Cole. Aug. S.-Two carloads of human freight plunged into the rag ing torrent that destroyed the trestle over the usually dry arroya, known as Steei's Hollow, near Eden, about o'clock last evening Two sleeping cars and the diner stopped at the brink of the chasm filled with a boil ing, seething current that quickly snuffed out probably one hundred lives. So quietly had the catastrophe been enacted that the occupants of these cars did not realize that an acci- dent had occurred until they had alighted from the train, and they were powerless to render assistance to the victims. who had disappeared in the rushing waters.
 On the lookout for danger. warned by the squally clouds and heavy rains to the north. Engineer Charles TIindman was running cautiously about fifteen miles an hour. as he approached the arroyl, which was spanned by bridge 96 feet in length. The condition of the bridge Was not known until the loco- motive, one of the monster type, had nearly crossed. Fireman Frank May field, with a large torch that the en- gineer and fireman had been using to ascertain the condition of the track, Was in the gangway. When Engineer HinGman felt the tremor in the great machine and caught a glimmer of the water, he shouted his last words: Put out that torch" evidently thinking tEat in the accident he felt certain was coming. the flames would serve to spread the fire
 But before Mayfield could obey. and while the words were still on the lips of the doomed man, and his hand seeking the mechanism controlling the engine, the bridge gave way as if it ' had been a stack of kindling wood and the locomotive dropped with a hissing Of steam through thirty feet of flood to the bottom of the arroya, crosswise with the track.
 The baggage car, smoking car and a chair car followed the locomotive into | the stream and were swept away. All ! the occupants of these cars, save three men. perlshed. and had not the roof l of the chair car bursted asunder, none would have escaped. The fireman, ag | the locomotive went over. was thrown | out and, managing to grasp a piece | Of wreckage from the bridge, foated with that to a curve made by caving ! &nk and crepr out of the water. He Iran toward Eden, meeting on the way | Operator F. M. Jones and his wife, who l had already started up the track. They | had seen the headlight of the ap- ! preaching train a minute before and l then witnessed it disappear with omin- | ous audiences.
 | Notify Pueblo" came the voice of
 the running man. The train has gone | down and everybody is killed" Even J as he spoke, relates the operator there 1 were cries coming from the distance.
 The two men ran to where the bridge | had been. to search, but in vain, for | victims of the disaster. When they
 reached the spot, all cries for help had 1 ceased.
 Relief trains with physicians, wreck
 and pile driving outfits and scores of
 workmen were hurried from the city | The first train from the wreck came
 in shortly after midnight with J. NJ Killfn of Pueblo. whose escape was
 miraculous. H. s. Gilbert, Tony Fisher
 and Fireman Mayfeld These were the | four men in the fidst nf the wreck who
 escaped.
 When the dawn came the wonder grew that the four had been permitted
 to emerge from the raging torrent with breath still in their bodies. The great 1 locomotive boiler, free of machinery, | tab and tank gone, lies where it fell A quarter of q mile to the east
 where this gorge of death debouched 1 into the Fountain, lay the chair car the windows gone, three-fourths filled
 with mud and sand. hundred feet farther on was the smoker, bottom UT against a sandbank. A hundred and fifty feet farther in the bed of the Fountain. was the coal tender of the engine. and from that point on fol | four or five miles, vestiges of the l coaches, engine and tender stuck uI from the bed of the stream or lay l along the shore or on the islands. Bits of clothing. coats, skirts and women's hats were found in the brush along the 1 shore and searchers scanned the fol iaGe for bodies.
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