Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-10-31
CHAPTER XVIII.-Continued.

1t was moment for action rather than
for words, and when he cleared the plat
form handrail and dropped, running, Lid
gerwood was only the fraction Of a sec
ond ahead of Van Lew and Jefferis. With
Bradford swinging his lantern for Will
liams and his fireman to come on, the
four men were at the wreck before the
cries of fright and agony had broken out
upon the awful stiffness following the
crash
There was quick work and heartbreak-
ing to be done, and for the first few
critical minutes a terrible lack of hands
to do it. Crawford the engineer, was
still in his cab, pinned down by the coal,
which had shifted forward at the shock
Of the sudden stop. In the wreck of the
tender, the ironwork of which was ram
med into shapeless crumplings by the up
reared trucks of the baggage car. lay the
fireman, past human help. as hasty side
swing of Bradford's lantern showed.
The baggage car, riding high upon the
crushed tender, was body-whoie, but the
smoker. day coach and sleeper were all
more or less shattered, with the smoking
car already beginning to blaze from the
broken lamps. 1t was a crisis to call out
the best in any gift of leadership. and
fective organization came out strong
under the hammer blow of the occasion:
"Stay here with Bradford and Jefferis
and get that engineer out!' he called to
Van Lew Then. with arms outspread.
he charged down upon the trains COM
pany. escaping as it could through the
broken windows Of the cars. This way,
every man of your he yelled, his shout
dominating the clamor of cries, crashing
glass and Kissing steam. 1.-The fires
va m oh m
to the river and pass water in anything
you can get hold of. Here, Groner. to
the train conductor, who was picking
himself up out of the ditch into which
body to the Pullman for blankets. Jump
for it, man, before this fire gets head
way!''
Luckily, there were by this time plenty
of willing hands to help. The Timan-
yoni is q mans country, and there were
few women in the trains passenger list.
Quickly a line was formed to the nearby
margin of the river. and water, in hats,
in buckets imprOvised out of pieces of tin
torn from the wrecked car roofs, in sat
urated coats cushion covers and Pullman
blankets, Missed upon the fire. beat it
down and presently extinguished it.
Then the work of extricating the i'm
prisoned ones began. light for it being
obtained by the hacking of Williams en-
CINE to the main line above the switch
scene.
Lidgerwood was fairly in the thick of
the rescue work, when Miss Brewster,
walking down the track from the service
car and bringing the two young women,
who were afraid to be left behind,
launched herself and her companions into
the midst of the nerve-racking horror.
"Give us something to do" she COM
manded, when he would have sent them
back; and he changed his mind and set
them at work binding up wounds and
caring for the injured, quite as If they
had been trained nurses sent from heaven
at the opportune moment.
In very little time the length and
and it's consequences alleviated. SO far as
they might be with the means at hand.
There were three killed outright in the
smoker, two in the half-filled day coach
and none In the sleeper; six in all, includ-
ing the fireman, pinned beneath the wreck
of the tender. Crawford, the engineer.
was dug out Of his coal-covered grave by
Van Lew and Jefferis, badly burned and
bruised, but still living; and there were a
score of other wodndlings. more or less
dreadful.
Red Butte was the nearest point from
which a relief train could be sent, and
Lidgerwood promptly cut the telegraph
wire, connected his pocket set of instru-
ments and sent in the call for help. That
done he transferred the pocket relay to
the other end of the cut wire and called
up the night dispatcher at Angels. For