{p. 418}

over the planks and putting out the fire, and then the worst had passed.  The earth around was on fire in spots, house and mill were gone, leaves, brush, and logs were swept clean away as if shaved off and swept with a broom, and nothing but soot and ashes were to be seen."[1]

In Wisconsin, at Williamson’s Mills, there was a large but shallow well on the premises belonging to a Mr. Boorman.  The people, when cut off by the flames and wild with terror, and thinking they would find safety in the water, leaped into this well.  “The relentless fury of the flames drove them pell-mell into the pit, to struggle with each other and die—­some by drowning, and others by fire and suffocation.  None escaped. Thirty-two bodies were found there.  They were in every imaginable position; but the contortions of their limbs and the agonizing expressions of their faces told the awful tale."[2]

The recital of these details, horrible though they may be, becomes excusable when we remember that the ancestors of our race must have endured similar horrors in that awful calamity which I have discussed in this volume.

James B. Clark, of Detroit, who was at Uniontown, Wisconsin, writes: 

“The fire suddenly made a rush, like the flash of a train of gunpowder, and swept in the shape of a crescent around the settlement.  It is almost impossible to conceive the frightful rapidity of the advance of the flames.  The rushing fire seemed to eat up and annihilate the trees.”

They saw a black mass coming toward them from the wall of flame: 

“It was a stampede of cattle and horses thundering toward us, bellowing moaning, and neighing as they galloped

[1.  See “History of the Great Conflagration,” Sheahan & Upton, Chicago, 1871, p. 390.

2.  Ibid., p. 386.]

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on; rushing with fearful speed, their eyeballs dilated and glaring with terror, and every motion betokening delirium of fright.  Some had been badly burned, and must have plunged through a long space of flame in the desperate effort to escape.  Following considerably behind came a solitary horse, panting and snorting and nearly exhausted.  He was saddled and bridled, and, as we first thought, had a bag lashed to his back.  As he came up we were startled at the sight of a young lad lying fallen over the animal’s neck, the bridle wound around his hands, and the mane being clinched by the fingers.  Little effort was needed to stop the jaded horse, and at once release the helpless boy.  He was taken into the house, and all that we could do was done; but he had inhaled the smoke, and was seemingly dying.  Some time elapsed and he revived enough to speak.  He told his name—­Patrick Byrnes—­and said:  ’Father and mother and the children got into the wagon.  I don’t know what became of them.  Everything is burned up.  I am dying.  Oh! is hell any worse than this?’"[1]

How vividly does all this recall the book of Job and the legends of Central America, which refer to the multitudes of the burned, maimed, and wounded lying in the caverns, moaning and crying like poor Patrick Byrnes, suffering no less in mind than in body!