Report of the Forest Commission. 55 



post. We knew we were safe in making time, for we could return on No. 23's 

 time, and. as this train had the right of way, we knew that no other train 

 would dare to stay on the main line without orders, if moving south. "We 

 hastily coupled a portion of Campbell's freight train, with the engine ahead, 

 on to the rear of our train. The flame-pursued people rushed toward our train 

 and piled into the cars. Some of them were aged, and there were women and 

 children who had to be helped aboard. We had to shift the position of the 

 train several times to prevent it taking fire. We were almost breathing fire as 

 it was. We saw people fall down, overcome by the heat and smoke. I saw 

 mothers with their babes make a despairing effort to shelter their helpless 

 charges. 



A few of our passengers became panic-stricken and wanted me to pull out, 

 regardless of the sufferers at Hinckly. but none of us thought of doing such a 

 cowardly act. We got about 100 Hinckley people aboard, maybe more, and 

 slipped off to take the others who had run up the track. We could not rescue 

 all the people, for they could not get on the train. As many as came to us 

 were taken. 



St. Cloud, Minn , September 4.— Near Milaca a family of five [took refuge 

 in a well. The fire extended to the woodwork surrounding it, and after the 

 woodwork was burned off, the well caved in, and all five perished by drown- 

 ing. A dispatch from Mora, Minn., says that many of those injured in the 

 Pokegama fire are dying, and that the number of deaths may exceed 50. A 

 carload of merchandise for distribution among the sufferers of Pokegama was 

 sent out from here yesterday afternoon, and is being distributed there now by 

 a committee of the City Council. 



[From the New York World, September 4, 1894.] 



Hinckley, Minn., Sept. 3. — For miles and miles, as far as the eye can see, 

 there is a scene of desolation and horror. A desert of charcoal, sprinkled 

 with shapeless lumps of charred flesh. That is a picture of the fire-scourged 

 region of Minnesota, of which the town of Hinckley is the center. 



The fire spared nothing save in caprice. It devoured forests, towns, men 

 and women, cattle, railways, factories and the peaty surface of the earth. 

 To-day the smitten region lies bald and ashy, still glowing here and there with 

 flames. A leaden sky overhead promises the prayed-for rain. 



Through all this fire-scorched region hundreds of families lie helpless, shel- 

 terless, without food. They know not who are their dead, and if they did 

 they have not a penny for decent burial. 



The afflicted country is most easily entered from St. Paul. It is 75 miles 

 north of that city in the pine country. The first train out of St. Paul since 

 the calamity passed through northward to-night. Its passengers saw more 

 and more frequent strips of timber flaming and smoking. Sometimes the 

 fire had burned too much to complete the work. It had left the tall pine trees 

 like skeletons. Again, the fire had eaten deeper and left the ground a tangle 

 of fallen trunks. In other places the stumps had been eaten away below the 

 surf ace of the earth. Whichever way one looked the fire seemed to have 

 extended in every direction clear to the horizon. 



