Report of the Forest Commission. 59 



serious until the train began backing up, and then there were some sights on 

 the train which can never be fully described. Men and women cried like 

 children, and in my coach I saw two men become crazed and jump through 

 the windows of the moving train to death. 



" When we reached Skunk Lake we all made a rush for the water. Father 

 and I clung to each other and were never separated. The heat when the fire 

 passed over the water was terrific. We had our overcoats wet and thrown 

 over our heads, and the fire burned the coats to a crisp. We were in the water 

 about four hours before the fire died out so that we could get to the shore, and 

 it was about 5 or 6 o'clock in the morning before the men came with handcars 

 from Mission Creek and took us to the worktrain which carried us to Pine 

 City. 



" The engineer of that train is a hero. He ran his engine to the lake when, 

 as I have since learned, the heat was so intense that his coat was burned from 

 his back. In our own coach the windows were broken by the heat. 



"After we got out of the water Conductor Tom Sullivan, of the train, started 

 for Rutledge, 13 miles north, over the route we had just traversed, to give the 

 alarm, and I have since heard that when he told the station agent at Rutledge 

 that his train was burned he went stark mad . 



" On the way back to Hinckley, over the six or seven miles between that and 

 Skunk Lake, I counted 28 bodies. At one place alongside the track, near 

 Hinckley, I saw the body of a woman burned beyond recognition. On her 

 poor, burned arm the woman clasped the body of an infant. The bodies of 

 five other children, which, I presume, belonged to her, were lying near by, 

 burned to a crisp/' 



The Rush at Hinckley. 



James E. Lobdell, a traveling agent for Noyes Bros. & Cutler, of St. Paul, 

 was a passenger on the burned train . 



" It was 4 o'clock in the afternoon when we showed up at Hinckley," said Mr. 

 Lobdell. " Before the train had come to a full stop a crowd of men, women 

 and children began clambering aboard. Men fought for a foothold on the 

 platforms, while weeping mothers passed their babes through the car windows, 

 willing to sacrifice themselves. The passengers became badly frightened when 

 they learnjed the cause of the mad scramble, and women fainted in their seats 

 and children screamed. As the train started back we could see the sparks 

 fiyiog past us. Conductor Tom Sullivan passed through the train and tried to 

 calm the passengers by telling them that the train was being backed to Skunk 

 Lake, where we would all find protection in the water. We were only 10 

 minutes running to Skunk Lake. The conductor told us the fire was close 

 behind us. The passengers scrambled off pell-mell, and rushed for the shallow 

 water . The roar of the flames could be heard south of us, toward Hinckley, 

 even before we reached the swamp . A number of the women fainted before 

 getting to the water, and were picked up by the male passengers . 



"Hours of Torture. 

 " I had a small traveling grip along with me, and carried it into the water. 

 We had been in the lake scarcely half a minute when, through the wall of 

 smoke, there burst a sea of flame. Somebody shouted, ' Get under the water 



