60 Report of the Forest Commission. 



for your lives.' I felt as though I was burning up. My mouth got dry, and I 

 could feel my tongue swelling. My eyeballs seemed starting out of my head. 

 For a moment I felt the flaims above and all around me. I think I lost con- 

 sciousness. I don't know how long I was under the water, but it seemed an 

 age. When I raised my head the flames had jumped across the lake. All 

 around the lake the woods were on fire, and a wall of flame, seemingly 15 or 20 

 feet high, completely hemmed us in. By this time our train was a mass of 

 flames, and the heat from it finally obliged us to again seek relief under the 

 water. 



" How the women and children stood it is a mystery. As some poor creature 

 became overcome and swooned she was supported and cared for until the awful 

 heat had passed . For four long hours we stayed in the swamp, with the 

 water to our waists, waiting for the shore to cool. When that time arrived it 

 was found that Mr. Holt, Mr. Anderson and myself were the strongest of the 

 party, and so we offered to go for relief . 



"Through Fire. 



"In my grip were a couple of dress shirts and a night robe, besides some 

 other articles of wearing apparel . We tore the shirts into strips and wound 

 the cloth about our feet till they were pretty well protected from the burning 

 cinders over which we must pass. Then we wrapped our coats about our 

 heads, after saturating the garments thoroughly in the water, and started on 

 our journey to Hinckley. We stumbled and struggled on, now running 

 through a wall of flame and anon barely escaping being crushed beneath a 

 falling telegraph pole or a giant tamarac burned in twain. We stumbled over 

 dead bodies, and on the way to Hinckley we counted 29 lying alongside the 

 railroad track. Some of these had been riding on the platform, and had been 

 overcome by the heat and fallen to the track. 



" Help at Last. 



"At last, more dead than alive, we arrived at what once was Hinckley. 

 There was not a living person in sight The Hinckley bridge was unsafe to 

 cross, but the river was low and we waded. On the way across we found five 

 bodies in the water — two children, one woman and two men. Reaching the 

 other side, we took the railroad track again and started for Mission Creek, four 

 miles south of Hinckley. We had gone but a short distance when we came to 

 an abandoned handcar, which we placed on the track, and on it rode into 

 Mission Creek. We found that city, too, a complete ruin. Not a house remained 

 standing. A few miles further on we came to a work train, and this took us 

 to Pine City, which place we reached at 11 o'clock at night. 



"A relief party was at once organized, and started on the work train for 

 Skunk Lake. 



"Mr. Anderson, who accompanied me, lost $20,000 in government bonds 

 which he had with him in a grip, which was burned on the train." 



London, September 3. — Most of the London newspapers make editorial com- 

 ments this morning upon the disasters by the forest fires in Minnesota and 

 Wisconsin. 



