Some heeded the note of alarm at Johnstown; others had heard it before, doubted, and waited until death overtook them. Young Parke climbed up into the mountains when the water was almost at his horse's heels, and saw the deluge pass. Less fortunate was Daniel Peyton, a rich young man of Johnstown. He heard at Conemaugh the message sent down from South Fork by the gallant Parke. In a moment he sprang into the saddle. Mounted on a grand, big, bay horse, he came riding down the pike which passes through Conemaugh to Johnstown, like some angel of wrath of old, shouting his warning: "Run for your lives to the hills! Run to the hills!" The people crowded out of their houses along the thickly settled streets awe-struck and wondering. No one knew the man, and some thought he was a maniac and laughed. On and on, at a deadly pace, he rode, and shrilly rang out his awful cry. In a few moments, however, there came a cloud of ruin down the broad streets, down the narrow alleys, grinding, twisting, hurling, over-turning, crashing--annihilating the weak and the strong. It was the charge of the flood, wearing its coronet of ruin and devastation, which grew at every instant of its progress. Forty feet high, some say, thirty according to others, was this sea, and it travelled with a swiftness like that which lay in the heels of Mercury. On and on raced the rider, on and on rushed the wave. Dozens of people took heed of the warning and ran up to the hills. Poor, faithful rider! It was an unequal contest. Just as he turned to cross the railroad bridge the mighty wall fell upon him, and horse, rider, and bridge all went out into chaos together. A few feet further on several cars of the Pennsylvania Railroad train from Pittsburg were caught up and hurried into the cauldron, and the heart of the town was reached. The hero had turned neither to the right nor left for himself, but rode on to death for his townsmen. When found Peyton was lying face upward beneath the remnants of massive oaks, while hard by lay the gallant horse that had so nobly done all in his power for humanity before he started to seek a place of safety for himself. Mrs. Ogle, the manager of the Western Union telegraph office, who died at her post, will go down in history as a heroine of the highest order. Notwithstanding the repeated notifications which she received to get out of reach of the approaching danger, she stood by the instruments with unflinching loyalty and undaunted courage, sending words of warning to those in danger in the valley below. When every station in the path of the coming torrent had been warned, she wired her companion at South Fork: "This is my last message," and as such it shall always be remembered as her last words on earth, for at that very moment the torrent engulfed her and bore her from her post on earth to her post of honor in the great beyond.