"Piled in windows in the angle of the stairway where the second balcony refugees were brought face to face and in a death struggle with the occupants of the first balcony, the dead covered a space fifteen or twenty feet square and nearly seven feet in depth. All were absolutely safe from the fire itself when they met death, having emerged from the theater proper into the separate building containing the foyer. In this great court there was absolutely nothing to burn and the doors were only a few feet away. There the ghastly pile lay, a mute monument to the powers of terror. Above and about towered shimmering columns and facades in polished marble, whose cold and unharmed surfaces seemed to bespeak contempt for human folly. In that portion of the Iroquois structure the only physical evidences of damages were a few windows broken during the excitement. EXITS WERE CHOKED WITH BODIES. "To that pile of dead is attributed the great loss of life within. The bodies choked up the entrance, barring the egress of those behind. Neither age nor youth, sex, quality or condition were sacred in the awful battle in the doorway. The gray and aged, rich, poor, young and those obviously invalids in life lay in a tangled mass all on an awful footing of equality in silent annihilation. "Within and above equal terrors were encountered in what at first seemed countless victims. Lights, patience and hard work brought about some semblance of system and at last word was given that the last body had been removed from the charnel house. A large police detail surrounded the place all night and with the break of day search of the premises was renewed, none being admitted save by presentation of a written order from Chief of Police O'Neill. Fire engines pumped away removing the lake of water that flooded the basement to the depth of ten feet. As the flood was lowered it began to be apparent that the basement was free of dead. SURVEY SCENE WITH HORROR. "Searchers gazing down from the heights of the upper balcony surveyed the scene of death below with horror stamped upon their faces. Fire had left its terrifying blight in a colorless, garish monotony that suggests the burned-out crater of an extinct volcano. In the wreckage, the scattered garments and purses, fragments of charred bodies and other debris strewn within thousands of bits of brilliantly colored glass, lay as they fell shattered in the fight against the flames. A few skulls were seen. FIND BUSHELS OF PURSES. "Five bushel baskets were filled with women's purses gathered by the police. A huge pile of garments was removed to a near-by saloon, where an officer guards them pending removal to some more appropriate place. The shoes and overshoes picked up among the seats fill two barrels to overflowing.