And claim them it did, searching them out with ruminating tongues of flame. Over every inch of paint and decoration, every tapestry, curtain and seat top it licked its way with insinuating eagerness. It pursued its victims beyond the confines of the theater walls, grasping in its deadly embrace those who lay across windows or prostrate on galleries and platforms. Thousands gazed on in helpless horror, watching the flames bestow a fatal caress upon many who had crept far, far from the blaze and almost into a zone of safety. With a gliding, caressing movement that made beholders' blood run cold it crept upon such victims, hovered a moment and glided on with sinuous motion and what approached a suggestion of intelligence in searching out those who fled before it. A shriek, a spasmodic movement and the victims lay still, their earthly troubles over forever. A few minutes later, possibly not more than half an hour after the discovery of the fire, when the firemen had beaten back the flames to the raging stage another procession moved across that same plank again. It moved in silence, for it was a procession of death. The great tragedy began and ended in fifteen minutes. Its echoes may roll down as many centuries, compelling the proper safeguarding of all places of amusement, in America at least. If so, the Iroquois victims did not give up their lives in vain. When the removal of the victims across the improvised bridge over death alley ended the tireless official in charge of that work, James Markham, secretary to Chief of Police O'Neill, had checked off 102 corpses. No attempt was made to keep count of the dead as they were removed from other portions of the theater and by other exits. The counting was done when the patrol wagons, ambulances, trucks and delivery wagons used in removing the dead deposited their ghastly loads at the morgues. The instance cited was not an isolated example of heroism, but rather merely a striking instance among scores. Police, firemen and citizens vied with each other in the work of humanity. Merchants drove out customers and threw open their business houses as temporary hospitals and morgues. Others donated great wagon loads of blankets and supplies of all kinds and the municipal government was embarrassed by the unsolicited relief funds that poured in. All manner of vehicles were given freely for the removal of dead and injured. So informal was the removal of the latter that many may have reached their homes unreported. For that reason a complete list of the injured may never be secured. An illustration of the possibilities in that direction is found in the case of one man who wrapped the dead body of his wife in his overcoat and carried it to Evanston, many miles away, where the circumstances became known days later when a burial permit was sought. Another is the case of an injured man who revived on a dead wagon en route to a morgue and was removed by friends.