Teams were secured. A road was broken. Into the gorge sleds are with difficulty taken down, and into these the badly wounded are placed. The two little children who had escaped are also taken in these, badly burned and insensible, and placed with their father in a private house. The mother is moved, and laid in another house, and lies in great agony. A young girl, timid and frightened, whose limbs are broken, is separated from her aunt, and placed among strangers. Amid great confusion those who are able, walk to the hotel, some of them pursued by those who would rob them. A father calls out from a stretcher for a daughter whom strangers are taking in another direction, and becomes almost frantic with excitement until the girl is brought back to him. The poor burned woman whose children are dead is borne to the “Culver House.” The bruised, gashed and bleeding passengers are at last removed from the valley. They are distributed through the neighborhood. Upon couches and beds of the few hotels; upon the counters of stores; on the floors of private houses; and even in the saloons--they are scattered until the whole vicinity becomes a hospital. The surgeons are all at work. The wounds are hastily dressed. The blood is washed away. Many are wrapped in warm coverings. Comparative quiet and rest settle down. The spectators have left the smoking ruins, and in curious crowds have trooped through the houses and have gradually disappeared. Those on the abutment returned to their homes. The firemen themselves disperse. The last one in the engine house has gone. Only a very few are left to guard the dead. A wild and lonely scene remains. The dead are left there alone. The snow drifts toward the smoking ruins. Nature weaves a white shroud. Night draws down a black pall. The silence of the grave settles upon the lonely spot. A flickering light from the funeral pyre sends up a glare through the darkness, and the dead stare from the blackened bars with eyeless sockets, and the bodies are left to burn. It is a horrible, heart-sickening sight, the bodies still smoulder in the burning grave, and the smell of their flesh arises on the darkening air. [Illustration] CHAPTER IX. THE ROBBERS. The fire continued to burn. For a time the wreck was left unguarded.