Page:Cy Warman--The express messenger and other tales of the rail.djvu/17

Rh whole gorge, and roll on with such a mass of bridge timber and fallen trees pushed in front of it, that you could see no sign of water as the flood bore down upon you, but only a tangled mass of rails and ties and twisted trees. A couple of prospectors heard the roar of it, and climbed the cañon wall just in time to save themselves, while the little burros, with their packs on their backs, went down to a watery grave. Next came a long string of freight teams bringing lumber down from a little mountain sawmill. The rattle and noise of the heavy wagons made it impossible for the freighters to hear the roar of the flood, and, as they were coming down the cañon, they had their backs to it, and so were overtaken in a narrow place. Some of the men, leaping from their wagons, scrambled up the steep hill out of the way of the water, while others took to the tall trees, but when the flood came, the stoutest trees in the gulch went down like sunflowers in a cyclone's path, and the luckless freighters mingled with the horses and wagons and were washed away.

Fortunately for us, we were an hour late in leaving the junction that day, and had not yet