Page:History of Goodhue County, Minnesota.djvu/573

 EISTOKY. OF GOODHUE COlWTY L93 occupied by the brave man al the wheel, holding his charge hard on the shore, and the whole heavens seemed lighted by the conflagra- tion. Still amid the flames could be seen a flitting form and heard a wild shriek of agony; and now a boy leaps from the cabin deck and swims with vigorous stroke down the stream until the yawl reaches him. The cry of powder on board' startles with a new fear, and the crowd recedes far up the bluff and down the shore. Down falls the deck, up shoot the flames, renewed with strength, vaulting high above the tall black chimneys; crash came the huge black monsters themselves over the deck. The river seethes and hisses, as if wounded and mad with pain; the high wheel-house blazes and tumbles into the water, the cylinder head ex- plodes and the liberated steam outrushes. The boilers fall, the flames begin to droop, the hull is burning low; the water's edge is reached, in flows the adverse element ; the boat fills and sinks, and with one loud hiss the flames expire and all is silent and dark. Among the nore notable incidents of the scene is the pilot stand- ing bravely, coolly, at the wheel, enveloped by the flame until the boat was safe aground. He made his escape over the decks and down the rigging. Captain Laughton was twice knocked down by trunks thrown from the decks in his passage up and down to save the passengers. He had several children on board, all of whom were saved. A poor Norwegian woman, who had a cow tied on the lower deck, in attempting to liberate the poor dumb animal, lost her own child. There were several oxen and cows on board. Most of them, after being badly burned, broke overboard and swam ashore. The greatest distress and sympathy was felt for a poor girl of fourteen years, whose mother, with two younger sisters and a brother, were all lost. They were a plain, honest, earnest looking family on their way from Michigan to meet the husband and father at Mankato, Minn. This poor girl went alone to convey the sad intelligence to her father. Perhaps no one saved suffered more than William Bradley, of Keokuk, la. He was too late for the gang-way, and after spending his best exer- tions to save some children who clung to his limbs, and some women who persistently refused to jump into the water, although small boats were waiting as near as the flames would permit, he let himself down from the guard, and fell exhausted into a skiff then half full of water. He reached the shore and was saved, but that was all. The boy who leaped from the wreck and swam so finely said he never swam before in his life, but preferred drowning to burning and so sprang overboard. Instinct taught him how to swim. A bridegroom and bride, young and joyful, from Orin, N. Y., got ashore, he dressed in the unique costume of a hat and shirt and she ditto minus a hat. Scarcely any bag-