Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 3.djvu/121

 ever experienced in any portion of the State. It began about three o’clock in the morning. The darkness was intense and the rain came down in blinding torrents. Nine miles east of Des Moines the Rock Island Railroad crosses Little Four Mile Creek, ordinarily a small stream. At the railroad bridge the banks are some thirty feet above the bed of the creek. In this vicinity there seemed to have been a fall of rain similar to a cloud burst. The entire surface of the prairie was covered by the flood. Every ravine was filled with a torrent. The continuous roar of thunder, blinding flashes of lightning, the intense darkness and the rush of water combined to make a fearful night. The mail and passenger train from Chicago which was due at Des Moines at half past three in the morning was coming at a speed of thirty miles an hour. It consisted of a baggage car, a mail car, one of Barnum’s advertising cars, a smoker, two passenger coaches and a sleeper. The engineer, John Rakestraw, was veteran in the service familiar with the route, but evidently had no thought of danger on this part of the line. Suddenly the headlight flashed upon a wild roaring torrent carrying trees and floodwood on its angry current. There was not a moment for thought as the train was on the very brink of the flood and instantly took a leap into the chasm. The engineer was crushed beneath the locomotive as it struck the opposite shore and turned over sinking deep into the mud and water. Abram Trucks, the fireman was thrown into the flood on the west shore. When he recovered consciousness he saw the train crushed and piled in an awful wreck, telescoped and shivered, while the angry torrent was rushing wildly through the ruins. Bruised, dazed and helpless the fireman stood for a moment, then realizing that he was alone on the west shore and could not cross to help the wounded and drowning, or to give the alarm to any inhabitants in the vicinity, he started in the darkness and through the flooded country for Des Moines, to procure help. In the