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.
The fire continued to burn. For a time the wreck was left unguarded.
When it was, that so much plundering occurred no one knows. The flames were lifting up their lurid light, and covering the ghastly scene with a sickening glare. The dead lay in every direction amid the driving snow. A skull lay by itself amid a blackened heap, whitened by the fire. The heap of bodies lying in the sleeping-coaches were still burning, and yet this appalling scene did not intimidate the human vultures who were looking for their prey. The ravening wolf that prowls at night would be driven from such a horrid place by very fear. The hearts of men were on that fearful night more greedy than wolves or vultures are, for amid that awful wreck they sought for spoil. One and another of the wounded had been robbed. Men were more merciless to their fellows than the cruel flames.
One young man, who had lost both mother and sister, was suffering from four broken ribs and a severe gash in the head. As he looked up and saw the men standing and watching, the thought of robbers crossed his mind. He had a valuable watch, a present from his father, and two purses, one containing fifty dollars in bills, and the other a few dollars in change and his mother’s jewelry. As the thought of thieves came up, he turned around with his back to the crowd and dropped his watch down his neck inside his shirt, and there left it suspended by the chain next to his person. One purse he placed inside his vest and in an inside pocket, and the other was left in the pocket of his pantaloons.
Some one offered to assist him up the stairs. As he reached the top this person disappeared and another came. Taking him by the arm, the robber drew it out in such a way that the broken ribs gave intense pain and caused the poor boy to faint and fall. As he fell, he remembers to have felt a hand reached into his bosom, and then he became unconscious, and lay upon the snow. When he came to himself, his purses and his ticket to California were gone, and all he had left was the watch he had hidden and the clothes he wore. Among strangers, with mother and sister both dead, the poor young man was at last taken to a hotel and telegraphed the sad news to his father in the distant home. Another gentleman, as he was being helped to a hotel, was robbed of all that he had in his vest pocket, on the side towards the one who supported him. Still another was followed by a person who pretended to be a physician and offered to assist, but escaped by threats and such speed as he could command.