What became of the others nobody can say. Campbell only knows that he got out from the building somehow and caught a piece of drift, either a part of the roof or something of the sort. The Murney boy broke through a transom and got out. He drifted for some time and finally caught a tree to which he clung and soon found that the two other boys had caught the same tree. Prior to that they had been separated, but a strange fate attracted them to the same place.
This tree, it developed later, had caught in the masts of the wreck of the schooner “John S. Ames,” which lies almost south of the home. There they remained all night. At one time Campbell was about to give up and cried that he was drowning. The Murney boy caught him and lashed him to the mast with a piece of rope that he found there. In that way was his life saved.
When morning came they found that they were alone in the open Gulf on a tree. The tree soon broke adrift from the mast, and, strange as it may seem, brought them in shore. They finally landed and started west, not knowing which direction to take. They finally brought up at a house something like two miles from the place where the home had been but so recently located. There they found their location, but were unable to get anything to eat because the woman in the house had nothing herself.
So they came on toward the city, but it was a long, hard pull through wet sand, and hungry and faint for the want of fresh water and food. They brought up at a house that had gone through the storm, was partly demolished and at the back of which was another house supporting it. There they remained during Sunday night, and were afraid every minute that the force of the little blow that came up during the night would demolish the place of refuge. But it stood, and in the morning they started on, reaching the home of young Murney during the day. There they got food and dry clothes. The other two boys were taken to the infirmary, where they are being cared for.
NEW FEATURES OF THE CALAMITY.
Another account is as follows and contains new pictures of the scene:
The elements, which had been cutting up didoes and blowing every which way during the preceding twenty-four hours, got down to it in earnest fashion Saturday morning, when a strong wind, accompanied by rain, which first came in great splashing drops which one could almost dodge, but afterwards became a hard, driving rain, began to get in its work.
Along the bay front the waves rose higher and higher and tossed about the small craft anchored in the slips like cockle shells. Striking the bulkheading of the wharves with mighty force the waves broke into clouds of spray, which leaped over the wharves and drenched the men whom duty or curiosity caused to be in that neighborhood.
Although the wind was in the north, a heavy sea was running and the breakers rolled up the beach with angry roars. The little bath houses on wheels scattered along the beach were picked up by the great waves and dashed against the row of little, flimsy structures along the Midway and piled up against them in uneven stacks. Early in the forenoon the Midway presented a picture almost of desolation, filled as it was with debris from the small platforms, stairways and landings along the beach front, which had been carried away and washed up by the sea. At times the waves would recede, leaving the beach almost bare of water, and then, as if gathering force anew they would sweep in, rolling several feet high, passing over the shelving beach, lapping over tracks of the street railway and gushing the water into avenue R.
Early in the forenoon the waves were leaping at times over the trestle work of the street railway along the beach front, making it impossible to operate the cars around the belt, as the water would have burned out the motors. The cars were therefore operated between town and the Gulf on the double tracks of either side of the belt line. A little later in the forenoon the waves undermined the track at Twenty-fourth street and avenue R. They washed under the little Midway houses on the south side of avenue R, which were built on piling, and in places carried away the sidewalks in front of the buildings, which were not thus supported.