Harry took out some pages in lead pencil writing and read them to us. This is what he read, because he gave me the pages afterward and I pasted them in our troop-book:
CANADIAN SPECIAL WRECKED
NEAR BORDER.
FATAL DISASTER FOLLOWS HOLD-UP.
A fatal accident occurred yesterday morning to train number 37 of the Canadian Grand Valley Railroad, when the bridge south of Steuben collapsed with the locomotive and four cars which fell in a mass of wreckage into the deep gully which the bridge spanned. It is supposed that the old fashioned trestle of wood had been weakened by the charring effect of the forest fires which had devastated the immediate neighborhood. Engineers are endeavoring to determine the exact cause with the view to fixing responsibility.
Two cars at the end of the train were not yet upon the bridge when the fatal plunge occurred and while the first of these hung in a precarious position, the brakeman and passengers of the last car had the presence of mind to release the coupling before the last car of the train was dragged into the chasm of the burning wreckage below. Several of the passengers of this last car, however, were in the car ahead at the time of the disaster and lost their lives.
A wrecking crew with physicians and nurses was immediately dispatched from Watertown, the nearest place of any size, but as yet, no survivor has been found amid the charred wreckage, and it seems likely that the only passengers to escape death were four women and two men who were in the last car at the time of the disaster.
They were Mrs. Thomas Ellerton and daughter, of Fawnsboro, New York, Mrs. Manners of New Orleans, and a Miss Elsie Bannard. The two men were Thomas and Frederick Worrel, brothers.
The fatal catastrophe came as a termination to an adventurous trip, for the train was speeding with all steam for Watertown to secure medical treatment for several victims of a bold hold-up by two armed robbers, one of whom was killed by a passenger, who himself was later killed in the wreck.
“Guess that’s about all of that one,” Harry said, “and that was the end of our old pal Thor.” Then he said, “Now here’s part of another article that I copied out of the paper of the day after, so you see there were quite some happenings before the Boy Scouts started.”