On receipt of this, the Secretary of the Treasury determined to put a stop to the matter at once, and forbade the issuing of permits to more than the necessary two hundred.
There will be great disgust among the Chinese; the first batch of 179 got through safely, but only 21 of the second lot will be admitted, and the rest of them will have to go back to the Flowery Kingdom, sadder but wiser men.
News has come that the town of Guthrie in the new Territory of Oklahoma has been destroyed by a flood.
The Cottonwood River, which flows through the town, had been so high for some days that it was feared it might overflow and do some damage, and the citizens had been watching it, and taking every precaution against a flood. Men had been stationed on the bridges ready to give the alarm if the river rose so high that there was danger.
On April 27th the danger appeared to be past, the river fell a few feet, and though the watchers were still kept at their posts, no one supposed that a flood would really come.
At six o'clock in the morning of April 28th, the men on the bridges heard a terrible roaring up the river valley. Convinced that a flood was coming, they gave the alarm, ringing the fire-bells, and warning the people to flee for their lives.
So unexpected was the alarm, that the people did not seem to understand what the danger was. Tornadoes are frequent in that western country, and some hearing the roar of the flood and thinking that the danger that threatened them was the wind, rushed to the caves which they had made for shelter from tornadoes, and these poor people were soon drowned by the flood.
Others stopped to save what they could, and they, too, were caught by the water.
Very soon after the alarm was given, a great wave of water came sweeping down the valley.