OCR Text |
Show IN THE QUICKSANDS. rhrllUDjr and Almost Fatal Adventure of Pennsylvania Sportsman. Quicksand swallowed W. A. Finley, a hotel proprietor of Norristown, Tuesday, to the waist, and but for the heroic assistance as-sistance of two friends he would have met an awful doom. Finley, William Shine and John Goodwin Good-win started out to catch snipe and snappers. snap-pers. They drove to Fairview and then itarted on foot up the Skippack creek, which flows a mile from the towrt They chose this spot for their tour for game because it is rarely visited. Finley and Shine waded in the creek searching for snappers, while Goodwin remained on the bank gunning for snipe. Without knowing it. Finley walked into a bed of quicksand. He did not realize for some minutes the peril he was in. Rapidly he began to sink, and then the horror of the threatened doom confronted con-fronted him. He tried to lift his feet, but his legs had sunk to the tops of his boots in the consuming sand, and the water touched his waist. Finley pulled and tugged at his right leg. It yielded, but at the same time his left foot penetrated pene-trated deeper and deeper into the mysterious mys-terious substance. Then he reversed his efforts and with all his strength pulled t bis left w. jt yielded, but the rijiht leg went down to an alarming depth. Finley called to Shine for help, and the latter responded quickly. He tried in vain at his own peril to extricate his friend. By this time the quicksand had almost swallowed Finley's legs, and the water was gradually rising and nearing his shoulders. Then Goodwin was summoned. The victim was sinking more rapidly now, and the water was getting alarmingly near his chin. The combined efforts of the two friends checked the descent They tugged for 10 minutes before Finley, Fin-ley, utterly exhausted, was pulled from the quicksand. For curiosity they afterward aft-erward tried to reach the bottom of the bed with long sticks. The sand was found to be over six feet deep. Philadelphia Phila-delphia Record. |