| OCR Text |
Show "-niFLOYD GIBBONS , " Adventurers7 Club I (fMmS "Hero Conductor" By FLOYD GIBBONS Famous Headline Hunter. STEP up to the front of the car, please. And have correct fares ready. We've got a trolley car conductor with us today as guest of honor, and we have to watch our street-car manners.. Especially do we with a conductor like Richard Mayock, a man' who has made quite a reputation for himself at this business of conducting trolleys. For Dick is known t lie length anil breadth of the District of Columbia as the "hero conductor of Washington." That's what the newspapers called Dick Mayock. And with good reason, too. For In the middle of April, !!.!.!, he earned that title of his earned It two or throe times over. Dick's car had just finished a trip into town had turned at the Treasury building and started back. As the car left tho Treasury behind it, rain began to fall, suddenly, and in such volume vol-ume that it looked to Dick as if everything on the streets would be washed away. Iinck in the car, the passengers were saying that It was a cloudburst, And that's exactly what it was. The streets of Washington looked like canals, nnd Dick's trolley plowed through an almost unbroken stretch of water, which sometimes came as high as the hubs of the wheels. The Terrors of Flood in the Nation's Capital. The car reached the city limits at a place called Kenlhvorth junction, turned Into an underpass that ran beneath a railroad bridge, and there It happened. Dick opened the door to look out, and the sight he saw froze him still In his tracks. 1 Up ahead was a wall of water several feet high, rushing down Into the underpass toward the front of the car. More water was shooting from the manholes in great spouts six feet tall. Below, the flood had already risen to the bottom step of the ear, and that great, onrusliing wall of water was still to come. The wall of water hit the car with a shock that shook It from end to end. The passengers about twenty-five of them rose from their seats and began stampeding for the door. ' Conductor Keeps Cool in Face of Tragedy. And right there was where Dick Mayock did some fast thinking. He looked out Into that swirling flood and remembered that the river, at' this point, was only a few hundred yards away. Anyone who got caught in that rush of water outside stood a good chance of being swept into the river and drowned. He stood with his back to the door and told the passengers to get back in their seats. They weren't going to be drowned not while he was responsible for them. The Dark, Muddy Water Kept on Rising. Those passengers must have known Dick meant business, because they fell back and started climbing up on top of the seats. The water was two feet high In the car, now, and rising steadily. , Shrieks and Sobs Fill the Air. "When the water got to be waist-high," says Dick, "I began to think . that my time had come. And I'm sure everyone else felt the same, for we seemed hopelessly trapped. "The shrieks and the prayers of the women were pitiful. I had. to do something, and do It quickly, so I grabbed an umbrella, broke all the windows on one side of the car, and climbed upon the roof. "There, I pulled down the trolley pole to keep anyone from being electrocuted, and, lying flat on my stomach, helped the passengers up one at a time." The dark, muddy water kept on rising. It was within a couple of feet of the top of the car when Dick thought he heard a moan coming from somewhere inside. The passengers told him he'd be washed away If he tried to go back Into that car, but Dick went anyway worked his legs back In through a window while two men held onto his arms. If Dick Was a Hero, Here Was a Heroine. And the sight he saw when he got Inside the car Dick will never forget If he lives to be a hundred. There, in that almost filled car was a woman, dazedly clinging to a strap with one hand while she held a baby with the other, trying to keep Its head out of the water. Dick grabbed the baby, floundered to the side of the car and passed it through a window to the men on top. But when he turned back to help up the woman, she had disappeared, down Into the muddy water that filled the bottom of the car. Dick dived, and found her pulled her to a window and thrust her out Jnto the hands of those above. Then he climbed to the roof himself and applied artificial respiration to the woman, who had swallowed water and was half drowned. The water kept rising until it was flush with the car roof, and then It stopped. For two hours this strange little crew of cast-aways stayed on the roof, and then the fire department came. A fireman with a rope tied around his waist tried to swim' - out to the car. The current was too swift for him, though, and he had to be pulled back. After two or three tries, he managed to reach an electric light pole 12 feet from the car, and the marooned passengers threw him an improvised line made of the trolley rope and some knotted neckties. After he got to them, ladders were strong along the rope and soon the entire party was on land again. But, boy, what a shindig while It lasted I WXU Service. |
