The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, June 28, 1903, Page 14

14 3 TRE SUNDAY CALL. MY WILD NIGHT RIDE in the JAWS of the HEEPNER FLOOD |§ TO SAVE ION RIS Rt 'BY LESLIE MATLOCK. e ay L — By a wild 5 2 Or., June 24. b ild ride o, l either, for the hail was knocking us hard. Besides, I wanted ee miles Leslie ’Uahm k, a young . to see if there was any one we could help. s o Kelly and I pretty soon got our bearings and then we rd the | 5 wed the Ggues o] commenced to yell as we passed houses. \\e shouted: “Save yourselves; the flood is com As soon as we saw them take to the s we cut ahead as fast as we could. Kelly and I were both raised on the ranges hereabouts and we knew every turn in the creek and every bend in the hills. That helped us a lot, and befo{ long we were far enough ahead that we could do some good” QOne thing frightened us. It was storming and we were afraid of the wire fences, for fear the lightning would strike. But our nippers were all right and we struck right through. The main thing we remembered to shout was that they mustn’t wait to save a thing. Several times the people came out, and while they were asking us what the matter was the roar of the cloudburst would tell them and then they would climb right out for the high ground. About fifteen minutes after we left Heppner we looked back around a turn and saw the water piling up. It rose and the path of the n. Two horses ¢ at last reached lone, ahead of the wecked the anuly. He at 1a m., hour's. grim face cxpresses i ton that m 4 He s rose and rose till we thought there wasn't any end to it, 7 and then it would curl over like tar and away she would P Worrons Cow The Sheriff was sweep _for another lap. It was strange the wa behaved. g - 33 e I’ve tried to figure out since how it wasfwe weren't. over- weral 0 Une of fam- taken. It seems as if the hail and mud and trees just tan- st hi 5 gled up into a mass that had to come by jerks, but when it did come it came all at once. One time we looked back and saw a fire right on the top of the wave. It was a piece of a house and burned very brightly for a minute and then it puffed out as the water rolled over it. We could Hear screams every now and then. About six miles on the way to Lexington my horse stumbled and threw me hard. knee was sprained and it hurt a litt'e to remount. Kelly helped me, and as soon as I saw the horse could still go I went along with him. But it was hard on the horse,” for the road was r)ugh and rocky .and slippery as well. Ev now and then a big pool of hail and water was in the middle of the way and the mud would be fearful. We got to L. ton all right, and warned everybody about' the flood that was coming down the valley. On the way we had warned a good many. The water wasn't far behind us even here and we had to warn the people on down the valley to Tone. Kelly and I kept on and beat our horses into as fast a gait as bcom of the flood behind us and i be too bad if all the houses tw to be knocked into splinters with the So we kept on, shouting and warning got to Rainey's. Here my horse e .up. the ghost. It was clean worn out and I got another. Then Kelly and I'hit up the pace again on the way to e. twelve miles away. This was really the | way. We were getting farther off fron eemed as if we must turn back and h though we knew, of course, that if they hadn't escaped they were dead by this ing. and be- s something ter were as big as time. At Pettysville we found a lot of people who didn’t know anything about what had happened. It seemed too bad enough to do ay without driv- to see all thé good stock going, to tell the people and get th ing any cattle or horses. T lookec e and saw the water lick up some galloping horses like a cat takes a mouse. The darkness made it the worse, for one thought he saw it all the time. By the time we were three mfles from Tone Kelly's horse gave up. He hadn’t another ounce of strength left in him. So Kelly just made for the top of a hill and T kept on into Ione. I got there all right, but found the railroad operator had sent a message in about things at Heppner just before he was washed away and drowned. But I got to the telephone and warned people below and messengers started out and warned the ranchers along the creek. I hadn’t been there but a very little while before the flood struck Ione, but it wasn't near what it was at Heppner. As I watched it come down and saw what it still was after traveling so, many miles I thought it must be awful above. "Then I was taken sort of sick. My folks were all up above and I thought it must be up to me to get back there and see what was to be done. But then I krew the people outside ought to know about it and pres- ently I fetched a new horse and rode to Arlington, where 1 got pretty soon before daybreak. It's been a bad thing all around. T've lost most of my folks and I've lost most of my friends. Kelly deserves most of the credit for what 1 did. We worked together and I'm glad we saved some. I wish I could have saved my own people. T don’t know what we will do, those o'y us that are leit. I guess we will build up again and choose higher ground. It’s hard for us to say just what we could do. Maybe such a thing wouldn’t happen again. Maybe it would. I don’t know why I did just what I did, except that it seemed to me that it would be better if I saved somebody. I thought of a lot of people down the valley. N 2 Did I think of one‘especially? Maybe I did. But in saving along at a good clip, considering the going, and folks who are in danger we don’t choose and pick. If I ute out we came on the road below the station. hadn’t done what I did I wouldn’t have done’what my e water was piling up like a dam just there, It was a s . family would have thought I ought to. Apyway, when we orce got started it would have been too bad to give up tight place, but we stuck to our nags and in a minute we v ay 7 4 - . - were going through the storm lnckeg-splm It was ml) fun, LQSYYQ MaiYOCk’ wh° R°de Syxty'sevefl MY'QS tc S&VQ FYVQ Hundl’ed LYVQ }?::’f:ml"”y WAt any quitter and § s’ cuh'-r when -—_-ma-m e I In this remarkable article, written exclusively for the Sunday Call by Leslie Matlock, whose wild ride in the blackness of night to warn the people of Lexington and lone to flee for their lives from the awful torrent that was roaring at his heels made him the hero of the Oregon cloudburst, the terrors of that storm are shown . in a simple but blood-curdling manner. But even more remarkable still are the two photographs reproduced on this page, which show Heppner as it looked before and after the mountain of water had swept through it from end to end, cutting a swath that is appalling to contemplate evenina |« photograph. Looking at first one and then the other of these two pnctures it is easy to under- e — m st back But reach over the place, so you couldn’t all off with them. But it's ry stable run ng the creek 2 wve broke into Gilliam & Bisbee's hardware store across 1 d got some , looking to see doing. We then we broke and ran for Kirk's. We e, but I snatched the first horse I y did the same. The horse I were through we wished I guess it w t much e from the time when we first from the horseback, and then we cut straight f the water. It was hailing like bad for the horses going up the banks. the first bench we looked back and up with the town. I couldn’t see any- le’s place and the water was booming around he creek.