A TIGHT PLACE.

Mataura Ensign, Volume 6, Issue 309, 30 November 1883, Page 5

A TIGHT PLACE.

A Buffalo man named Batterson with his wife ami children the other week prospecting in the woods of Pennsylvania, near a branch of the Erie Railroad, just at dusk found themselves off of any road, and the horse earning tnem blindly through the timber. jJattoi-son found a lantern in the carriage and with it prospected, through the woods until he struck the railroai ; but of whose name aud where it wont he knew nothing. Rtther than expose his wife a7id children to a night in the woods he directed his wife to drive the horse and carriage along tho track, while he went ahead with the lantern. On either side were woods and high banks,., and no escape from a train. Then he took his wife and chill ren from the carriage, so that they might climb the bank or get into the woods if a train w;is heard approaching. After a hundred yards or s-o they came to a biidge, on one side of which was a narrow plank walk, the railroad track occupying the remainder of the bridge. This was the great Kinzua Viaduct, tho highest railroad bridge in the world, being 303 ft above the creek and half a mile long. Mr Batterson at last, determined to cross, trusting to Providence ■for the result. He succeeded in getting- ' ihis horse on the footpath, the wheels of the •carriage bumping over the ties. A hi<jli wind was blowing down the valley, and it was with difficulty that they could keep their 1 feet. A sudden gush extinguished the lantern. It was impossible to relight it and they groped their way in the darkness. They crossed the bridge in safety, and enItered a deep rock cut. A train coming upon them would have crushed them to death. A coal train due at the cut at the veTy time Batterson and his family were stumbling and feeling their way through it was detained a mile below by a hot journal. The horse and carriage were turned from the track into the road leading alongside of it to the next station, and Mrs Batterson and her children had reached a place of safety just as the train rushed by and thundered into the cut. A delay of one minute in making their way through the passage would have been fatal to the entire party. When the full force of the peril to which they hid been exposed pnd the narrow escape they had madeb.-oke upon her, Mrs Batterson fainted away. Mr Batterson himself was so unnerved that it was some time before he could summon aid.