led me as his eye traveled along
the broken western skyline. "What is their role in this historic drama?"

"The ridge running down the peninsula is the San Miguel Range, crowned
by Twin Peaks, with the Mission at its foot. Nob Hill, next, acquired
its name in the sixties, when the bonanza and railroad kings erected
their residences there. Before the fire"--I felt my color rising, but
there was no shade of change in my companion's expression--"the
mansions of the 'Big Four' of the Central Pacific--Huntington, Hopkins,
Stanford and Crocker--and the Comstock millionaires--Flood, Fair and
others--filled with magnificent works of craftsmen and artists, had
more than local fame."

"From this distance, with three of the largest buildings in the city,
the hill hardly seems to have fallen from its high estate," he observed.

"You are quite right. It still lives up to its name, for the Fairmont
Hotel and the Stanford Apartments, christened for two of its former
magnates, and the brown-stone Flood mansion, remodeled for the
Pacific-Union Club, are no whit less nobby than their predecessors."

"The next hill?" He turned his gaze to the houses perched on the top and
clinging part way down its steep sides.

"A little graveyard where the Russian gold-seekers were laid to rest
gave its name. It is now the home of the artists and the artistic."

"A city built on the water and the hills, and rebuilt on the ashes of
seven fires," he commented. "It is almost incomprehensible." After a
moment's pause: "How much of the city was burned by the last fire?"

I glanced sharply at him. There was no shade of irony in his tone and
his face showed only sincerity.

"All that you can see, from the fringe of wharves at the waterfront to
the top of the hills and down into the valley beyond, except these
houses here at our feet, saved by the Italians with wine-soaked
blankets, and a few on the heights of Russian Hill."

"It was colossal!" he exclaimed. "Think of it! a whole city wiped out."
I lowered my eyes to the goat nibbling beside us. "The courage and
energy that rebuilt it is herculean." His enthusiasm was cumulative.
"And rebuilt it in practically three years! No wonder you date all
things from the fire."

Billy flickered his tail and solemnly winked at me.

"It is getting late," I said, "but the sun is just setting. Shall we
watch it before we go?"

Without speaking, he followed me back to our first point of view. The
crimson ball wa