he drops. But they were fine white
flakes--ashes from the distant conflagration. Aleta still lay moveless,
wrapped in her blanket some ten feet away. They had been up most of the
night, watching the flames, had seen them creep across Market street, up
Powell, Mason, Taylor, Jones streets to Nob Hill. Finally Frank had
persuaded Aleta to seek a little rest. Despite her protest that sleep
was impossible, he had rolled her in one of the borrowed blankets,
wrapping himself, Indianwise, in the other. Toward morning slumber had
come to them both.

Aleta, now awake, smiled at Frank and declared herself refreshed. "What
had we better do next?" she questioned.

Frank pondered. "Go to the Presidio, I guess. The army's serving food
out there, I hear." He returned the blankets to their owner and the two
of them set forth. On Oak street, near the mouth of Golden Gate Park, a
broken street main spouted geyser-like out of the asphalt. They snatched
a hurried drink, laved their faces and hands and went on, passing a
cracker wagon, filled with big tin containers, and surrounded by a
hungry crowd. The driver was passing out crackers with both hands,
casting aside the tins when they were empty.

"It's like the Millennium," Aleta remarked. "All classes of people
herded together in common good will. Do you see that well-fed looking
fellow carrying the ragged baby? He's a corporation lawyer. He makes
$50,000 a year I'm told. And the fat woman he's helping with her
numerous brood is a charwoman at the Alcazar theatre."

Frank looked and laughed. "Why--it's my Uncle Robert!" he exclaimed.

Robert Windham held out his free hand to Frank and Aleta. His family was
safe, he told them. So were Francisco and Jeanne, who had joined the
Windhams when the Stanley home was dynamited. They had gone to Berkeley
and would stay with friends of Maizie's.

Frank wrote down the address. He decided to remain in San Francisco.
There was Aleta.... And, somehow, Bertha must be located.

Everyone was bound for the Presidio.

"You may find me there later," said Windham. "I've some--er--business on
this side."

* * * * *

At the great military post which slopes back on the green headlands from
the Golden Gate, Frank and Aleta found a varied company. The hospitals
were filled with men and women burned in the fire or hurt by falling
walls. There were scores--perhaps a hundred of them. Frank, with his
heart in his mouth, made a