end of Market Street. Others were moving stolidly
towards the western hills. All were burdened with pillow-cases packed
with clothing, or dragged trunks, cribs, baby-carriages, in which was a
strange assortment of utensils, children, and household pets. The
scrape, scrape of these unwieldy objects could be heard in a monotonous
reiteration above the distant roar and crackling of the flames. Behind
the tide of humanity rolling in from the burning district, at the end of
every street, was a vista of flame and smoke. And the dark clouds were
mounting higher and higher, lit with a million golden sparks. The
temperature was tropical.

People were already beginning to talk in phrases: The doomed city. The
fire zone. Razed to the ground. Brains were not active, and any one
energetic enough to put a few expressive words together was sure of
disciples. Here, more than elsewhere, it was apparent that the army was
in possession of the city. Mounted officers rode slowly up and down, and
at the mouth of each of those dusky and menacing avenues was a guard
with drawn bayonets. They permitted the unfortunate to emerge, but few
to enter. In spite of the audible energy of the fire, the slow tramp of
the refugees, the scraping of their furniture on the ill-paved streets,
the city was extraordinarily silent. People scarcely spoke above a
mutter. There was no shouting of orders. Even the children were not
whimpering, the tawdry women were not hysterical, not a parrot raised
his voice nor a dog whined. Faces were dazed, blank, imprinted with a
stolid determination to get to a place of safety and keep families and
belongings together. The present moment was as much as they could grasp,
and truth to tell there was a good deal in it.

Some of the sightseers speculated mildly--those that owned no property
in this district--as to what would happen if the wind drove the fire
much farther north. The opposite side of the street was lined with some
of the greatest business houses in the city. The Palace Hotel looked
like the rock of Gibraltar. Not a vase in its court had been overturned,
some one said. The other buildings were of stone, brick, concrete. They
had stood the earthquake; even the great square tower of the Call
Building, unsupported by other buildings, had barely lost a cornice. Was
it possible that the fire would take them? But the fire was rolling
nearer every moment, for it met little to resist it but wood. Down by
East Street sever