steady west wind and the fire
would be blown towards the bay, where it could be extinguished from the
marine boats. Every time a gust ruffled her hair she shook her head
irritably, wondering that she had ever loved the wind.

She reached California Street. The cars were not running. Far down where
they should have started she saw nothing but smoke. Nor was there the
usual rumble indicating that the cable was at work, a sound which was
among the first of her memories. She turned west and climbed the almost
perpendicular blocks to the summit of Nob Hill. The beautiful massive
pile of white stone, to be known when finished as Fairmont Hotel, and
which had already done so much to redeem the city from its architectural
madness, looked as serene and unravaged as if it crowned a hill of
ancient Athens; but so, for that matter, did its neighbors, two as
faultless in their way; the others appearing even more outrageous than
usual, inasmuch as they had had their opportunity to disappear and
failed to take advantage of it.

From the summit of the hill Isabel gave a hasty glance southward, then
walked rapidly west; the fires seemed to cover far more ground than when
she had first looked at them from Russian Hill, an hour ago.

After she had tripped over two large paving-stones that had met in an
upward bulge, she took more note of detail. Some of the houses had
private cisterns, and their roofs and walls were still quite wet.
Pretentious garden walls, and stone pillars supporting facades, had
fallen, while next door an apparently more delicate structure was
intact. It seemed to be a matter of foundation. And everywhere there
were groups of silent people watching the fire. Even when the Red Cross
men and women carried out the injured, Isabel did not hear a groan. And
all were losing their dazed and frightened expressions. The careless
philosophy of the city was reasserting itself, although in a more
dignified phase.

At Van Ness Avenue, the wide street that runs through the residence part
of the city from north to south, Isabel shuddered for the first time,
and, as she was ashamed to run across, stood and stared with a new sense
of fascination at the inexplicable old earth. The street lay in a narrow
valley, what would have been a mere canyon in the mountains, and the soil
was loose and sandy, although the great houses sat upon most of the
brief level and held it firm. But the stone blocks in low garden walls
were bulging and br