ng detour round the base of the
northern hills, as the water-front and the streets behind were a roaring
furnace, although the fires had not crossed East Street. All houses in
the towns across the bay had opened to the refugees, tents had been
erected in the public squares, and emergency hospitals had been started
before nine o'clock. The militia had been called out to assist the
regulars, and also the Cadet Battalion of the State University. A
Citizens' Patrol had been formed to protect the still unburned
districts, each man provided with arms at the Presidio. People on the
lower slopes were now in full flight towards the western parks and
hills, as well as the Presidio, many being under the impression that the
ferry-boats were not running. It was doubtful if a hotel or a
boarding-house would harbor a soul that night; not east of Van Ness
Avenue, at least, and many in that region were preparing to sleep in the
Park and squares, lest the fire attack them from the south. Refugees,
exhausted, were lying on the doorsteps and in the streets of the Western
Addition.

Victoria relapsed into silence and Isabel gazed down upon the beautiful
terrible scene--the curtain had rolled upward again--at the enormous
tongues of flame leaping from every window, the showers of golden
sparks, the swooping and soaring clouds, many of them white, with
convoluted edges, and faintly tinted like the day smoke of Vesuvius.
These curled white masses rolled among the black waves towards the west,
and the low deep roar waxed louder as one listened to it.

All the wooden bow-windows of the Palace Hotel had been eaten off, but
it would be hours before the stoutly built old hotel ceased to feed the
flames. Sometimes sheets of fire seemed to drive from the apertures
across the great width of Market Street, to be beaten back by a solid
wall of flame. In the intense clear yellow light that bathed the street
Isabel could see the twisted car tracks. More than once she fancied she
saw a prostrate body, but it may have been an achievement of the
shifting flames, and certainly nothing living moved down there. The
mounted officers and their men were patrolling the blocks along all the
northern front of the fire.

"Are you not in the least worried about Elton?" asked Isabel, abruptly.

"Not a bit. I never worried about him when he was a child. He was always
the most agile and ready youngster I ever saw."

"But he is very venturesome. He might be caught in