e a fire, and all the
chimneys must be cracked."

"I feel much relieved to know that you will patrol," said Isabel,
wondering if she were being gracious to a prince. "Would you mind going
up to the top of the hill and asking some one if he knows whether all
the injured were taken from the Mechanics' Pavilion? It is blazing like
a wood pile."

He went up the hill and returned with the information that all the
patients, as well as the doctors and nurses, had been taken out, the
last of them while the roof was blazing, and conveyed in automobiles to
other emergency hospitals far away; and that the prisoners in the City
Hall had been transported, manacled, to the army prisons in the same
manner.

"One of the gentlemen said he saw Mr. Gwynne running an automobile full
of nurses and patients--one of Mr. Hofer's machines," he added. "And
that he returned twice at least. All the young men that own machines are
acting very well, they say, transporting the injured, and making
themselves generally useful. Many are on the roofs of the greater
buildings with the firemen fighting the fire with blankets, and hose
attached to the cisterns. A few buildings have been saved in that way,
but not many, and more or less of the water has to be turned on the men,
who catch fire repeatedly from the sparks."

Isabel went into the house and put on her hat. "I cannot keep still any
longer," she said to Victoria, a moment later. "And now I am quite
rested. I shall go down and see Mrs. Hofer, and reconnoitre for myself.
If Elton should come, ask him to wait for me here--he must need a
rest--or walk down Taylor Street."

XIII

She found her lower neighbors still sitting on their doorsteps or
standing in groups, but was told that many more had already gone out to
the Western Addition with their valuables, fearing that the fire might
come up the southern or eastern slopes before night. A large touring car
was standing in front of the Hofers' door. The children and their nurses
were in it, and Mr. Toole came out and took his place as Isabel reached
the house. He greeted her for the first time since she had known him
without a smile; and he looked very old and sad. Isabel heard Mrs.
Hofer's light high rapid voice within. She was standing in the large
drawing-room, giving orders to a group of servants. When she saw Isabel
she cried out as if confronted with a ghost.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, but not kissing her as usual; her mind apparently