mistress took down hangings to make them comfortable. In the morning all
the food that was left over in that home of wealth was enough flour and
baking powder to shake together a breakfast for the refugees. They were
hardly ready to leave that house when the fire came their way, and
the people of the house, together with the refugees, who included two
Chinese, made their way to the open ground of the Presidio. With them
streamed a procession of folks carrying valuables in bundles.

"There came out, too, tales of both heroism and crime. The firemen had
been at it for thirty-six hours under such conditions as firemen never
before faced, and they do little more than give directions, while the
volunteers, thousands of young Western men who have remained to see it
through, do the work. The troops have all that they can do to handle
the crowds in the streets and prevent panics. The work of dynamiting,
tearing down and rescuing is in the hands of the volunteers.

"This morning an eddy of flame from the edge of the burning wholesale
district ran up the slope of Russian Hill, the highest eminence in the
city. All along the edge of that hill and up the slopes are little frame
houses which hold Italians and Mexicans. A corps of volunteer aides ran
along the edge of the fire, warning people out of the houses. But the
flames ran too fast and three women were caught in the upper story of an
old frame house. A young man tore a rail from a fence, managed to climb
it, and reached the window. He bundled one woman out and slid her down
the rail; then the roof caught fire. He seized another woman and managed
to drop her on the rail, down which she slid without hurting herself a
great deal. But the roof fell while he was struggling with another woman
and they fell together into the flames. There must have been hundreds
of such heroisms and dozens of such catastrophes. We are so drunken
and dulled by horror that we take such stories calmly now. We are
saturated."

HOW LOOTING WAS HINDERED.

One thing to be strictly guarded against in those days of destruction
was the outbreak of lawlessness. A city as large as San Francisco is
sure to hold a large number of the brigands of civilization, a horde
who need to be kept under strict discipline at all times, and especially
when calamity lets down for the time being the bars of the law, at
which time many of the usually law-abiding would join their ranks if any
license were allowed. The auth