t is on fire.
Almost everything east of Montgomery Street and north of Market Street
is on fire now."

There was a pause, then: "We are beginning to pack up our instruments."

"Instruments are all packed up, and we are ready to run," was another
message. It was evident that just one instrument had been left connected
with the world outside. In about ten minutes it began to click. Those
who knew the telegraphers' language caught the word "Good-bye," and then
the ticks stopped.

At the end of an hour the instrument in the office began to click again.
It was from an electrician by the name of Swain.

"I'm back in the building, but they are dynamiting the building next
door, and I've got to get out," was the way his message was translated.
Dynamite ended the story, and the Postal's domicile in San Francisco
ceased to exist.

CHAPTER VI.

Facing Famine and Praying for Relief.

Frightful was the emergency of the vast host of fugitives who fled
in terror from the blazing city of San Francisco to the open gates of
Golden Gate Park and the military reservation of the Presidio. Food was
wanting, scarcely any water was to be had, death by hunger and thirst
threatened more than a quarter million of souls thus driven without
warning from their comfortable and happy homes and left without food
or shelter. Provisions, shelter tents, means of relief of various kinds
were being hurried forward in all haste, but for several days the host
of fugitives had no beds but the bare ground, no shelter but the open
heavens, scarcely a crumb of bread to eat, scarcely a gill of water to
drink. Those first days that followed the disaster were days of horror
and dread. Rich and poor were mingled together, the delicately reared
with the rough sons of toil to whom privation was no new experience.

Those who had food to sell sought to take advantage of the necessities
of the suffering by charging famine prices for their supplies, but the
soldiers put a quick stop to this. When Thursday morning broke, lines
of buyers formed before the stores whose supplies had not been
commandeered. In one of these, the first man was charged 75 cents for a
loaf of bread. The corporal in charge at that point brought his gun down
with a slam.

"Bread is 10 cents a loaf in this shop," he said.

It went. The soldier fixed the schedule of prices a little higher than
in ordinary times, and to make up for that he forced the storekeeper to
give free food to se