Thousands gathered and looked on in blank and pitiful misery, their
strong hands, their iron wills of no avail, while the red-lipped fire
devoured the hopes of their lives.

In a dozen, a hundred, places the flames shot up redly. Huge, strong
buildings which the earthquake had spared fell an unresisting prey
to the flames. The great, iron-bound, towering Spreckles building,
a steeple-like structure, of eighteen stories in height, the tallest
skyscraper in the city, had resisted the earthquake and remained proudly
erect. But now the flames gathered round and assailed it. From both
sides came their attack. A broad district near by, containing many large
hotels and lodging houses, was being fiercely burnt out, and soon the
windows of the lofty building cracked and splintered, the flames shot
triumphantly within, and almost in an instant the vast interior was a
seething furnace, the wild flames rushing and leaping within until only
the blackened walls remained.

THE RESISTLESS MARCH OF THE FLAMES.

This was the region of the newspaper offices, and they quickly
succumbed. The Examiner, standing across Third Street from Spreckles,
collapsed from the earthquake shock. A flimsy edifice, it had long been
looked upon as dangerous. Another building in the rear of this alone
resisted both flames and smoke. Across Market Street from the Examiner
stood the Chronicle building, a dozen stories high. Firmly built, it
had borne the earthquake assault unharmed, but the flames were an enemy
against which it had no defense, and it was quickly added to the victims
of the fire-fiend.

Farther down Market Street, the chief business thoroughfare of the city,
stood that great caravansary, the Palace Hotel, which for thirty years
had been a favorite hostelry, housing the bulk of the visitors to the
Californian metropolis. Its time had come. Doom hovered over it. Its
guests had fled in good season, as they saw the irresistible approach of
the conquering flames. Soon it was ablaze; quickly from every window of
its broad front the tongues of flame curled hotly in the air; it became
a thrice-heated furnace, like so many of the neighboring structures,
adding its quota to the vast cloud of smoke that hung over the burning
city, and rapidly sinking in red ruin to the earth.

All day Wednesday the fire spread unchecked, all efforts to stay its
devouring fury proving futile. In the business section of the city
everything was in ruins. Not a busin