meanwhile kept up their indefatigable work under the
direction of the Mayor and the chief of their department. The engines
almost from the start had proved useless from lack of water, and were
either abandoned or moved to the outlying districts, in the vain hope
that the water mains might be repaired in time to permit of a final
stand against the whirlwind march of the flames. The cloud of despair
grew darker still as the report spread that the city's supply of
dynamite had given out.

"No more dynamite! No more dynamite!" screamed a fireman as he ran up
Ellis Street past the doomed Flood building at two o'clock on Friday
morning, tears standing in his smoke-smirched eyes.

"No more dynamite! O God! no more dynamite! We are lost!" moaned the
throng that heard his despairing words.

A NEW SUPPLY OF EXPLOSIVES.

So, at that hour, the supply of the explosive exhausted, and not a
dozen streams of water being thrown in the entire fire zone, the stunned
firemen and the stupefied people stood helpless with their eyes fixed in
despair upon the swiftly creeping flames.

Had all been like these the entire city would have been doomed, but
there were those at the head of affairs who never for a moment gave
up their resolution. Dynamite and giant powder were to be had in
the Presidio military reservation, and a requisition upon the army
authorities was made. The louder reverberations as the day advanced and
night came on showed that a fresh supply had been obtained, and that a
new and determined campaign against the conflagration had been entered
upon. Hitherto much of the work had been ignorantly and carelessly done,
and by the hasty and premature use of explosives more harm than good had
been occasioned.

As the fire continued to spread in spite of the heroic work of the
fighting corps, the Committee of Safety called a meeting at noon on
Friday and decided to blow up all the residences on the east side of Van
Ness Avenue, between Golden Gate and Pacific Avenues, a distance of one
mile. Van Ness Avenue is one of the most fashionable streets of the city
and has a width of 125 feet, a fact which led to the idea that a safety
line might be made here too broad for the flames to cross.

The firemen, therefore, although exhausted from over twenty-four hours'
work and lack of food, determined to make a desperate stand at this
point. They declared that should the fire cross Van Ness Avenue and the
wind continue its earlier dir