, with all their treasures of furniture and articles of decoration,
had been consigned to hideous ruin.

The thunderous detonations, to which the terrified city listened all
that dreadful Friday night, meant much to those whose ears were deafened
by them. A million dollars' worth of property, noble residences
and worthless shacks alike, were blown to drifting dust, but that
destruction broke the fire and sent the raging flames back over their
own charred path. The whole east side of Van Ness Avenue, from the
Golden Gate to Greenwich, a distance of twenty-two blocks, or a mile and
a half, was dynamited a block deep, though most of the structures as yet
had stood untouched by spark or cinder. Not one charge failed. Not one
building stood upon its foundation.

Unless some second malicious miracle of nature should reverse the
direction of the west wind, by nine o'clock it was felt that the
populous district to the west, blocked with fleeing refugees and
unilluminated except by the disastrous glare on the water front, was
safe. Every pound of guncotton did its work, and though the ruins
burned, it was but feebly. From Golden Gate Avenue north the fire
crossed the wide street in but one place. That was at the Claus
Spreckels place, on the corner of California Street.

There the flames were writhing up the walls before the dynamiters could
reach the spot. Yet they made their way to the foundations, carrying
their explosives, despite the furnace-like heat. The charge had to be
placed so swiftly and the fuse lit in such a hurry that the explosion
was not quite successful from the trained viewpoint of the gunners. But
though the walls still stood, it was only an empty victory for the fire,
as bare brick and smoking ruins are poor food for flames.

Captain MacBride's dynamiting squad had realized that a stand was
hopeless except on Van Ness Avenue, their decision thus coinciding with
that of the authorities. They could have forced their explosives farther
in the burning section, but not a pound of guncotton could be or was
wasted. The ruined blocks of the wide thoroughfare formed a trench
through the clustered structures that the conflagration, wild as it was,
could not leap. Engines pumping brine through Fort Mason from the bay
completed the little work that the guncotton had left, but for three
days the haggard-eyed firemen guarded the flickering ruins.

The desolate waste straight through the heart of the city remained
a m