e
much left here in the morning."

A few dull embers pattered on the iron roof of the low building and
bounded off in ashes. Farendell cast a final glance around him, and then
darted from the building. The iron door clanged behind him--he was gone.

Evidently not too soon, for the other buildings were already deserted by
their would-be salvors, who had filled the streets with piles of books
and valuables waiting to be carried away. Then occurred a terrible
phenomenon, which had once before in such disasters paralyzed the
efforts of the firemen. A large wooden warehouse in the centre of
the block of offices, many hundred feet from the scene of active
conflagration--which had hitherto remained intact--suddenly became
enveloped in clouds of smoke, and without warning burst as suddenly
from roof and upper story into vivid flame. There were eye-witnesses who
declared that a stream of living fire seemed to leap upon it from the
burning district, and connected the space between them with an arch of
luminous heat. In another instant the whole district was involved in
a whirlwind of smoke and flame, out of whose seething vortex the
corrugated iron buildings occasionally showed their shriveling or
glowing outlines. And then the fire swept on and away.

When the sun again arose over the panic-stricken and devastated city,
all personal incident and disaster was forgotten in the larger
calamity. It was two or three days before the full particulars could be
gathered--even while the dominant and resistless energy of the people
was erecting new buildings upon the still-smoking ruins. It was only on
the third day afterwards that James Farendell, on the deck of a coasting
steamer, creeping out through the fogs of the Golden Gate, read the
latest news in a San Francisco paper brought by the pilot. As he
hurriedly comprehended the magnitude of the loss, which was far beyond
his previous conception, he experienced a certain satisfaction in
finding his position no worse materially than that of many of his fellow
workers. THEY were ruined like himself; THEY must begin their life
afresh--but then! Ah! there was still that terrible difference. He drew
his breath quickly, and read on. Suddenly he stopped, transfixed by
a later paragraph. For an instant he failed to grasp its full
significance. Then he read it again, the words imprinting themselves on
his senses with a slow deliberation that seemed to him as passionless as
Scranton's utterance