several points and
in those many people have found comfort and shelter against the
inclemencies of the weather.

The situation in the congested districts such as Golden Gate Park and
the various public squares throughout the city, was considerably
relieved by the departure of many people for points on the other side
of the bay, as soon as access was had to the ferry building. The
exodus continued daily from the time the fire broke out until every
one who wished to get away had departed.

The greatest hardship experienced by the homeless refugees was on the
first Sunday night following the fire.

From midnight Sunday until 3 o'clock Monday morning a drenching rain
fell at intervals, while a high wind added a melancholy accompaniment,
whistling and sighing about the ruins of the buildings in the burned
district. Five days before when the fire catastrophe was in its
infancy this downpour would have been regarded as a mercy and a
godsend.

When it came it could be regarded in no other light than as an
additional calamity. It meant indescribable suffering to the tens of
thousands of people camped upon the naked hills and in the parks and
open places of the city.

Few of them were provided with water-proof covering. For the most part
their only protection from the wet was a thin covering of sheeting
tacked upon improvised tent-poles. Through this the water poured as
through a sieve, wetting the bedding and soaking the ground upon which
they lay.

When it is understood that thousands upon thousands of delicately
nurtured women and infants in arms and old and feeble people were in
this plight nothing need be added to describe the misery of their
condition.

What could be done was done by the guards in charge of the camps to
relieve the distress. Whenever covering could be had for the women and
children it was taken advantage of. They were housed in the chill and
cheerless churches, garages and barns, and those who had been
fortunate enough to save their homes were called upon to take care of
these unfortunates. With few exceptions these people responded readily
to the new call made upon them and where they did not the butt ends
of Krag rifles quickly forced a way through inhospitable doors.

Of individual instances of suffering the whole number is legion, but
one will tell the story of them all.

About 4 o'clock, when the rain had been falling heavily for an hour, a
middle-aged man, white-faced in his distress and