ervice and piled high with the bodies.
Everywhere these wagon loads of dead bodies were being dragged through
the streets, offering a spectacle to turn the most stout-hearted sick.

"With three or four sailors I went up to Seventh street to assist a
number of men, women and children who had become entombed under the
debris of a flat building.

"They were so tightly wedged in that we were unable to offer them any
help and had to stand by and hear their cries as they were slowly
roasted to death by the ever increasing flames. I can hear the cries
of one of those women ringing in my ears yet--I guess I always will.

"I guess pretty nearly every bone in her body was broken. As we stood
by helplessly she cried over and over again:

"'Don't let me die like this. Don't let me roast. I'm cooking, cooking
alive. Kill me! Shoot me--anything! For God's sake have mercy!'

"Others joined her in the cry and begged piteously to be quickly
killed before the flames reached them.

"By this time the street level had become so irregular that it was
almost impossible to drag the dead wagons over them.

"Dynamite was then brought into use and the buildings were blown up
like firecrackers. Flying debris was everywhere in the air, and
another mad rush for safety was made, the almost naked people falling
over each other in their frantic efforts to get out of the danger.

"While this excitement was at its height a man dressed only in his
underclothing made his appearance among the people in a light gasoline
runabout. At top speed he ran into a crowd of women, knocking them
down and injuring at least a dozen. Then he turned back and charged
them again. He had gone mad as a result of the scenes of death and
destruction.

"Some one called for a gun, hoping that they might stop the fellow by
shooting him. None was to be had, and after a desperate fight with
sailors who succeeded in getting into the machine he was overpowered
and turned loose.

"Everybody in the crowd, I believe, was temporarily crazy. Men and
women ran helter-skelter in nothing but their night gowns, and many of
them did not have on that much."

Mrs. J. B. Conaty, of Los Angeles, was in Oakland at the time of the
shock and felt the vibrations. "The suddenness with which it came upon
the people," she said, "was the most appalling thing. When I looked
across the bay at 'Frisco from the Oakland shore the city seemed
peacefully at sleep, like a tired baby beside its mother.