for all of them to turn
to fire-fighting.

"The flames ate down into the extensive lumber district, but had not
caught the dock line. Behind the dock, adjacent to the Spreckels sugar
warehouse and wharf, were hundreds of freight cars. Had these been
allowed to catch fire, the flames would have swept down the entire
water front to South San Francisco.

"The climax came at Pier No. 9, and it was here that all energies were
focused. A large tug from Mare Island, two fire patrol boats, the
Spreckels tugs and ten or twelve more, had lines of hose laid into the
heart of the roaring furnace and were pumping from the bay to the
limit of their capacities.

"About 5 o'clock I was told that the tugs were just about holding
their own and that more help would be needed. The Slocum and the
McDowell were at once ordered to the spot. I was on board the former
and at one time the heat of the fire was so great that it was
necessary to play minor streams on the cabin and sides of the vessel
to keep it from taking fire. We were in a slip surrounded by flames.

"Our lines of hose once laid to the dockage, we found willing hands of
volunteers waiting to carry the hose forward. I saw pale, hungry men,
who probably had not slept for two days, hang on to the nozzle and
play the stream until they fell from exhaustion. Others took their
places and only with a very few exceptions was it necessary to use
force to command the assistance of citizens or onlookers.

"All night the flames raged through the lumber district, and the fire
reached its worst about 3:30 o'clock Saturday morning. Daylight found
it under control."

All that was left of the proud Argonaut city was like a Crescent moon
set about a black disk of shadow. A Saharan desolation of blackened,
ash covered, twisted debris was all that remained of three-fifths of
the city that four days ago stood like a sentinel in glittering,
jeweled armor, guarding the Golden Gate to the Pacific.

Men who had numbered their fortunes in the tens of thousands camped on
the ruins of their homes, eating as primitive men ate--gnawing;
thinking as primitive men thought. Ashes and the dull pain of despair
were their portions. They did not have the volition to help
themselves, childlike as the men of the stone age, they awaited
quiescent what the next hour might bring them.

Fear they had none, because they had known the shape of fear for
forty-eight hours and to them it had no more terrors. Men over