the winds and fogs
of summer to their beloved Europe, and country-house life gained ground
very slowly, but deserters were few; and of late the rich men had shown
their faith not only by investing the greater part of their capital in
the city--until "improved real estate" was become a current phrase--but
the best of them, including Hofer and the mayor who had preceded the
present figurehead and his omnivorous Boss, were engaged in a desperate
battle with the highly organized gang of political ruffians that owned
and pillaged and dishonored the city in a manner with which nothing in
the history of municipal corruption could compare save the old Tweed
Ring of New York. For at least ten years previous to 1901, San Francisco
had enjoyed a period of not only decent but honorable government. There
was no "graft" in high places, the city was out of debt, it held up its
head with the cleanest municipal governments in the land. But, as ever,
the disinterested grew somnolent with content, and gave no heed to the
burrowing of the hungry recuperated and wiser rats in that prolific
underworld whence never a high-minded citizen emerges. The few that saw
and warned were disregarded; and circumstances, proper in themselves,
swelled the ranks of the petty politicians with thousands of greedy and
insurgent laborers. San Francisco awoke one morning to find herself in
the drag-net of a machine to which old Boss Buckley and the illustrious
Tammany doffed their hats. But the majority still gave little heed, too
content in their various blessings, and the gay light spirit the
climate gave them, to foresee the time when their pleasant city would be
utterly debauched, and life among arrogant thieves, prostitutes, and
socialists have become as impracticable as it already was in Chinatown
or on Barbary Coast.

A group of the more thoughtful and patriotic citizens, assisted by the
one militant editor the city boasted, were doing all that was humanly
possible to prevent the re-election of the mayor, who had already
represented the worst element twice, and to break the power of the Boss.
Isabel in her lonely ranch house, when her chickens were asleep,
followed the fight with a passionate interest, and was tempted to come
forth from her seclusion and meet at least the representative men of her
city. But she was not yet ready to take up her own share of the burden,
and was far too modest to imagine that she could be useful until she had
become a pers