portentous columns of smoke hovering over the southern part of the city.
Then like a blow in the face came the realization that all fire fighting
facilities were nil owing to the lack of water. One short hour previous,
San Francisco was sleeping peacefully in its prosperity, and now the
sight was appalling. Devastation, far as the eye could see, was spelling
death and destruction.

My route was down Clay street from Montgomery to Sacramento. In that one
block I counted twenty-one dead horses, killed by falling walls. They
had belonged to the corps of men who bring in to the market with the
dawn the city's supplies. When I reached the corner of California and
Sansome streets (the California office being one block away on
California and Battery) I found a rope stretched across from the Mutual
Life Insurance Company Building to the site where the Alaska Commercial
Company building now stands. All beyond was policed. A soldier of the
regular army was on guard and no one was permitted to pass. Arguments
and beseechments to get to the office were of no avail. The necessity
and the emergency, however, stimulated my determination and aroused my
ingenuity. Suddenly, I ducked under the rope and ran a Marathon which
was not only a surprise to myself but also to the officers and the crowd
who yelled after me. I am sure that in this one block my speed record
for a flat run still stands unequaled.

I reached the office and there found every intimation of a hasty
departure on the part of the janitor. The front door of the building
stood wide open. I rushed in, threw open my desk and hastily gathered an
armful of what I deemed were the more important books and papers.
Glancing around to see if there was any way of saving anything else I
again received a jolt by noticing that the fire was coming down a light
shaft from an adjoining building and through an open window into the