Adventure Magazine Cover — page 138: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

132 crash and from outward indications was sure that the floor of the second story had given way. After that I never expected to see Kelp or the Chinese girl alive, or at all for that matter. However, I ran to the door of the shop— not the big door which had been blocked— with some vague notion of breaking it in, hoping that Kelp and the girl had fallen to the shop from the floor above. As I reached this door, a flame blazed up inside the shop and sure enough there was Kelp. He was dashing toward a window carrying a rather heavy piece of statuary which represented some Chinese idol. A few swift blows with the statue cleared away the whole of one window. Kelp threw his bat- tering ram aside and rushed to the back of the shop. For a few seconds, he was out of sight. Then he reappeared carry- ing the Chinese girl. After that it was but a few seconds until he reached the street. He was staggering, coughing and gasping. The girl lay limp in his arms. I rushed up and took the girl from him. He reeled over to the curb and sank down, still gasping and coughing. By this time, several other men: had come to our assistance. Two of them took the girl and carried her to a sort of emergency hospital which had been set up in a tent a few blocks away. Having got rid of the responsi- bility of the girl, I turned my attention to Kelp. = He had been in great peril and his ap- pearance and condition were ample proof of the fact. His clothes were burned through to the skin in more than a dozen different places and each hole in his wearing apparel marked a raw spot or a blister—a great red blister. They were, some of them, as large as the palm of a man’s hand. The skin was off most one side of his face and cinders and small particles of charcoal were ground into the raw flesh.. The backs of his hands were solid blisters, while the palms were raw and bleeding. I helped him to his feet and noticed that he was limping. He had sprained one ankle in his fall. I got two other men to help me and between the three of us we carried Kelp to the same emergency station to which the Chinese girl had been taken. We turned him over to the hospital people and it was a week after that before I saw Kelp again. Adventure ag MEANTIME the fire roared and Ra flared and spread. It spread to Mason Street, swept through the apartment house district and on into the homes of the city’s rich. The crowd was gone now and guards were no longer needed, so they set us to fighting fire. We dyna- mited more homes, we played on that red destruction with improvised hose but all to no avail. It drove us back and back, scurrying before the hungry invincible flames like helpless ants. Then came a word of encouragement. It drifted, rumor-like, along the lines. There was nothing definite, but the intimation was that some new plan had been laid, that some sort of preparations were under way. Presently we were called in from our various stations and assembled in company formation. Then our captain wheeled us into column of fours and marched us out to Van Ness Avenue. Van Ness Avenue is exceptionally wide, as broad as two average streets. It was, at that time, a fashionable driveway in a - fashionable part of the city. Up and down this broad avenue, liveried coachmen were wont to drive prancing horses in a day when wealthy ladies took their recreation spins in carriages. The avenue was walled on either side by costly homes. Assembled here we found and took our place among a large army of men. It wasa shirt-sleeved heterogeneous army, albeit grim, resolute. There were cavalrymen and artillerymen from the Presidio, blue- trousered sailors from Mare Island and marines from Goat Island. The mayor was there and the street-sweeper. Bankers and ditch-diggers worked shoulder to shoulder and swapped advice. A clergyman had Shed his black coat and a popular matinée idol’s classic features were grimed and smeared with soot. It was like the fleeing remnant of some beaten army, halted to make one last, desperate stand against a pursuing enemy. We were marshaled on the west side of the avenue. Two blocks away on the east side the enemy, the winding, hissing flames marched victoriously on. The smoke-laden, night sky was copper hued with demoniac light. The one big hose which drew water from the bay had been laid along the center of the avenue. Men dragged the nozzle up and down, playing a steady stream of water over the houses on the west side of COMIC OOo Cc S (C@