CHAPTER XXXVI – IN THE CITY THAT NEVER SLEEPS
AFTER a tedious and delayed trip of three days and nights Roderick’s train steamed onto the mole at Oakland. During the last night he had refused to have the berth in his drawing room made down, and had lounged and dozed in his seat, occasionally peering out of the car window. The hour was late – almost three o’clock in the morning. The train should have arrived at seven o’clock the evening before.
There was the usual scramble of disembarking, red-capped porters pressing forward to carry hand baggage from the train to the ferryboat.
“Last boat to San Francisco will leave in five minutes,” was shouted from somewhere, and Roderick found himself with his valise in hand being pushed along with the throng of passengers who had just alighted from the train. Once on the ferryboat, he climbed to the upper deck and went well forward for the view. The waters of the bay were illumed with a half-crescent moon. Far across, six miles away, was San Francisco with its innumerable lights along the waterfront and on the slopes of her hills. To the right were Alcatras Island and the lighthouse.
Then the sharp ping-ping of bells sounded and the great wheels of the boat began to turn. Roderick was filled with the excitement of an impatient lover. “Gail, Gail, Gail,” his throbbing heart kept thrumming. Would he be able to find her? San Francisco was a strange city to Gail as well as to himself. She had been on the train ahead of him, and might by this time have left the Palace Hotel, the address her telegram had given. But he had learned from one of the porters that Gail’s train had been greatly delayed and would not have arrived before eleven o’clock the previous night. He reasoned that she would perforce have gone to the hotel at such a late hour, and would wait until morning to hunt up the hospital where her father was being cared for.
The boat had hardly touched the slip and the apron been lowered than he bounded forward, hastened through the ferryhouse and came out into the open where he was greeted by the tumultuous calls of a hundred solicitous cab-drivers. Roderick did not stand on the order of things, but climbing into the first vehicle that offered directed to be taken to the Palace Hotel.
Arriving at the hotel Roderick paid his fare while the door porter took possession of his grips. Glancing at a huge clock just over the cashier’s desk, he noticed the hour was three-thirty a. m. Taking the pen handed to him by the rooming clerk, he signed his name on the register, and then let his eyes glance backward over the names of recent arrivals. Ah, there was the signature of Gail Holden. Fortune was favoring him and he breathed a silent prayer of thankfulness that he had overtaken her.
Yes, he would serve her. He would help her. She should see and she should know without his telling her, that nothing else mattered if he could only be with her, near her and permitted to relieve her of all troubles and difficulties.
“Show the gentleman to his room,” said the night clerk and bowed to Roderick with a cordial good night.
As Roderick turned and followed the boy to the elevator, he realized that he was not sleepy – indeed that he was nervously alert and wide awake. After the boy had brought a pitcher of ice-water to the room, received his tip and departed, Roderick sat down to think it all over. But what was the use? “I cannot see her until perhaps eight o’clock in the morning. However, I will be on the outlook and in waiting when she is ready for breakfast. And then – ” his heart was beating fast “I certainly am terribly upset,” he acknowledged to himself.
Taking up his hat, he went out, locked the door, rang for the elevator and a minute later was out on the street. He was still wearing his costume of the mountains – coat, shirt, trousers, and puttees, all of khaki, with a broad-brimmed sombrero to match. A little way up Market Street he noticed a florist’s establishment. Great bouquets of California roses were in the windows, chrysanthemums and jars of violets.
He walked on, deciding to provide himself later on with a floral offering wherewith to decorate the breakfast table. He had often heard San Francisco described as a city that turned night into day, and the truth of the remark impressed him. Jolly crowds were going along the streets singing in roistering fashion – everyone seemed to be good-natured – the cafés were open, the saloon doors swung both ways and were evidently ready for all-comers. When he came to Tate’s restaurant, he went down the broad marble steps and found – notwithstanding the lateness or rather earliness of the hour – several hundred people still around the supper tables. The scene had the appearance of a merry banquet where everyone was talking at the same time. An air of joviality pervaded the place. The great fountain was throwing up glittering columns of water through colored lights as varied as the tints of a rainbow. The splash of the waters, the cool spray, the wealth of ferns and flowers surrounding this sunken garden in the center of a great dining room – the soft strains of the orchestra, all combined to fill Roderick with wonder that was almost awe. He sank into a chair at a vacant little table near the fountain and endeavored to comprehend it all He was fresh from the brown hills, from the gray and purple sage and the desert cacti, from the very heart of nature, so utterly different to this spectacle of a bacchanalian civilization.
The wilderness waif soon discovered that he would be de trop unless he responded to the urgent inquiries of the waiter as to what he would have to drink.
“A bottle of White Rock to begin with,” ordered Roderick.
As he was sipping the cold and refreshing water it occurred to him that he had not tasted food since breakfast the day before in the dining car of the train. Yes, he would have something to eat and he motioned to the waiter.
After giving his order he had to wait a long time, and the longer he waited the hungrier he became. Presently a generous steak was placed before him. Potatoes au gratin, olives, asparagus, and French peas made up the side dishes, and a steaming pot of coffee completed a sumptuous meal.
When he had paid his check he discovered it was almost five o’clock in the morning, and as he mounted the marble stairway he laughingly told himself he wouldn’t have much of an appetite at seven or eight o’clock when he came to sit down at the breakfast table with Gail Holden. Gaining the sidewalk he found that darkness was shading into dawn.
Instead of returning by way of Market Street, Roderick lit a cigar and turning to the right walked up a cross street toward the St. Francis Hotel. In front was a beautiful little park; shrubbery and flowers lined the winding walks, while here and there large shade trees gave an added touch of rural charm.
He seated himself on one of the iron benches, took out his watch and counted up the number of minutes until, probably, he would see the object of his heart’s desire. How slow the time was going. He heard the laughter of a banqueting party over at the Poodle Dog, although at the time he did not know the place by name.
“Yes,” he murmured, “San Francisco is certainly in a class by itself. This is the land where there is no night.”
The contrast between the scenes in this gay city and the quiet hill life away up among the crags, the deep canyons and snow-clad peaks of southern Wyoming was indeed remarkable.
It was the morning of April eighteen, 1906, and the night had almost ended. There was a suggestion of purple on the eastern horizon – the forerunner of coming day. The crescent moon was hanging high above Mt. Tamalpais.
The town clock tolled the hour of five and still Roderick waited. Presently he was filled with a strange foreboding, a sense of oppression, that he was unable to analyze. He wondered if it presaged refusal of the great love surging in his heart for Gail Holden, the fair rider of the ranges, the sweet singer of the hills. An indescribable agitation seized him.
The minutes went slowly by. His impatience increased. He looked again at his watch and it was only a quarter after five. The city was wrapped in slumber.
Then suddenly and without warning Roderick was roughly thrown from his seat and sent sprawling onto the grass among the shrubbery. He heard an angry growling like the roar from some rudely awakened Goliath of destruction deep down in earth’s inner chambers of mystery – a roar of wrath and madness and resistless power. The ground was trembling, reeling, upheaving, shaking and splitting open into yawning fissures, while hideous noises were all around. Buildings about the park were being rent asunder and were falling into shapeless heaps of ruin.
Struggling to his feet, his first impulse was to hasten to the hotel and protect Gail. As he arose and started to run he was again thrown to earth. The bushes whipped the turf as if swished to and fro by an unseat hand. For a moment Roderick was stunned into inaction – stricken with the paralysis of unspeakable fear.
CHAPTER XXXVII – RODERICK RESCUES GAIL
IT WAS but a few seconds until Roderick was again on his feet Hurriedly taking his bearings, he started off through the little park in the direction of the Palace Hotel. In the uncertain morning dawn the people from innumerable bedrooms above the stores were pouring into the streets. They were scantily attired, most of them simply in their night garments, and all were dazed and stunned with a terrible fright Before Roderick had reached Market Street the thoroughfare was almost blocked by this frantic and half-clothed mass of humanity. His powerful athletic frame and his football experience stood him in good stead, although here roughness had to be exchanged for greatest gentleness. He was very persistent, however, in his determination to reach the hotel in time if possible to be of assistance to Gail.
Less than ten feet in front of where he was crowding his way through the throng of people a portion of a cornice came tumbling down from far above. A wailing cry went up from the unfortunates pinned beneath. Roderick leaped quickly forward and with the strength of a Hercules began to heave aside the great blocks of stone. Others recognized his leadership, instantly obeyed his commands and lent their united strength in helping to release three men who had been caught under debris. The cries of the injured were piteous. Indifferent to the danger of falling bricks and mortar Roderick caught up one poor fellow in his arms and carried him as if he were a babe into a receding doorway.
“My legs, my legs,” the victim moaned. “They’re broken – they’re broken.”
Quickly removing his coat Roderick placed it beneath the man’s head for a pillow, and leaving others to guard, he hastened back to the scene of the tragedy, only to find that the spark of life had now gone out from the other two bodies pitifully maimed and crushed.
He pushed his way into the middle of the street amid the surging mob, and again turned his steps toward the Palace Hotel. At last he found himself near to the entrance of the great hostelry. But everyone was seeking to escape and rushing to the street in riotous disorder. By dint of indefatigable efforts he managed to get within the gateway and then to the large trysting room across the hall from the hotel office. A group of women were endeavoring to revive a poor sufferer who evidently had fainted. Approaching, he saw blood coursing down the fair face of the unfortunate.
“My God!” he exclaimed. “It is Gail.”
An instant later he had gently pushed the helpers aside and gathered the girl in his strong arms. Moving backwards, forcing a passage step by step with the determination of one who acts intuitively in a crisis, he managed to gain the open. He hoped the air would restore Gail to consciousness.
Crossing to the other side of the street where the throng was less dense he started toward a high hill that rose up far away. It was covered with residences, and if he could once reach that vantage point with his charge he felt sure it would be an asylum of safety. The distance was considerable and presently the way became steep. But he was unconscious of any weight in the burden he carried. His only thought was to get Gail away from the burning, falling buildings – away from the central part of the city which was now a fiery pit wrapped in sheets of devouring flame.
Finally attaining the eminence – it was Nob Hill although he did not know the name – he found the porches and front lawns of the beautiful houses filled with frightened people viewing the scene in awe and amazement. Formalities were forgotten; solicitude and helpful kindness reigned supreme among all the people of the stricken city.
He called to a little group huddled on the front porch of their home. “Here is a lady,” Roderick explained, “who has been injured and fainted. Will you please get water and help to revive her?”
In hurried eagerness to assist they quickly brought a cot to the porch and upon this Roderick gently placed the still unconscious girl. Her face was deathly white, and a great red gash was discovered across one side of her head, from which the blood was trickling down the marble cheek. The wound was bandaged by tender hands and the face laved with cooling water. After a little Gail opened her eyes and asked piteously: “Where am I? Where am I?”
“You are safe,” said Roderick as he knelt by her side.
“Oh, is it you, Mr. Warfield? How glad – how glad I am to see you. Where am I?”
“In San Francisco. Don’t you remember?”
“Yes, yes, I remember now,” she replied weakly and lifted one hand to her aching head. “But papa? – where is my father?”
“I am going to look for him now. You are with kind people and they will care for you. Rest quietly and be patient until I return.”
Her dark blue eyes looked helplessly up into his for a moment; then he turned and was gone.
Roderick rushed down the hill, back to the scene of devastation where he might be useful in helping to save human life, determined also in his heart to find General Holden. But where was he? In some hospital, as Gail’s telegram had told.
He was debating with himself whether he should return to seek some directions from Gail. But just then the surging, swaying crowd pushed him irresistibly back, then swept him away along Market Street. The Palace Hotel was on fire. Policemen and firemen were thrusting the people away from the known danger line.
Just then he heard a voice crying out in heart-rending anguish: “My little girl’, my little girl.” It was a frantic mother weeping and looking far up to the seventh story of a building she evidently had just left. There leaning out of a window was a curly haired tot of a child, perhaps not more than four years old, laughing and throwing kisses toward her mama, all unconscious of danger.
“I came down,” sobbed the weeping mother to those around, “to see what had happened. The stairway is now on fire, and I cannot return. Will no one, oh Lord, will no one save my little girl?”
Roderick looked up to where the woman was pointing and saw the child.
“My God!” he exclaimed, “smoke is coming out of the next window.” He noticed that the adjoining building was already a mass of fire. At a glance he took in the situation.
“Hold on a minute,” he shouted. “I will try.”
There was an outside fire escape that led from the top story down to the first floor. Roderick made a leap, caught hold of the awning braces, pulled himself up with muscles of steel, and grasped the lowermost rung of the escape. A moment later he was making his way up the narrow iron ladder, pushing through the aperture at each floor, with almost superhuman swiftness. When he reached the window he lifted the child in his arms and hastily started on the downward journey.
“Hold tight, little girl,” was all Roderick said as he felt the confiding clasp of her tiny arms about his neck.
Many of the people below besides the almost frenzied mother were watching the heroic deed with bated breath. Just then a cry of terror went up. The great wall of a burning building across the street was toppling outward and a moment later collapsed, burying many unhappy victims beneath the avalanche of broken brick and mortar.
Whether the little girl’s mother had been caught by the falling wall or not Roderick had no means of determining. A choking cloud of dust, ash, soot and smoke enveloped him in stifling darkness; he could hardly breathe. The very air was heated and suffocating. But down and down he went with his little burden clinging tightly to him. Arriving at the awnings he swung himself over, secured a momentary foothold, then grasped the braces with his hands and dropped to the littered sidewalk below.
The mother of the girl was nowhere to be seen. He turned down the street to get away from the horrible sight of the dead and the piteous cries of the dying. He had scarcely reached the next corner when the child, who was mutely clinging to him as if indeed she knew he was her savior, released her arms and called out gleefully: “Oh, there’s mama, mama, mama.” Then the mother stood before him, weeping now for joy, and through her tears Roderick saw a face of radiance and a smile of gratitude that time or eternity would never erase from his memory.
Nothing mattered now – her little girl was safe in her arms. “I don’t know who you are, sir,” she exclaimed, “but I owe to you the life of my child, and may the good God bless you.”
But this was no time for thanks. Roderick was looking upward.
“Come quickly,” he shouted, “come this way – hasten.” And he pulled them down a side street and away from another sky-scraper that was trembling and wavering as if about to fall.
They turned, and ran along a street that was still free from fire and led toward the St. Francis Hotel and the little park fronting it where Roderick had sat at dawn. Carefully he guided the woman’s steps, keeping to the middle of the street, for the sidewalk was encumbered with debris and threatened by partly dislodged brickwork above. Here and there the roadway was rumpled and rough as a washboard by reason of the earthquake, while at places were great gaping fissures where the earth had been split open many feet deep. But soon they were in the open square, and mother and child were safe. Knowing this, Roderick allowed them to pass on – to pass out of his life without even the asking or the giving of names.
For there was other work to his hand; he hurried back to the last crossing. There under the fallen débris, was a woman obviously of refinement and wealth whose life had been vanquished without warning. One hand was extended above the wreckage. It was shapely and encircled with a bracelet, while a single diamond solitaire ring adorned her finger – perhaps a betrothal ring. Two human ghouls – not men – had whipped out their ready knives and were in the very act of severing the finger to obtain the jewel. It was these brutes that Roderick had come back to face.
Like a flash he leaped forward and with a well directed sledge-hammer blow felled one of these would-be robbers of the dead. Then he grappled with the second scoundrel. The man in his grip was none other than the outlaw, Bud Bledsoe!
With knife already open and in his hand the inhuman wretch slashed Roderick’s cheek, and the red blood spurted down his face and neck. Roderick loosed his hold and stepped back a pace – the next gash of this kind might easily be a fatal one. But not for one instant did he lose his presence of mind or nerve. As the cowardly miscreant advanced, cruel murder in his eyes, Roderick by a swift swing of his right parried the upraised hand that held the knife, and then, seizing the opening, he delivered with his left a smashing uppercut. Bledsoe reeled for a moment like a drunken man, then sank to the ground a huddled heap, and finally rolled over kicking convulsively and quite insensible.
The knockout had been effected quickly and well – like a butcher would fell a bullock.
Already the devastated city was under martial law, and three or four soldiers coming hurriedly up just then, and having seen from the opposite corner the hellish attempt of the two wretches to despoil the dead, shot them instantly, Bledsoe where he lay writhing, the other as he staggered dazed-like to his feet.
Roderick wiped the blood from his face, and thanked the soldiers. “Good for you, young fellow,” cried one of them as they continued on their way.
His wound forgotten, Roderick again looked round to see where he could render the most efficient service.
The night came on, and he was still at work, rescuing and helping. He had been recognized by the Citizens’ Committee of Safety and now wore a badge that gave him the freedom of the streets. In all his goings and comings he was ever looking for General Holden, and he also made numerous trips to Nob Hill, searching for the house where he had left Gail. But he could never find the place again, for the raging fire was fast obliterating all guiding landmarks.
Thus for two days – terrible days, pitiful days – for two nights – terrible nights, pitiful nights – Roderick drifted with the bands of rescuers, doing deeds of valor and of helpfulness for others less strong than himself. His face was black with soot and clotted with blood, his coat he had parted with at the beginning of the disaster, the rest of his clothing was tattered and torn, his sombrero had disappeared, when and how he had not the faintest notion.
The fire had now burned out its center circle and was eating away at the rim in every direction. Roderick suddenly remembered he had tasted no food since his early breakfast at Tate’s an hour before the earthquake crash. The pangs of hunger had begun to make themselves felt, and he concluded to turn his steps toward the outer fire line and endeavor to find something to eat.
As he walked along from house to house he found them all deserted. Some of the household goods were scattered about the lawns, while boxes, trunks, and bulky packages were piled on the sidewalks. Presently he found a basket which contained a single loaf of bread. This he ate ravenously, and counted it the greatest feast he had ever had in his life. He ate as he hurried along, thinking of Gail and General Holden – wishing he might divide the bread with them.
The roar of consuming, crackling flames, the deep intonations of intermittent dynamite explosions, and the occasional wail of human beings in distress, rose and fell like a funeral dirge.
His feet intuitively turned back to the burned district. There might yet be more work for him to do.
He determined to pick his way across the ruins, and ascending the hill opposite make another desperate effort to find Gail. After a fatiguing climb over hot embers and around the twisted steel skeletons of burned-out buildings he finally stood on the rim of the hill above the saucer-shaped valley of flames. Only charred and smoking ruins were about him. The beautiful residential district had like the business sections below, been swept with the fires of destruction.
Where was Gail? Was she safe? Was she dead? Would he ever find her? These were some of the questions that kept him in agonizing incertitude.
There was a weird uncanny attraction about this great amphitheatre of flame – an attraction like that of a lodestone; and he feared lest Gail had left her refuge in a vain search for her father and met with another serious accident. Roderick had visited all the unburned hospitals, but no trace of General Holden had he been able to find. The quest for both must be resumed; so down the hill he trudged again.
Ashes and burning cinders were falling like huge flakes of snow. Once more Roderick was in the midst of a throng of people – gaunt and hollow-eyed, wearied and worn-out, just staggering along. At last he recognized the little park in front of the St. Francis Hotel. Yes, he would go there, stretch himself on the grass, and rest and sleep for at least a few hours. This would make him ill the fitter for his task of searching.
Just as he was about to cross the street a dozen people shouted for him to look out; but he did not turn quickly enough to discover nor escape a burning wooden rafter that fell from the upper story of a building and struck him an ugly glancing blow on the head. Roderick dropped to the ground unconscious.
At this very moment a Red Cross automobile was passing. It stopped abruptly at the sidewalk. Two men stepped quickly down and lifted the almost lifeless body into the machine. A moment later the auto glided away down a side street in the direction of Golden Gate Park.
That night there were many in the camps of refuge around the burning city who thought about the tall, strong-muscled, square-jawed young stranger in khaki garb, while their hearts welled up with gratitude for his timely assistance and chivalrous deeds of bravery. Had they but known of the fate that had at last befallen their nameless hero, grateful thoughts would have been turned into fervent prayers.