lighted up by the glare of the oncoming conflagration. After getting about half-way to the shore, I stopped and deposited my burden on the front steps of a fine residence I was passing, thinking I would soon return and find them there. Again, for the third time, I went back to my rooms, and, gathering up a few more articles, started for the stone steps. I found, however, on reaching the house, that the things I had left there were covered several feet deep with other people's belongings, and I never saw them again.

By this time the people were fully awake, rushing about the street, or anxiously looking out of their windows and from the tops of their houses in the direction of the fire. I could not help thinking of the Bible story of the destruction of the Cities of the Plain in the long ago, as many still made light of those who said the city would be destroyed. The air was filled with flying sparks of fire, resembling a spring snowstorm, when the sky is filled with huge, falling flakes.

As I pressed on, two men carrying a sick man on a stretcher overtook me. After passing a short distance ahead, they stopped and laid him by the side of the street, as the invalid, being quite sure the city would not be destroyed, did not wish to be carried farther. As soon as the carriers had been paid off and discharged I employed them to assist me in carrying my effects to the lakeside; but before we reached our

destination, in looking southward, they saw that the fire was sweeping through the southeastern section of the city, where they lived. Dropping my goods in the middle of the street, and without waiting for compensation, they rushed away to secure their own homes.

Again I secured help, and at last reached the lake, where I deposited my trunks and possessions close by the edge of the water, with the thought that if the flames came to the edge of the lake I would walk into the water and be saved from the heat. Remembering my first attempt at carrying my goods away from Farwell Hall, I returned to the Palmer House block, to secure, if possible, my first cargo, very much fearing that the things would not be there when I reached the place, as I thought some night wanderer might have noticed my leaving them and appropriated them to his own use. Much to my joy, I found them still there, and carried them away to the lake.

By this time I was greatly exhausted, and almost famished for want of water, that along the shore not being fit to drink. I asked another refugee, who was in like case with myself, watching his little store of precious things, if he would look out for mine while 1 returned into the city to get some water to drink. The man consenting, I went back to Wabash Avenue, one of the finest residential streets in the city, and,

entering one of the large houses, asked if I might have some water. I was told to go into the rear of the building and get all I wished. I found a faucet, but, on attempting to draw water, air rushed out instead. This was my first intimation that the water works, two miles to the northward, had been destroyed. A few minutes later I heard a terrific explosion, which seemed to shake the city, and was told that the city gas works had blown up.

Things began to look very desperate-no water, no light in the houses, and the city in flames! I made my way back again to the lake and, wrapping myself in a great overcoat, lay down behind one of the large trunks which I had saved. Thus sheltered from the wind, I slept for an hour. On awaking I could hear the rush and roar of the fire coming nearer and nearer. The sun, slowly rising out of the waters of the lake, seemed like a red ball of fire. The wind had not fallen, and huge waves were breaking on the shore at my feet.

I now felt that I must have water to drink, and, after wandering along the shore for some distance, found some small rowboats, and asked a man near by, who seemed to be their owner, if I might have one to go out into the lake for fresh water. "Yes," he said; "if you can manage the boat you can have it, as we are not likely to have much more boating in this