Then came a time when mere appreciation might well
have grown to devout thankfulness at a providential conjunction of
time, place, and man; for one morning Dr. Jones came to his new chief
with a grave face to announce his discovery of a case which he could
not but identify as that selfsame black fever whose germ Clarendon had
found and classified. Dr. Clarendon showed no surprize, but kept on at the writing before him. "I know," he said evenly; "I came across that case yesterday. I'm glad
you recognized it. Put the man in a separate ward, though I don't
believe this fever is contagious." Dr. Jones, with his own opinion of the malady's contagiousness, was
glad of this deference to caution; and hastened to execute the order. Upon his return Clarendon rose to leave, declaring that he would
himself take charge of the case alone. Disappointed in his wish to
study the great man's methods and technique, the junior physician
watched his chief stride away toward the lone ward where he had placed
the patient, more critical of the new regime than at any time since
admiration had displaced his first jealous pangs. Reaching the ward, Clarendon entered hastily, glancing at the bed and
stepping back to see how far Dr. Jones's obvious curiosity might have
led him. Then, finding the corridor still vacant, he shut the door and
turned to examine the sufferer. The man was a convict of a peculiarly
repulsive type, and seemed to be racked by the keenest throes of
agony. His features were frightfully contracted, and his knees drawn
sharply up in the mute desperation of the stricken. Clarendon studied
him closely, raising his tightly shut eyelids, took his pulse and
temperature, and finally dissolving a tablet in water, forced the
solution between the sufferer's lips. Before long the height of the
attack abated, as shown by the relaxing body and returning normality of
expression, and the patient began to breathe more easily. Then, by a
soft rubbing of the ears, the doctor caused the man to open his eyes. There was life in them, for they moved from side to side, though they
lacked the fine fire which we are wont to deem the image of the soul. Clarendon smiled as he surveyed the peace his help had brought, feeling
behind him the power of an all-capable science. He had long known of
this case, and had snatched the victim from death with the work of a
moment. Another hour and this man would have gone--yet Jones had seen
the symptoms for days before discovering them, and having discovered
them, did not know what to do. Man's conquest of disease, however, can not be perfect. Clarendon,
assuring the dubious trusty-nurses that the fever was not contagious,
had had the patient bathed, sponged in alcohol, and put to bed; but
was told the next morning that the case was lost. The man had died
after midnight in the most intense agony, and with such cries and
distortions of face that the nurses were driven almost to panic. The
doctor took this news with his usual calm, whatever his scientific
feelings may have been, and ordered the burial of the patient in
quicklime. Then, with a philosophic shrug of the shoulders, he made the
usual rounds of the penitentiary. Two days later the prison was hit again. Three men came down at once
this time, and there was no concealing the fact that a black fever
epidemic was under way. Clarendon, having adhered so firmly to his
theory of non-contagiousness, suffered a distinct loss of prestige,
and was handicapped by the refusal of the trusty-nurses to attend the
patients. Theirs was not the soul-free devotion of those who sacrifice
themselves to science and humanity. They were convicts, serving only
because of the privileges they could not otherwise buy, and when the
price became too great they preferred to resign the privileges. But the doctor was still master of the situation. Consulting with the
warden and sending urgent messages to his friend the governor, he saw
to it that special rewards in cash and in reduced terms were offered
to the convicts for the dangerous nursing service; and by this method
succeeded in getting a very fair quota of volunteers. He was steeled
for action now, and nothing could shake his poise and determination. Additional cases brought only a curt nod, and he seemed a stranger
to fatigue as he hastened from bedside to bedside all over the vast
stone home of sadness and evil. More than forty cases developed within
another week, and nurses had to be brought from the city. Clarendon
went home very seldom at this stage, often sleeping on a cot in the
warden's quarters, and always giving himself up with typical abandon to
the service of medicine and of mankind. *       *       *       *       *

Then came the first mutterings of that storm which was soon to convulse
San Francisco. News will out, and the menace of black fever spread over
the town like a fog from the bay. Reporters trained in the doctrine of
"sensation first" used their imagination without restraint, and gloried
when at last they were able to produce a case in the Mexican quarter
which a local physician--fonder perhaps of money than of truth or civic
welfare--pronounced black fever. That was the last straw. Frantic at the thought of the crawling death
so close upon them, the people of San Francisco went mad en masse, and
embarked upon that historic exodus of which all the country was soon
to hear over busy wires. Ferries and rowboats, excursion steamers and
launches, railways and cable cars, bicycles and carriages, moving-vans
and work carts, all were pressed into instant and frenzied service. Sausalito and Tamalpais, as lying in the direction of San Quentin,
shared in the flight; while housing space in Oakland, Berkeley,
and Alameda rose to fabulous prices. Tent colonies sprang up, and
improvised villages lined the crowded southward highways from Millbrae
to San Jose. Many sought refuge with friends in Sacramento, while the
fright-shaken residue forced by various causes to stay behind could do
little more than maintain the basic necessities of a nearly dead city. Business, save for quack doctors with "sure cures" and "preventives"
for use against the fever, fell rapidly to the vanishing-point. At
first the saloons offered "medicated drinks," but soon found that the
populace preferred to be duped by charlatans of more professional
aspect. In strangely noiseless streets persons peered into one
another's faces to glimpse possible plague symptoms, and shopkeepers
began more and more to refuse admission to their clientele, each
customer seeming to them a fresh fever menace. Legal and judicial
machinery began to disintegrate as attorneys and county clerks
succumbed one by one to the urge for flight. Even the doctors deserted
in large numbers, many of them pleading the need of vacations among the
mountains and the lakes in the northern part of the state.