At Brownsville men weary from tending fires fell into bed, and slept the peaceful sleep of those released from fear; at Montemorelos the brown-skinned people no longer shivered upon their straw-mats. The still cold of the night was broken. The oranges were safe, and the fires might burn low. On this side the Rio Grande and on the other, a softer air was moving from the Gulf. Whether women had prayed to the Son or called upon the dark Virgin, whether men had cursed or been silent, upon all the orange groves the gentler wind was blowing. On the coast of Texas and the coast of Tamaulipas, no matter the flags, it blew.

No longer did the stars glitter coldly in the cloudless sky and the heat drain off to outer space. Now, in the darkness before dawn, from Galveston Bay to Río Pánuco the overcast hung low; as the moist air blew across the cold land, long arms of fog moved up every valley.

Mile by mile the southern breeze pushed inland. Monterrey felt it, and Saltillo; it moved in the streets of Laredo. It came to San Antonio and Houston, to Austin and Waco. Reaching far to the north along Trinity River a finger of mist touched Dallas. And even farther, along the Red River and the Cimarron, men waking in the night knew that the power of the cold was breaking.

The teletype machines were clicking in wild confusion; Whitey was entering data. The Chief, sitting in his chair, was looking at the map upside down. Reading a notation here and there he already sensed the continued power of the storm.

As usual, it gave him a feeling of his own futility and insignificance. Even his forecast made little difference today; anybody could see the rain was going to keep up for a while. Usually he had a keen sense of interest in the men with whom he worked; he felt the importance of whether the J. M. was just a whippersnapper with a lot of crazy ideas out of books, or whether he had the makings of a good weather-man. But today the Chief did not even inquire about Whitey’s sick wife. Personalities were important in fair weather; when a storm stretched from Sitka to San Diego, what happened to individuals seemed of little moment. The storm was so great that it monopolized his mind.

After he had drawn the map, he saw that the situation had changed remarkably little as far as the Pacific Coast was involved. The storm still centered off Cape Blanco. There was room for argument, the Chief knew, about how a storm could stay in one place, and even about whether it actually did. Some maintained that what looked like the same storm was in some way really a succession of storms, continually dying and being born. Others talked of waves along a stationary front. But as the Chief liked to say, if you’re crossing a tropical river and something grabs your leg, you’re not much concerned whether it’s an alligator or a crocodile. From the practical point of view the storm was all one, although quite possibly it had as many parts as a centipede.