Washington had calm air and a brilliant sun which seemed to shed no warmth; the temperature was eight above zero. New York lacked two degrees of being as cold as Washington, and Philadelphia was a little warmer than either of them. In Boston the temperature was even higher, but a steady north wind made people feel chillier.

Buffalo was the cold pole of the country. As at Washington the air was still and the sun brilliant. But the temperature was sixteen below zero, and the newspapers reported four deaths from cold.

Detroit and Cleveland were below zero, but were warmer than they had been on the preceding day. Chicago was growing much warmer. Memphis had fog; Kansas City reported a thaw. Havre and Bismarck were almost as cold as Buffalo.

All these reports suddenly presented to the average common-sense citizen would certainly have led him to conclude that the weather in the United States upon this particular day was a mere crazy-quilt, wholly lacking in scheme.

•

To the J. M., looking at the ordered isobars of the finished map, the weather displayed a pattern which was precise, comparatively simple, and in a sense even purposive. The weather of any place in the eastern United States, for instance, could be readily explained by reference to its location within the high-pressure area which centered over Lake Ontario. In addition, the usual circulation of air from west to east was re-establishing itself.

The most obvious sign was Little Maria. She centered over Abilene, and was giving Texas almost every variety of weather. But there were other signs. The high-pressure area was slowly drifting eastward. He checked back upon the maps of the last three days and traced its movement—Kansas City, Terre Haute, Cleveland; and this morning its center was east of Buffalo. Maria still stood firm, and the Triplets were dead; but Victoria, growing in power, had already reached the western Aleutians. Over the Pacific the long arm of the northern invasion was shrinking back, and over the Yukon valley the pressure was falling. Again he looked at the preceding maps. On Tuesday that pressure had stood at 1050; on Wednesday it had dropped to 1042; today it was 1035. Once this pressure should have fallen a little farther, the outflow of northern air would cease, and Maria either would pass into some new phase, or else—cut off from fresh supplies of air—must die.

The Chief came in, and the J. M. felt himself suddenly grow warm with the new sense of comradeship.

“How’s Maria?” said the Chief, quietly, so that no one else could overhear him.

“She’s fine,” said the J. M.

“I want to check again on that line of cloud.”

It was still there—no doubt of that. One of the ships reporting cloud today had reported cloud yesterday. She was a fast liner from Honolulu heading for San Francisco, and the cloud bank was moving at just about the same rate.