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.

“Hn-n?” said the Chief. “You know, those passengers on that liner will think there’s been cloud all over the ocean all this time. Not so bad though, as when a ship gets in slow-moving storm-center, and keeps in it maybe half way across the ocean. Well, have you figured out anything more?”

The J. M. felt a new uplift at being asked a question as though he were an equal.

“No,” he said, regretfully but honestly. “We’ve got a whole line of ships reporting between here and Honolulu, but they don’t show enough wind- or temperature-shift anywhere to indicate a front. Whatever it is, it’s only in the upper air.”

“When would you say it’ll get here, whatever it is?”

“Two or three tomorrow morning,” said the J.M, but he did not say that he had used his slide-rule.