Whitey was still working like a high-speed machine. Winnipeg, The Pas, Qu’Appelle, Swift Current. Most of the United States and Canada was now filled in. Between California and Hawaii a dozen ships had reported. Taking up a new batch of radio messages, Whitey dropped some thousands of miles southward and began with ships along the Mexican west coast; this work was a little slower, for he had to locate latitude and longitude. Nansu, Olaf Maersk, San Roque, City of Brownleigh. A moment later he was back above the Arctic Circle in the Canadian Northwest where stations lonelier than ships sent out the readings of their instruments by radio through the polar night. Coppermine, Aklavik, Fort Norman, Chesterfield Inlet.

The teletype room sent out less noise. The bells rang only now and then. The Chicago line was quiet. Occasionally some machine broke suddenly into action with a belated report, or something gone astray, or a correction. Whitey relaxed enough to make his first mistake. He cursed softly, and reached for his ink eradicator. Mr. Ragan and the Junior Meteorologist worked steadily at their table, plotting changes of temperature and pressure since the previous reports.

Although the Chief had not noted any passing of time since the reports had begun, he saw now that the clock stood at a quarter past five. The electric lights still blazed in the office; the blank windows showed only darkness outside.

“How’s she stand, Whitey?”

“Pretty well filled up, sir. I think you can start.”

The Chief slipped into his chair. In this position he was opposite Whitey, and saw the map upside down. But he had long since adjusted himself to this position so as to avoid joggling the chart-man’s elbow and having to peer over his shoulders. After all, as he liked to demonstrate with pencil and paper— is just as easy to read as 5 once you get used to it.

From whatever direction observed, the map as yet represented nothing but confusion. For each of several hundred stations and ships Whitey had recorded a half dozen or more separate notations. Over the United States the map was nearly filled with numbers and seemingly cabalistic symbols. Even to the Chief such a map was only a recording of data which he must reduce to order.

First of all, he set himself to locate the present position of the storm which had been advancing toward the south Alaskan coast. Heavy rain and a sharply falling barometer at Sitka indicated that the front had not yet passed but was probably close. With his purple pencil the Chief drew a line lying just west of Sitka and curving slightly away until it ended two hundred miles west of the Washington coast.