Under these conditions the sheathing of ice built up rapidly. By the time it was a half foot in diameter each span of the three upper wires was supporting a ton of ice. The wires, however, were constructed about a steel core, and each was normally capable of supporting several times the weight which had as yet accumulated.

Some days previous, however, an owl had happened to alight on one of the cross-arms. The ensuing electrocution had caused a shower of electric sparks, and had burned and weakened one of the wires.

3

In the orange groves of Brownsville the norther lashed the branches, and the temperature at dawn was two degrees above freezing. Men made ready their fires for the bitter, still cold which follows the ceasing of the wind, and women prayed to God and to his Son. Across the Rio Grande in the orange groves of Montemorelos wind and temperature were the same; the brown-faced men shrugged their shoulders in resignation, and women prayed to the dark Virgin of Guadelupe.

Across the broad reach of the Gulf the storm drove on. It tossed the ships in its path—tankers of the oil ports, cotton- and banana- and coffee-boats. Over the warm waters the air grew less chill; and its lower levels, sucking up the spray from every white-cap, grew thick with moisture.

Beyond the Gulf, in the wind’s path, lay the long crescent of the Mexican coast. “El Norte!” said the brown-faced people, and drew their serapes closer. In early morning the storm struck Vera Cruz; waves lashed the quays; spray wreathed the ancient castle of San Juan. Upon the mountain slopes by Jalapa the storm broke in torrents of rain; it tore the great leaves of the banana trees; it whipped the coffee-bushes and the gardenias. In their wattled tropical huts the people huddled shivering. Higher up, there was snow on the peaks—Orizaba, and Peiote, and Malinche.

Through the passes—fiercer than Aztec or Spaniard—the storm poured down upon the Valley of Mexico. The wind stirred the lakes to foam; the cypresses of Chapultepec tossed wet branches; the flowers of Xochimilco were wet and sodden. Clouds covered Iztaccihuatl and Popocatepetl; snow was white upon Ajusco.

But farther that way the storm could not go, for the great mountains blocked its passage. And by the swimming-pools of Cuernavaca the fair-skinned tourists lay in the hot sun, and wondered why that morning the little cloud-banners streamed off from the peaks to the north.