am.

The frenzied actions of the humanbeings had no effect on the grass. The
saltband still stood inviolate, as did smaller counterparts hastily laid
around the earlier of the seedborne growths, but everywhere else the
grass swept ahead like a tidalwave, its speed seemingly increased by the
months of repression behind. It swallowed San Diego in a gulp and
leaped beyond the United States to take in Baja California in one swift
downward lick. It sprang upon the deserts, whose lack of water was no
deterrent, now always sending little groups ahead like paratroopers or
fifthcolumnists; they established positions till the main body came up
and consolidated them. It curled up the high mountains, leaving only the
snow on their peaks unmolested and it jumped over struggling rivers with
the dexterity of a girl playing hopscotch.

It lunged eastward into Arizona and Nevada, it swarmed north up the San
Joaquin Valley through Fresno and spilled over the lip of the High
Sierras toward Lake Tahoe. New Los Angeles, its back protected by the
Salton Sea, was, like the original one, subjected to a pincer movement
which strangled the promising life from it before it was two years old.

Forced to move again, Le ffacase characteristically demanded the burden
fall upon the employees of the paper, paying them off in scrip on the
poor excuse that no money was available. I saw no future in staying with
this sinking ship and eager to be back at the center of things--Fles
wrote me that the large stock of pemmican which had been accumulating
without buyers could now be very profitably disposed of--I severed my
connection for the second time with the _Intelligencer_ and returned to
my proper sphere.

This of course did not mean that I failed to follow each step of the
grass; such a course would have been quite impossible since its every
move affected the life and fortune of every citizen. By some strange
freak it spared the entire coast north of Santa Barbara. Whether it had
some disinclination to approach saltwater--it had been notably slow in
its original advance westward--or whether it was sheer accident, San
Luis Obispo, Monterey and San Francisco remained untouched as the cities
to the south and east were buried under grassy avalanches. This odd
mercy raised queer hopes in some: perhaps their town or their state
would be saved.

The prostration of the country which had begun with the first wave of
panic could not be allowed to continue. Th