He was pushing hard now and the days were bending under and cold weather came. His cot was still on the porch and daily he checked the undoing of the yard trees, woke to a red world with the sun wedged huge and squat in the mountain gap and the maples incandesced. Couched in his musty blanket he sniffed to test the air. A limp breeze water-wrought and tempered with smoke came lisping through the screen with no news yet. He waited. In the slow bleeding month of October he watched, looking torpid and heavylidded as
