completely. The capital was moved to Portland, Maine. Local
law and order vanished. The great gangs took over the cities and
extracted what tribute they could from the impoverished inhabitants.
Utilities ceased functioning entirely, what little goods remained were
obtainable only by barter, and epidemic after epidemic decreased the
population to fit the shrinking boundaries.

Brother Paul, deprived of the radio, now multiplied himself infinitely
in the person of his disciples, preaching unremittingly against
resistance, even by thought, to the oncoming Grass. Mother Joan's
infrequent public appearances attracted enormous crowds as she
proclaimed, "O be joyful; give your souls to Jesus and your bodies to
the Grass. I am The Forerunner and after me will come the Ox. Rejoice,
brothers and sisters, for this is the end of all your suffering and
misery."

On foot or rarely with the aid of a horse or mule, the panicstricken
population marched northward and eastward. Canadian officials, anxious
to apply immigration controls with the greatest possible latitude, were
thrust aside as though their existence were an irrelevance. Along the
lower reaches of the St Lawrence the refugees came like locusts to
devour the substance of the _habitants_. Into empty Ungava and almost
equally empty Labrador the hardier ones pushed, armed like their
forebears with only ax and shotgun. Northward and eastward, beyond the
Arctic Circle and onto the polar ice they trickled, seeking some place
which promised security from the Grass. Passenger rates to Europe or
South America, formerly at a premium, now shot to unparalleled heights.

I wound up my own affairs, disappointed at the failure to find a use for
the Grass, but still keeping it in view as a future objective, and
arranged for the removal of the Florida factory to Brazzaville. Heeding
the cabled importunities of Stuart Thario I risked my life to travel
once more into the interior to see Joe and persuade him to come back
with me. I found them in a small Pennsylvania town in the Alleghenies,
once a company owned miningvillage. The Grass, advancing rapidly, was
just beyond the nearest mountainridge, replacing the jagged Appalachian
horizon with a softer and more ominous one.

They appeared serene and content, Joe's haggard look of the winter
erased. "I'm in the middle of the third movement, A W," he told me, like
a man who had no time to waste on preliminaries or indirections. "Here."
He thru