Use the NEAR operator for unordered proximity searches.
That is, term1 can appear within num words before or after term2 in the document.
"Mark Twain" NEAR/8 Hartford
"Mark Twain wrote some of his best books in Hartford." "Tour the Hartford, Connecticut home where Mark Twain lived and worked from 1874 to 1891."
Phrases are treated as one word. In the first sentence, for example, the software starts counting with the word "wrote" (not "Twain").