Bullets accompanied the shouts and howls. The Sheriff's men took cover
and began a slow and painful advance.

There could be a thousand mobbers on top of the hill, Ken thought. The
Sheriff's men might be outnumbered several times over. He wondered if
they ought to try to get reinforcements, and decided against it unless
word should be sent down from the top.

There was no way of telling how the battle was going. Gunfire was
continuous. A freezing wind had come up and swept over the length of the
valley and over those who waited and those who fought. It fanned the
flames to volcanic fury.

Ken touched his father's arm. "There's no use for you to stay in this
cold," he said. "You ought to go back to the house."

"I've got to know how it comes out up there, who wins."

The cold starlight of the clear sky began to fade. As dawn approached,
the flames in the college buildings had burned themselves out. But the
gunfire continued almost without letup. Then, almost as quickly as it
had started, it died.

After a time, figures appeared on the brow of the hill and came down in
a weary procession. Sheriff Johnson led them. He stopped at the bottom
of the hill.

"Was it Meggs?" Ken asked. "Did you get Frank Meggs?"

"He fell in the first 10 minutes," said Johnson. "It wasn't really
Meggs keeping them going at all. They had a witch up there. As long as
she was alive nothing would stop them."

"Granny Wicks! Was she up there?"

"Sitting on a kind of throne they'd made for her out of an old rocking
chair. Right in the middle of the whole thing."

"Did she finally get shot?"

Sheriff Johnson shook his head. "She was a witch, a real, live witch.
Bullets wouldn't touch her. The west wall of Science Hall collapsed and
buried her. That's when they gave up.

"So maybe you can say you won, after all," he said to Professor Maddox.
"It's a kind of symbol, anyway, don't you think?"

Chapter 19. _Conquest of the Comet_

For the first time since the coming of the comet, Ken sensed defeat in
his father. Professor Maddox seemed to believe at last that they were
powerless before the invader out of space. He seemed like a runner who
has used his last reserve of strength to reach a goal on which his eye
has been fixed, only to discover the true goal is yet an immeasurable
distance ahead.

Professor Maddox had believed with all his heart and mind that they had
hurdled the last obstacle with the construction of the pilot proj