nant with combat experience. His presence boosted the
morale of the defenders immediately.

"Hold your fire," he ordered the men. "Keep under cover and wait until
you can see something worth shooting at. Try to keep the fire from
spreading, and watch for a rush attack. Don't waste ammunition! You'll
find yourselves without any if you keep that up."

Reluctantly, they ceased firing and fell back to the protection of their
barricades. Patrolman John Sykes, who was lieutenant of the sector, had
been in the National Guard, but he had never seen anything like this.
"Do you think they'll rush us?" he asked. "Tonight, I mean, in the
dark."

"Who knows? They may be crazy enough to try anything. Keep your eyes
open."

The flames quickly burned out the interiors of the houses that had been
hit. As the roofs crashed in, their burden of snow assisted in putting
out the fires, and there was no spreading to nearby houses.

In his room, Ken dressed impatiently. It was useless to try to sleep any
more. "I wish they'd let us go out there," he said. "We've got as much
right as Johnson or any of the rest."

His father remained a motionless silhouette against the distant
firelight. "As much right, perhaps," he said, "but more and different
responsibilities. Hilliard is right. If we were knocked down out there
who would take over the work in the laboratory? Johnson? Adams?

"In Berkeley there are thousands fighting each other, but with French
and his group gone, no one is fighting the comet. I don't think it is
selfish to say we are of infinitely more value in the laboratory than we
could ever be out there with guns in our hands."

He turned and smiled in the half-darkness. "That's in spite of the fact
that you have the merit badge for marksmanship and won the hunting club
trophy last year."

After an hour the attack ceased, apparently because the defenders
refused to waste their fire on the impossible targets. Sheriff Johnson
sent word around for his men to resume rotation of watch and get all the
sleep possible before the day that was ahead of them.

The fires burned themselves out shortly before dawn. Their light was
followed soon by the glow of the comet rising in the southeast. Ken
watched it and thought of Granny Wicks. It wouldn't be hard, he thought,
to understand how a belief in omens could arise. It wouldn't be hard at
all.

The sky had cleared so that the light of the comet bathed the entire
countryside in its full,