hey would laugh at him, and it is a
bitter thing to be laughed at. So he kept his watch, and while he looked
the projections appeared, disappeared and appeared once more.

He could stand it no longer. Putting his rifle under his blanket in
order to keep the weapon dry he stepped out of doors, but flattened
himself against the wall of the convent. The rain and wind whipped him
unmercifully, and the cold ran through him, but he was resolved to see
what was happening by the adobe wall. The projections were there and
they had increased to four. They did not go away.

Ned was now convinced that it was not fancy. His mind had obeyed his
will, and he was the true realist, no victim of the imagination. He was
about to kneel down in the grass, and crawl toward the wall, when
something caused him to change his mind. One of the projections suddenly
extended a full yard above the wall, and resolved itself into the shape
of a man. But what a man! The body from the waist up was naked, and
above it rose a head crested with long hair, black and coarse. Other
heads and bodies also savage and naked rose up beside it on the wall.
Ned knew in an instant and springing back within the convent he cried:

"Comanches! Comanches! Up men, up!"

At the same moment, acting on impulse, he seized the rope that hung by
the wall and pulled it hard, fast and often. Above in the cupola the
great bronze bell boomed forth a tremendous solemn note that rose far
over the moaning of the wind. From the adobe wall came a fierce yell, a
sinister cry that swelled until it became a high and piercing volume of
sound, and then died away in a menacing note like the howl of wolves.
But Ned, impulse still his master, never ceased to pull the bell.

All the Texans were on their feet at once, wide awake, rifles in their
hands.

"Lie down, men, by the doors!" cried Bowie, "and shoot anything that
tries to come in. Ned, let go the rope, you are in range there, and lie
down with us! But you have done well, boy! You have done well! You have
saved us all from being scalped, and perhaps the booming of the big bell
will bring us help that we may need badly!"

Ned threw himself on the floor just in time to avoid a bullet that sang
in at the open doorway. But no other shot was fired then. The Comanches
in silence sank back into the darkness and the rain. The defenders lay
on the floor, guarding the doorways with open rifles. They could not see
much, but they could hear wel