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 projector. With it gone, and all their tools and instruments and notes, there was simply nothing. As Ken considered the problem, it seemed to him the situation was not as bad as first appeared. The most important thing had not been lost. This was the knowledge, locked in their own minds, of what means could prevail against the dust. Beyond this, the truly essential mechanical elements for starting over again were also available. Art Matthews had been very busy, and he had parts enough for six more motor-generator sets. These were decontaminated and sealed in protective packing. It would be only a matter of hours to assemble one of them, and that would power any supersonic projector they might choose to build. And they _could_ still choose to build one. In the radio supply stores of the town, and in the junk boxes of the members of the science club, there were surely enough components to build several times over the necessary number of generator elements. In the barns and chicken sheds of the valley there was plenty of aluminum sheeting to build reflectors.