Through the glasses he recognized the leader of a small patrol that was moving east on 18th Avenue. It was Tom Wiley, the barber. His men were mostly students from the college. They were trying to gain a house farther up the block to provide a covering point from which a general advance of the line on both sides of them could hinge. Tom could not see that an opposing patrol had him under observation. He led his men into the open to cross the street. Ken wanted to shout for him to go back, but it was impossible to be heard at such distance. The enemy patrol moved out slightly. They centered Tom and his men in a murderous burst of rifle fire. The barber fell. Two of the others were hit, but they managed to reach cover with the rest of their companions. The body of Tom Wiley lay motionless where it fell in the snow-covered street. Ken could see the sign, just a block away, that read, "Wiley's Barber and Beauty Shop." From where Ken stood, the sign, which jutted out over the sidewalk, seemed to project just above the body of the fallen barber. Ken hesitated in his resolve to go down there in the midst of the fighting. He thought of Johnson's words and Hilliard's orders. Would the defense strategy succeed? The nomads were trained and toughened by their weeks of fight for survival, but Mayfield's men were only weakened by their strained effort to keep the town alive. On the eastern side of the encirclement a burst of smoke with a core of orange flame at its center spurted upward from a house. This was followed by a second and a third and a fourth. Defending fighters ran from the rear of the burning houses to the row beyond. Behind the screen of billowing smoke the nomads crept forward to repeat their tactics and fire the houses where the defenders now had cover. It was obvious they recognized the danger of encirclement by forces stronger than any they had anticipated. They were making a desperate effort to straighten their lines parallel to the barbed wire, with their flanks and rear clear of threat. Ken watched the success of their second incendiary thrust. They could go on indefinitely unless the defenders succeeded in flanking them. That was being attempted now. The defenders moved under the cover of the smokescreen to fire on the advancing nomads. The latter recognized their danger and held to solid cover of houses adjacent to those they had fired. North of this bulge, however, another column was forming, and Ken saw in sudden horror that it was headed directly toward the warehouse! A house only a half-block from the warehouse burst into flame. There was a flurry of activity from the defenders as they, too, recognized the fresh danger and brought up reinforcements before the threatened warehouse.