“Is there any way we can fix up that door?” asked Chester.

Colonel Anderson shook his head.

“I am afraid not.  Ivan has shattered it beyond repair.”

“Then it shall be my post to guard,” cried Ivan.  “No Bulgarian shall come through there.”

“There are not many other places they can come through,” said Helen.  “Only two windows and a second door, in the rear of the house.  I shall guard one of the windows myself.”

“You are not afraid?” asked Chester.

“Not now, that I have friends with me.”

“All right.  Colonel Anderson, I’ll take this other window here, near Miss Ellison.  You shall guard the back door.”

“The first thing to do is tie this fellow up,” said Anderson, indicating the Bulgarian.

Ivan stepped forward, and taking a piece of rope that Helen gave him, tied the man up tightly.

“Now,” said Chester, “to your posts.  We don’t want to be caught unguarded.”

All took the places assigned them and examined their weapons.  An hour passed.  Then Chester, peering through the window, exclaimed: 

“Here they come!”

CHAPTER XXIII.

The fight in the house.

“I’m ready for them!” shouted Ivan, from his position behind the broken door.

He stood well back in the darkness, out of sight from beyond the house.

All was quiet and dark within, for with the appearance of the first of the enemy Chester had extinguished the light.  The figures of the approaching Bulgarians were plainly visible to Chester and Helen through the windows.  Ivan and Colonel Anderson, of course, could not see them, although they would have been visible to the former had he a mind to take a chance and expose himself to their view.

As the men approached, Chester counted them.  Then he announced: 

“Thirteen, I make them.”

“My count, too,” agreed Helen from her window.

There was not a tremor in her voice now and she seemed totally unlike the frightened girl Chester had first seen.  She held her revolver steadily in her right hand, a pile of ammunition heaped up in the window sill before her.

The men came on briskly, absolutely unaware of the rude welcome that awaited them.

“Let them get close enough so we can’t miss, then I’ll hold a parley with them,” said Chester.

When the men were less than fifty yards from the house, Chester raised his voice and called out sternly in Russian: 

“Halt there!”

The Bulgarians halted in their tracks and gazed about in surprise.  To the best of their knowledge there could be no one in the house but the girl, and this sudden hail in a male voice made them pause.

“What do you want here?” demanded Chester from his shelter.

There was a hurried consultation among the enemy; then one man called: