A DOG DIES GAME
Clambering out of the hold, the three detectives and Cleggett briefly made their followers acquainted with the extraordinary turn of events.The Rev.Mr.Calthrop, Miss Pringle's Jefferson, and Washington Artillery Lamb were detailed to guard the Jasper B.end of the tunnel.The others, seizing their rifles, raced across the sands towards Morris's.
In a few moments the place was invested, with riflemen on every side except the south, which fronted on the bay.The steel-jacketed bullets from the high-power guns tore through and through the flimsy walls.Nevertheless the defenders replied pluckily, and the siege might have dragged on for hours had it not been for the courage and resource of Kuroki.Gaining the stable, Kuroki found an old pushcart there.He piled three bales of hay upon it, and then set fire to the hay.Pushing the cart before him, and crouching behind the bales to protect himself from revolver shots, he worked his way to the east verandah of the building and left the hay blazing against the planks.Then he ran as if the devil were after him, and was almost out of pistol shot before he got a bullet in the calf of his leg.
The blaze caught the wood and spread.In two minutes the east verandah was in flames.Loge and his men attempted to pour water on the blaze from above.But Cleggett's party directed so hot a fire upon the windows that the defenders were forced to retire.
The main building caught.The road house was old, and was of very light construction; the fire spread with rapidity.Loge was in a trap.
But that evil and indomitable spirit refused to yield.Even when his remaining ruffians came out and gave themselves up Loge still fought onalone in a sullen fury of despair.
Reckless of bullets, he leaned from an open window, a figure not without its grandeur against the background of smoke and flame, and shouted a savage and obscene insult at Cleggett.
"Give yourself up," cried Wilton Barnstable.
"Damn it, man, anything's better than roasting to death!"Loge raised his hand and sped a last bullet at the detective, grazing Barnstable's temple.
"Come in and get me!" he shouted.
Barnstable fired, just as a whirl of smoke blew in front of Loge.Cleggett thought the outlaw staggered, but he was not certain.
A moment later a portion of the roof fell; then the east wall crashed in.Morris's was a blazing ruin.
"He has perished in the flames," said Wilton Barnstable."So ends Logan Black!""More like he's blowed his head off," said Cap'n Abernethy."If you was to ask me, that's what I'd do.""He has done neither!" cried Cleggett."He has taken to the tunnel.That man will fight to the last breath."And without waiting to see whether the others followed him or not Cleggett set off at top speed for the Jasper B.
With a dagger between his teeth, his pistol in its holster, and his electric, watchman's lantern in his pocket he entered the tunnel and crawled forward on his hands and knees.If Loge were in there indeed he had the fire at one end and Cleggett at the other.But even at that, escape was possible, for all Cleggett knew.What ramifications this peculiar passageway might have he could not guess.
The place was narrow, and in spots so low that it was necessary for a man to crouch almost to the ground.Cleggett, because he did not wish to reveal his presence, did not flash his lantern; there were stretches where he might have stood almost erect and made quicker progress, if he had found them with the light.The earth beneath him was beaten hard and smooth.
Cleggett thought possibly that the tunnel had originally led from Morris's basement to the smuggler's cave which Wilton Barnstable had spoken of, and that it had been extended later to the ship.He learned afterwards that this was true from the men who had surrendered.The Jasper B.had been abandoned for so long, and was so completely abandoned except for the visits of Cap'n Abernethy, who fished from it now and then, that Loge had conceived the idea of making it the back-door, so to speak, of Morris's.In the event of a raid upon Morris's his "get- away" through the hulk was provided for.He had intended buying the ship himself; but Cleggett had forestalled him.
