“Brave fellow!” he cried. “It is what I expected of you!”
Then came a startling cry from one of the masked men:
“Fire! fire! The house is on fire!”
In the excitement of the struggle none of them had noticed it, but now they saw the room was filling with smoke. And they paused, they could hear the crackle of the flames.
“Where is the fire?”
One of the men leaped to the door and tore it open. Then they saw the gleam of the flames, and, for a moment, they were appalled.
“The old house is all afire!” shouted the man at the door. “We must get out in a hurry if we want to get out at all!”
Then there was a rush for the door.
Sam Hooker was the last of the gang to reach the door. He turned a moment, and his tar-bedaubed face made him look like a fiend.
“Stay here and roast to death, Frank Merriwell!” he snarled.