There was no response to the inspector's ultimatum. Amidst dead silence the prescribed time slowly passed. Fifteen minutes—then, a gasping murmur of excitement arose from those on the eastern front, as in the rapidly whitening dawn they saw Kilbride suddenly reappear around the northern and blank end of the building. For some few moments they watched his actions in awe-struck, breathless silence as, with bent back, he busied himself with his dangerous task.
Presently he straightened up. "Now! Look out, everybody!" he bawled. He struck a match and applied it to something that immediately began to splutter, and then he retreated a safe distance northward. All eyes were glued, as if fascinated, to the deadly, sputtering fuse. Soon came the dull, muffled roar of an explosion. The walls of the building sagged outwards, the roof caved in, and the whole structure seemed to collapse like a pack of cards, amid a cloud of dust.
For some few seconds the party gazed fearfully at the work of destruction; then a loud cheer went up, and with one accord all dashed forward, filled with eager, morbid curiosity as to what they might find buried beneath the ruins.
Suddenly, midway between the brush and their objective they checked their onrush and halted, staring in speechless amazement. Pushing his way up, apparently from some hole beneath a pile of debris, appeared the figure of a huge man.
In their excitement the attackers had overlooked the possibility of a cellar existing below the stone foundation of the dwelling. At this juncture the party from the river bank was rapidly approaching the ruins from its western side. The posse was in a dilemma. Neither party dare fire at its quarry between them for fear of hitting each other.
Gully apparently either did not realize the situation or did not care. With face convulsed with passion, beyond all semblance to a human being, he crouched and rushed the party on the eastern side of his wrecked home, firing as he came. Badly hit, several of his assailants were speedily hor de combat, among them, Hardy and McCullough. The whole incident happened in quicker time than it takes to relate.
Then, from out the startled crowd there sprang a man. It was Slavin. His hour had come. There was something appalling in the spectacle of the two gigantic men rushing thus upon each other. Suddenly, Gully tripped over a log and fell headlong, his deadly gun flying from his grasp. With a sort of uncanny, cat-like agility he scrambled to his feet and strove to recover his weapon. He was a fraction of a second too late. A kick from Slavin sent it whirling several yards away, and the next moment the opponents were upon each other.
At the first onslaught the issue of the combat seemed doubtful. The ex-sheriff was no wrestler like Slavin, but he speedily demonstrated that he was a boxer, as well as a gun-man. Cleverly eluding the grasp of his powerful assailant for the moment, twice he rocked Slavin's head back with fearful left and right swings to the jaw. With a bestial rumbling in his throat, the sergeant countered with a pile-driving punch to the other's heart; then, ducking his head to avoid further punishment, he grappled with the murderer. Roaring inarticulately in their Berserker rage, the pair bore a closer resemblance to a bear and a gorilla than men.
Once in that terrible grip, however, Gully, big and powerful man though he was, had not the slightest chance with a wrestler of Slavin's ability. Shifting rapidly from one cruel hold to another the huge Irishman presently whirled his antagonist up over his hip and sent him crashing to the ground, face downwards. Then, kneeling upon the neck of his struggling and blaspheming victim, he held him down until handcuffs finally imprisoned the enormous wrists, and leg-irons the ankles.
The grim, long-protracted duel was over at last. But at lamentable cost. Two men killed outright, and five badly wounded had been the deadly toll exacted by Gully in his last, desperate stand.