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Inside the lodge, Carroll and a few others were quietly playing cards in a corner of the main lodge. They heard the dogs begin to howl, but after two days at the lodge and hearing the dogs bark and howl almost constantly, they paid no attention. They didn't even bother to look out the window, but simply continued their game.

As the dogs continued to bark and howl, the last three customers, a gas salesman from nearby Mercer and two workers from an area CCC camp, were getting ready to leave. At the same time, the two bartenders, George Bazso and Frank Traube, stepped onto the kitchen porch to see why the dogs were barking. As they stepped onto the side porch the three customers exited the front door and hurried toward their car parked a few feet away.

Seeing the five men emerge simultaneously from two doors, the agents assumed it was the gang trying to escape. They began calling out that they were federal agents but the three men, now in the car, didn't hear them. When the gas salesman, John Hoffman, started the car, he also turned on the radio to a high volume. As the agents continued to identify themselves, the car began to move forward. Now certain an escape was in progress, Purvis ordered the tires shot out. More than a dozen agents opened fire and the car began to rock as tires exploded, glass shattered and bullets slammed into the doors, hood and trunk of the vehicle. John Morris, an elderly cook at the CCC camp emerged wounded from the passenger side door and, incredibly, sat down and took a drink from a bottle he was holding. He then managed to stagger onto the porch. Hoffman, also wounded and bleeding, exited the other side of the car and crawled into the woods and hid. The young man in the middle, Eugene Boisneau, remained seated. He was dead.

Inside the lodge the gang was on the move at the first shot. Someone told the women to hide; someone else shut off the lights. A machine gun began firing from a second floor window. A few seconds later another started from the roof. A moment later a third started from Nelson's cabin where he had gone a short time earlier to get his wife's luggage. The fusillade of gun fire from inside lasted only a few seconds, however. As planned, Dillinger, Hamilton and Van Meter, now on the second floor, climbed onto a back porch roof and dropped into the snow below. They ran the 25 yards to the steep emnbankment, slid down and turned right at the shore of Little Star Lake. Moments later Carroll followed the same route. Nelson left his cabin, ran through the woods and down the embankment. At the shore he turned left and ran.

The two groups of FBI agents ordered to flank the lodge had attempted to give chase, but ran into unexpected trouble. Those on the left stumbled into the deep drainage ditch. Those on the right became entangled in the barbed-wire. By the time any of them made it to the lake's shore, the five outlaws were long gone.

Out front, Purvis, unaware the gang had escaped, continued to fire into the front of the lodge. At the same time, Reilly was pulling into the driveway behind the agents. Several agents ran toward the car and ordered him out, but he rammed the car into reverse and backed up at full speed. They began firing; the passenger window shattered, covering Patricia Cherrington, Hamilton's girlfriend, with glass. One tire exploded. When the car reached the highway, Reilly spun the vehicle around, at the same time slamming on the brakes and hitting the gas pedal. For the brief moment the vehicle didn't move. The agents, unsure of what had happened, stopped shooting. A second later the car shot northward, its flat tire thumping loudly on the pavement.

Back at the lodge, Wanatka, two bartenders and the three girls that worked in the kitchen, remained in the basement as agents continued to fire at the building. One of the bartenders, thinking the place was being robbed, hid his money in the coal bin. Gang members had given him more than $50 in tips, a king's ransom in 1934.

Morris, the elderly CCC worker, had by now managed to crawl back into the lodge. He made his way into the kitchen and grabbed the telephone and contacted Alvin Koerner, who ran the local phone exchange. "Alvin, we're at Emil's! Everybody has been knocked out! Everyone's dead!" He then collapsed. Wanatka, hearing Morris upstairs, ran up and grabbed the phone. He was connected with an FBI agent who advised him to put the lights on and go outside with his hands up. He ran back downstairs and told the others, but the girls refused to leave. He and the two bartenders, followed by the wounded Morris, did as instructed. The agents were ordered to stop shooting to allow time for the women to get out. They began reloading and preparing teargas canisters to lob into the lodge. Convinced the gang was still inside, they were determined to get then dead or alive.