Before the wounded man could rise, a gangster rose upon the rail near the end of the pier. With cool deliberation, he leveled a revolver at the helpless officer. Police Chief Yates uttered a sharp cry. No one was near enough to prevent that murder — the gunman was out of range of those who had retired.
Crack!
The sharp report was not the sound of a revolver. It was a rifle shot! It came from above, at the top of the dim eighty-foot tower.
The murderous gangster swayed. He toppled. His revolver fell from his hand, and an instant later the gunman himself followed, plunging into the ocean — a thirty-foot drop from the rail of the pier!
Who fired that shot?
Police Chief Yates stared upward through the night. Then he looked along the pier. A dozen police were surging forward. Revolver shots began to greet them. Then came the sharp, higher reports of the rifle. With each crack a gangster fell!
The ambushed men were being sniped by some one stationed in that tower! Set to prevent the advance of the police, they themselves were trapped. An amazing marksman was picking them off, dropping them, wounded, one by one!
The way was clearing now. The police, advancing steadily, seemed to be free from fire as they approached their goal. Chief Yates ordered a charge of another squad.
Hardly had the men been dispatched before the chief heard a terrified cry. The men were scattering, spreading to the sides of the pier. Yates, near the exposition building, saw the reason.
Five mobsters had come from under cover. With swift precision, they had unlimbered a machine gun. Determined to stop the police, they were turning the terrible weapon straight down the pier.