Page:O'Higgins--From the life.djvu/349

 pened, and had seen, too, the danger of it. "Look out!" he warned Plummer.

He started to make his way down a side aisle so as to reach Cooney from the flank. Plummer, less experienced, started hastily down the center aisle in full view of Cooney, and Cooney, looking over Wickson's shoulder, saw the detective coming.

Instantly into that drunken brain there must have flashed a suspicion that Wickson was trying to hold him with a show of friendliness until Plummer could seize and search him. He cursed out an oath, and threw his hand back to his hip pocket. Plummer saw the movement and plucked out his own revolver. Arnett immediately sprang from his seat and threw himself on the detective, still mistaking him for an assassin. At the same moment Cooney's revolver exploded in Wickson's face and Collins shot at Cooney.

The ex-policeman leaped as if he had been speared in the side, and fell, screaming. The District Attorney staggered back with his hands to his face. Collins caught him. "Are you hurt?"

Wickson relaxed with a tired sigh that slowly shuddered down to a choking catch in the throat where the blood strangled it.

At the mass-meeting of indignant citizens who gathered to pass resolutions upon this "irremediable loss to the community" a subscription was started