AS A CHILD IN A CRADLE

By Dwight Weldon.

      "Draw your tickets, gentlemen! I must confess, it's no pleasant task running down smugglers, but some one must do it. Number four, is the lucky figure; who has it?"

      From the ranks of twelve detectives, members of the world-famed Chinkerton corps of San Francisco, a handsome, manly young fellow of twenty-two stepped forward.

      "Ridgely? you, eh?" murmured the detective. "Well, you're the chosen man. Orders? there you are: Rest neither night nor day till you have run the opium smugglers to cover. Never mind the stuff itself. It's the men we want."

      Walter Ridgely received a packet of papers from the hand of his superior officer; bowed silently, and as silently withdrew to the stall that was his desk, trunk, and lounging place when off duty.

      He was a new man in the service; had been a clerk or bookkeeper in East, had come West to better his fortune, had failed, and, given work by the detective agency, had exhibited a nerve force and ability as a man-hunter that at once won command and high pay.

      About a month previous, however, he had been set at work on a case that had puzzled even his superiors, and utterly baffled himself. Gen. Robert Dayton, a wealthy retired merchant, had been found murdered in his bed one morning. Ridgely, sent to work up the case, found two frightened servants, a rifled money-box, and a beautiful girl, Grace, the daughter of the General, by his side, was frantically calling her dead father's, name, and utterly unable to give a theory as to the motive of the crime, outside of robbery.

      In her frantic emotion, however, she had suddenly alluded to a discarded lover — Aylmer. Noting the fact, and determining to remember that name and later question the fair, stricken Grace about its owner, Ridgely left the house of death to report the case at headquarters, and at the same time to confess secretly that he had met the first woman in the world capable of stirring his heart to its intensest depths.

      That evening when he returned to the mansion a new sensation awaited him. He found the servants terribly frightened and excited — they had a startling story to tell. Just at dusk a close carriage had driven to the front of the house. A note brought by the driver, induced Miss Dayton to go to the carriage, as if to see some invalid friend there. Then a shriek, a man sprang from the vehicle, she was thrust within, the door banged, and the carriage whirled away ere the alarmed servants could get to the road.

      Since then, almost day and night, the young detective had sought to solve the double mystery of murder and abduction by investigation and theory. As to the former, utter failure brought him to the blank wall of "mysterious disappearance" within a week. As to surmise, he believed that the rejected suitor, Aylmer, had murdered General Dayton from motives of revenge, because he opposed his aspirations for his daughter's hand, and had later abducted the girl herself. Where he had taken her, what he hoped to gain finally, were vague guesses with the detective, whom a dawning love more than duty or reward inspired to fathom the fate of the beautiful Grace Dayton.

      Why did he suspect Aylmer? Only from what he had heard of the man — a dissolute, desperate fellow, who, it was rumored, had disappeared from society, after his rejection by Grace, to become chief of a lawless band of marauders living in the mountains.

      "He has made Grace a captive," theorized Ridgely; "he hopes to terrify her into wedding him; he believes that suspicion of her father's death is not directed against him. When he has forced her to become his wife he will compel her to claim the fortune, convert it into ready cash, and spirit her away to some safe and distant retreat. A difficult task to prove all this, but — I will find him yet! That girl's face haunts me — so piteous, so pleading! Will the first clue to her fate never develop?"

      That thought found expression in a sigh as Ridgely, looked over the papers his chief had given him. The opium smugglers! It was a theme that every detective on the force shunned and hated. In hunting to cover the men who were engaged in this illicit trade, within a month one expert man-catcher had disappeared, and one had been found shot to death on a lonely bit of seacoast near the city.

      Ridgely looked over the papers closely. Here was a statement that the schooner Osprey would sail into the harbor that evening with a cargo of bamboo fancy wares, crockery, and tea from China. In some deft way it was also expected that a certain large hogshead, ostensibly containing lead-foil, but in reality filled with opium, would be landed so as to evade Government inspection. This package was to be spotted, allowed to land, and in no case to be seized until it had been traced to the secret haunt where the smugglers lived.

      "I don't like it!" murmured Ridgely. "It's a dangerous and unsatisfactory kind of a case, and it takes my time and thoughts from the Dayton affair. At last!"

      With a thrill and a start, the detective projected the last words. They conveyed a marveling token of excitement and hope.

      For he had happened to read the last memoranda in the papers given him by the chief, and its last line was a wonderful revelation to his excited mind.

      "These smugglers," the penciled sentence ran, "are supposed to have a haunt down the coast. Lee Kirby and William Page, noted desperadoes, are active members of the band. It is hinted that the moving spirit and moneyed backer is one Percival Aylmer."

      "Aylmer!" gasped the startled detective. "Ah! if it is indeed he, it is a clue at last. All the perils of earth shall not prevent me reaching that man, and through him the woman I love — stolen, bereaved Grace Dayton!"

---

II.

      "Quick! off with the top of the barrel; out with the opium. We have no time to lose. Some one may come."

      It was a little after midnight, and the scene was a deserted wharf. Inside of it, standing beside a huge, many-hooped hogshead, was Walter Ridgely; near him, hammer and chisel in hand, a fellow detective, and just at the door, closely watching the wharf and the street leading to it, was a third member of the agency.

      "How did you come to work it, Ridgely?" asked the man with the hammer, as he ripped off the top hoop.

      "Easily. I spotted the Osprey as she sailed into the harbor at dusk. A hundred rods from the wharf some of the sailors boldly tipped out this hogshead. To the inspector aboard they said that it contained straw and fever-infected bedding, and as it floated away, and no one paid attention to it, the inspector believed it."

      "And it was this barrel?"

      "The same. I was in a yawl and followed in the wake of the hogshead. About two hundred yards down stream two men in a small boat were waiting for it. They drew it ashore at this deserted spot, attached hooks, dragged it into this shed, and went away after securing the door. I heard them say that at two o'clock — an hour hence — they would take it to the den. I went for you two. That's all there is in it. Remove the contents."

      "And arrest the men when they come?"

      "Not at all."

      "Eh?"

      "No; it's their haunt we are anxious to locate. Remove the opium, if opium it is, and hoop the barrel up again."

      "I don't understand."

      "And me inside of it!"

      Yes, that was audacious Walter Ridgely's scheme. His fellow officer glowed with admiration at his bravery, but shook his head dubiously.

      Done up in paper, then in waterproof, cloth, and finally in tinfoil, pound after pound, package after package of the smuggled opium was taken out of the barrel.

      All of this was hidden under a heap of straw in one corner of the shed. Then Ridgely got into the hogshead, the top was secured. In his close quarters he called out to his companion, as the last nail was driven home:

      "Keep us in view, but not too closely, so as to arouse suspicion, and do not act till I signal by whistle."

      "All right." Then silence and darkness, for Ridgely's assistant and the guard had left the vicinity of the shed.

      Ridgely had just completed cutting an air-hole through a stave, when wagon wheels sounded outside.

      Through the small orifice he had made he could make out two roughly dressed men. They jolted him terribly as they proceeded to roll the hogshead out of the door, up a plank, and into a wagon. Then one took up the lines, the other sat on the barrel as if to watch if they were being followed, and the vehicle started up.

      It traversed a mile or two of deserted city streets, struck off for the suburbs, and finally threaded a lonely thoroughfare leading south down the coast.

      Day was advanced many, hours when the wagon halted. The detective, glancing through the aperture, made out a kind of rambling cabin, and beyond it what seemed a boarded-up cave.

      Several desperate-looking men came out and regarded the hogshead critically. Then it was rolled through the doorway of the boarded-up cave, and then four weary hours went by for the cooped-in Ridgely.

      Voices sounded on his hearing at last. Glancing forth, the detective saw two men. One of them had driven from some dark compartment of the cavern a mule. Across its back were strung two enormous baskets, such as are used in South America to convey merchandise.

      "There you are, Aylmer," spoke this man, "to order, as you wanted it. You're going to great bother, it seems to me, to get out of the district. Why not go boldly, without all this trouble?"

      "I dare take no risks," was the reply. "This is the best way. You know the information we have — that the detectives have located us. If this is so, I may have difficulty in reaching Villavosa, even disguised as I am. You attend to affairs here — try to get what goods we have to Villavosa. Once safe with the girl there, we'll lie low until the scare is over, and the officers off our track."

      The girl! Ridgely thrilled wildly. To whom could the wretch Aylmer refer save Grace Dayton?

      "I am afraid of those officers," went on Aylmer, "but, driving a mule, disguised as a Mexican carrying my mining equipment Sonora fashion, I shall certainly pass unsuspected if I meet them."

      "And the last consignment here?"

      Aylmer's companion tapped the hogshead as he spoke.

      "I'll take it out and load a basket with part of it. The rest you send on later, if safe."

      Aylmer's companion left the apartment. The detective thrilled wildly as Aylmer himself, taking up a mallet, began to knock off the hoops of the hogshead.

      The detective was in doubt as to how to act. As the top boards were lifted off, however, he sprang erect.

      Leveling a revolver straight at the head of the dumfounded smuggler, he exclaimed, sharply:

      "Percival Aylmer! you are my prisoner! A move, a cry, an effort to disobey me, or escape, and I will kill you!"

---

III.

      "You are at my mercy! One hint of treachery and I will empty every barrel of my revolver straight into the basket."

      It was a sinister threat, a curious situation, and Percival Aylmer glared helplessly at the stern-faced detective as he spoke the words.

      Ridgely had leaped from the hogshead ere Aylmer could recover from surprise at the startling confrontation, and had slipped a pair of handcuffs over the wrists of the smuggler. Then, tying his ankles together with a rope, he went to where the mule stood.

      He lifted the cover of one of the baskets. It was empty. Without a moment's delay, he bodily lifted Aylmer in his arms, placed him in the basket, and shut down the cover.

      "Opium in the other basket, I imagine," he said. Well, you'll just about weight it. Won't tell me where the girl is, eh? Insist on it that there is no girl in the case? Well, I'll get you into safe hands, and before night have a force here that will find Grace Dayton if she is here. Remember! seek to betray. me, refuse to aid me as we leave here, and I will kill you. You are at my mercy!"

      It was a bold plan that Walter Ridgely projected, but he placed it in prompt execution. He started up the mule with its living freight, and pushed open the cave door. To his delight, no one was outside. He drove away from the cabin, and, congratulated himself on his good fortune, when, directly in his path, a man with a leveled rifle confronted him, evidently one of the smuggling band.

      "Who are you?" came the fierce demand. "A stranger!"

      Ridgely was as cool as ice.

      "Put down your rifle, my friend," he said. "It's all right; you know your captain's voice?"

      "Yes, I do."

      Walter Ridgely clicked the revolver in his pocket, ominously near to his prisoner in the basket.

      "Speak!" he ordered.

      "It's all right, Jones," came, in muffled tones from the basket. "He's acting on my orders."

      Ridgely laughed. As the sentry passed he could hear Aylmer gnash his teeth with secret chagrin and rage.

      Wearily on plodded the mule — one mile, two — suddenly from the brush came a quick challenge:

      "Ridgely!"

      "Hello!" and the detective recognized one of his aids of the early morning. "Where's Dawson?"

      "With the others."

      "What others?"

      "We located you at the den, and I went to the city for help. Dawson and ten others have probably surrounded the place by this time. Hark! do you hear that?"

      Ridgely bent his ear and listened. From a great distance the report of firearms echoed.

      He told his companion of the human freight the basket contained. Then both waited. An hour later four men rode up on horseback — men from the agency — and just from the smugglers' haunt.

      They had surrounded the place. A desperate fight had ensued, but the smugglers and their spoils were now in possession of six officers.

      "Look out!" suddenly shouted Ridgely's companion.

      Ridgely glanced at the mule and the baskets. From one of them a man had sprung. In some dextrous way Aylmer had slipped manacles and bonds, and was dashing for liberty.

      Bang! bang! The desperado, unheeding the order to halt, fell at the second fire.

      He raved and cursed, mortally wounded, as Ridgely anxiously inquired of the officers if any trace of a young girl had been found at the den. The answer was in the negative.

      "Where is Grace Dayton?" he asked of Aylmer. "Speak, man! You have courted your own doom — better, perhaps, than the gallows, but make the atonement you can by confessing all."

      The ruffian died with a scowl of hate on his baffled face, and his lips sealed.

      The officers got ready to carry the dead man to next village.

      "What is in the other basket, opium?" one of them asked.

      "I suppose so," gloomily replied Ridgely, completely disappointed at his failure to discover a trace of the missing girl.

      He opened the cover as he spoke.

      A great cry of joy, hope, suspense, welled from his lips as he glanced within the basket.

      For lying there asleep, placid, serene as a child in a cradle, was a beautiful maiden, Grace Dayton!

---

      Long before Walter Ridgely told her his love, the beautiful Grace explained the mysteries of the past.

      Abducted by the murderer of her father, who boldly boasted of his crime, she refused to wed or enrich him, and had been kept a close captive at the cave.

      Intent on escape, because he feared that detectives were on his trail, the very day of Ridgely's appearance, Aylmer had drugged and placed her in the basket, to be thus secretly conveyed to Villavosa and a new captivity.

      The gloom over a beloved parent's death subdued joy for many a year, but justice appeased, toned down grief and devoted love gave to Grace Dayton contentment and happiness, shared in its fullest sense by her brave detective husband.