The Smuggler's Game

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Tom Lawton is married to a trusting and devoted woman, who in her implicit faith is ignorant of the fact that her husband is at the head of a gigantic organization in the unlawful traffic of opium, with quarters in the notorious joss house of King Yen Lo, of 'Frisco. Lawton engages as his house servants Chinese, in order that he may carry on his work with a surer degree of safety. One day as he was walking through a public park he chances upon Margarie Ward, to whom he previously made overtures, and who, not being aware that he is married, is cordial in her treatment and falls an easy victim to his pretended admiration. John Mason, a suitor for Margarie's hand, meets them on one of the lawns and plainly shows his keen disappointment that a man known to him as was Lawton and his reputation should force, as the thistle and the thorn, its way into undefiled innocence, and he vows to place Lawton in his prober light. Accordingly he calls on Lawton the following day. Desperate that be may be exposed. Lawton attempts to put Mason out of the way. The wife comes upon the scene and plainly shows her first waning faith in her husband, but is cowered before his threats. The servants hurriedly notify the thugs in the joss house and preparation is made to remove and confine Mason in the smugglers' den on Ponca Island, in the 'Frisco Bay. An old sea captain is summoned and soon a bargain is struck, whereby within a few moments he has the tug Arrow under steam and the trip across the bay has begun. The wife, through threats, is compelled to be a party on the boat. She overhears a conversation between the captain and her husband, in which they and Mason would easily be lost sight of at the bottom of the bay. In an unguarded moment she hastily unties Mason that he may defend himself, but be is unable to rally from the stupor. Discovering the attitude of his wife, Lawton again threatens her. The scene quickly changes to the arrival at Ponca Island, the home of the smugglers, where escape seems a forlorn hope. The ringing of the warning bell is a signal for consternation; however, the new arrivals prove to be only the Orientals with a new shipment of opium. The time for payment and division of spoils is at hand, attended with the usual dissatisfaction and argument. The sea captain and Lawton become involved in an altercation and part company. For revenge Mason is, with much difficulty, rescued by the sea captain and taken aboard the Arrow and returned to Margarie, she being convinced of the true character of Lawton. As soon as Mason is sufficiently revived, he, together with Margarie and his rescuer, return to the smugglers' den with officers, that they may rescue the wife, who is a prisoner in the den, and place Lawton within the pale of the law. The capture is effected. Margarie and Mason are reunited and the brokenhearted wife is taken back to her little home, where sunshine and flowers will hide the cloud under which she was an unconscious victim.