The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1889-04-03
AS A CHILD IN A CRADLE
BY Dwight Weldon.

I.
"Draw your tickets, gentlemen! /
must confess, it's no pleasant task run
ming down smugglers, but some one
must do it. Number four Is the lucky
figure; who has it 2"
From the ranks of twelve detectives,
members of the world famed Chinkerton
corps of San Francisco, handsome
manly young fellow of twenty-five
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 new man in the service;
had been q clerk or bookkeeper in the
East, had come West to better his for
tune, had failed, and, given work by
IHc utltCtlNe dStuCNs ldtl ~
nerve force and ability as a man-hun-
ter that at once won command and
high pay.
About month previous, however,
he had been set at work on 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 SER
wants, a rihed money-boX, and n beau
tiful girl, Grace, the daughter of the
General, by his side, was frantically
calling her dead fathers name, and
utterly unable to give 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 de-
termining TO remember that name and
to 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
startling story to tell. Just at dusk
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 shrek. man
sprang from the vehicle, she was thrust
within, the door banged, and the car
riage 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 alb
duction by investigation and theory.
AS to the former, utter failure brought
him TO the blank wall of "mysterious
disappearance" within week. As TO
surmise, he believed that the re-
jected sutton, Aylmer, had murdered
General Dayton from motives of re-
venge, because he opposed his aspira-
tions for his daughters 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 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 So
ciety, after his rejection by Grace, to
become chief of lawless band of ma
RAIDERS living in the mountains.
"He has made Grace captive" the
orized Ridgely; "he hopes to terrify
her into wedding him; he believes that
suspicion of her fathers death is not
directed against him. When he has
forced her to become his wife he will
compel her to claim the fortune, con-
vert it into ready cash, and spirit her
away to some safe and distant retreat.
A difficult task TO prove all this, but
/ will find him yet That girls face
haunts me-so piteous, so pleading
Will the first clue to her fate never de-
yelop?"
That Thought found expression in a
sigh as Ridgely looked over the papers
his chief had given him. The opium
smuggfersl 1t was theme that every
detective on the force Stunned and
hated. In hunting &C. cover the men
who were engaged in this Illicit trade,