The Yellow Traffic (1914)

The four-masted schooner "Caroline," a valuable seagoing vessel engaged in a peaceful legitimate trade along the rough coast of New England, is the central point around which this interesting drama revolves. Her owner has been forced by misfortune to borrow money from a wealthy merchant who is the secret head of a band of smugglers engaged in bringing Chinamen into the United States by landing them secretly upon a dangerous stretch of the seacoast. The merchant wants the "Caroline" for his illegal traffic, and has also made up his mind to obtain her captain-owner's daughter for his bride. The girl, however, is in love with a stalwart coast guard and is seconded in her dislike for the merchant by her brother who, besides being the first mate of the "Caroline," has rigged a wireless apparatus upon the vessel and upon the roof of their home, and has taught his sister how to communicate with him while he is at sea. The merchant succeeds in secreting a number of his desperate band in the hold of the "Caroline" when she sails upon one of her cruises, and thus gains possession of the vessel and places her crew in irons. She is immediately forced into the "yellow traffic" and used to pick up a cargo of Chinamen who are packed in barrels and loaded upon her deck. Meanwhile the activities of the merchant, the girl and the coast guard upon the land combined with the government's efforts to stop the operations of the smugglers add double interest to the story which reaches a splendid climax when the brother succeeds in communicating with his sister by wireless, is made to walk the plank, swims 140 feet under water, finally clinging to a rudder chain and reaching shore in time to lead a large force against the smugglers on land. He pursues the "Caroline" out to sea and leads an attack upon her ruffian crew, which ends in a hand-to-hand conflict and a triumph for the guardians of the law.