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The Bradys After a Chinese Princess: or, The Yellow Fiends of 'Frisco
The Bradys After a Chinese Princess; Or, The Yellow Fiends of 'Frisco
CHAPTER I
THE MYSTERY THAT CAME OUT OF THE MIST
One foggy night a few years since at something after two o'clock, a good-sized motor boat containing five men might have been seen cruising close in to the water-front line of lower San Francisco.
Three of the occupants were big, husky fellows, who sat idly in the boat looking like men waiting to be called upon to act and prepared for any emergency.
A good-looking young fellow in his twenties was attending to engineer's duty, while astern sat an elderly man of striking appearance and peculiar dress.
He wore a long, blue coat with brass buttons, an old-fashioned stock and stand-up collar, and a big white hat with an unusually broad brim.
Clearly he was the leader of this outfit, whatever their business might be out there on the silent bay in the early morning hours.
He was a man accustomed to command, being none other than the world-famous detective, Old King Brady, chief of the Brady Detective Bureau of Union Square, New York.
And having made this statement, we need scarcely add that the young man in charge of the boat was his partner, Young King Brady, second in skill as a detective only to his great chief.
The detective had been ordered to San Francisco on special duty by the United States Secret Service Bureau.
Information had been received of the intention of certain Chinamen to run in opium on a large scale, dodging the duty due to Uncle Sam.
The information, while definite and reliable, was still vague.