The Hop Smugglers (1914)

• 83%
• 1914
• Irene Hunt
• Ralph Lewis
• Josephine Crowell

Helen, a writer, tries to secure a position on a newspaper in order to earn necessary luxuries for her invalid mother. Refused a job unless she brings in a real news story, Helen dejectedly sallies forth on a still hunt for opium smugglers then operating successfully on the Mexican border. Sikes, the Revenue Officer, has been unable to get any evidence of anyone. Helen befriends a denizen of Chinatown and through him learns that the smuggling is being done through the means of an irrigation canal running across the border just outside the city. The smugglers fasten tins of opium to logs and float them down the canal and past the line, after which they are picked up by a confederate Chinese posing as a seller of driftwood kindling and delivered at the back door of Chinese restaurants, where the gang hangs out. One of the logs gets caught in a chunk of wood and Helen finds it. With Sikes she lies in wait, captures the wood seller and drives the load of wood and opium to the restaurant, with Sikes hidden under the load of kindling. One of the smugglers has escaped and warns the restaurant by phone of the arrest of his pal, and a fight commences when Helen starts to unload the wood, but with the help of Sikes and a load of cops, the smugglers are captured with all the evidence. Helen gets an exclusive story for the paper and is handed a job as news reporter.