The Motor Boat Club at the Golden Gate: or, A Thrilling Capture in the Great Fog

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"No," admitted Mr. Baldwin. "I know nothing of Chinatown. We must drive through, first of all, at a venture. Presently an idea may come to us. Whatever we do, our plans must soon be formed. If I dared speak to a police officer – but the risk is too great."

"There's a restaurant," murmured the boy, suddenly. "It looks like a big and clean place. Why don't you and Mr. Ross slip in there, have some tea or something, and let me prowl about in these queer, crooked streets for a few minutes? Chinatown is only a few blocks in extent, I understand. I may be able to learn something that way, unless you have a better plan, sir."

"I am afraid you'll run into danger, alone in this barbarous crowd," objected Mr. Baldwin.

"I'm not in the least afraid," smiled Tom, confidently. "Two prosperous looking men like you might attract attention, but, as for me, the people hereabouts will think only that I'm some young sailor ashore for a lark. Shall I stop the cab, sir?"

"Yes," agreed Joseph Baldwin, though he spoke doubtfully.

Tom's hand shot up at once, grabbing the check string. The driver pulled up his horses, then came to the door, opening it.

"This will be as good a place for you to remain, driver, as anywhere," said Halstead, as he stepped out. Then he turned, waiting for Messrs. Baldwin and Ross to alight.

"Shall I find you in that restaurant, sir?" the young skipper inquired.

"Yes; but don't be too long away, Halstead, or we shall be more uneasy than ever."

"Trust a sailor to take care of himself in any crowd, sir," laughed Tom Halstead, jauntily. With that he stepped off, at a more rolling gait than he usually employed on shore.

The young motor boat captain carried in his mind a good personal description of Gaston Giddings. He had secured this from Mr. Baldwin before leaving the yacht.

"Ugh! The smell here is worse than in New York's Chinatown," Tom told himself, disgustedly.

From upper windows of some of the buildings that lined the narrow, dirty streets came the squawkings of Chinese fiddles and other discordant "musical" instruments of a wholly Oriental type. There seemed to be two or three joss-houses, or temples, in every short block. On the street floors, however, stores offering all kinds of Chinese merchandise were most common. Tom suspected that the gambling places and opium joints lay in the rear of these stores.

"Want a guide to Chinatown? Show ye everything, boss, for two dollars. Show ye every real sight in Chinatown," appealed a seedy, dirty, young white man who now held Tom by one sleeve.

"Anything really worth seeing?" asked Halstead, smilingly.

"Oh, everything worth seeing," responded the seedy guide, with a wide wave of one arm. "Best two dollars' worth you ever had. Most curious sights you ever saw in any part of the world. Sailor, ain't ye?"

"Yes."

"Sailors are my specialty," declared the seedy guide, grimly. "Come, ye'd better haul up the two dollars and let me take you about."

"What about opium joints, for instance?" asked Tom Halstead, speaking as though he had not enthused much as yet.

"I know 'em all," asserted the seedy guide, eagerly. "Want to smoke the opium pipe?"

"Can't say," replied Tom, vaguely. "Yet, if I do go around with you, you've got to take me to the really swell opium places."

"Oh, I can do it – better'n any other guide in Chinatown," promised the fellow, quickly. "Come, just hand over the two dollars, and see what I can show you."

With a great pretense of reluctance Captain Tom produced four half dollars, which he handed to the guide.

"Remember, now," he said, "I want what you might call the aristocratic places."

"If ye ain't satisfied," promised the guide, glibly, "then ye'll get your money back."

"Go ahead, then, but mind what I told you."

Through dark alleyways, or through stores into rear apartments, Halstead followed his conductor. In rapid succession he passed in and out of half a dozen opium joints. One was as much like another as two kernels of wheat resemble each other.

In each place there was the same outer room, then the same bunk-room, an apartment fitted up with bunks at the sides. It was in these rooms that the smoking was done. The intending smoker stretched himself out in a bunk, while a Chinese attendant brought lamp and kit. A tiny ball of opium was quickly lighted – "cooked" – at the lamp's flame. Then this glowing pellet of opium was thrust into the bowl of an opium pipe, and the latter handed to the smoker in the bunk. The smoker consumed his pellet after two or three whiffs. After smoking three or four pipes, most of the smokers succumbed, falling back in a torpid sleep.