He entered one of the saloons and stood watching a game of cards, or thus he seemed to be occupied.  As a matter of fact his eyes were constantly upon the alert, roving, about the room to wherever a man was in the act of paying for a round of drinks that a fat wallet might be located.

Presently one that filled him with longing rewarded his careful watch.  The man was sitting at a table a short distance from Billy.  Two other men were with him.  As he paid the waiter from a well-filled pocketbook he looked up to meet Billy’s eyes upon him.

With a drunken smile he beckoned to the mucker to join them.  Billy felt that Fate was overkind to him, and he lost no time in heeding her call.  A moment later he was sitting at the table with the three sailors, and had ordered a drop of red-eye.

The stranger was very lavish in his entertainment.  He scarcely waited for Billy to drain one glass before he ordered another, and once after Billy had left the table for a moment he found a fresh drink awaiting him when he returned—­his host had already poured it for him.

It was this last drink that did the business.

CHAPTER II

SHANGHAIED

When Billy opened his eyes again he could not recall, for the instant, very much of his recent past.  At last he remembered with painful regret the drunken sailor it had been his intention to roll.  He felt deeply chagrined that his rightful prey should have escaped him.  He couldn’t understand how it had happened.

“This Frisco booze must be something fierce,” thought Billy.

His head ached frightfully and he was very sick.  So sick that the room in which he lay seemed to be rising and falling in a horribly realistic manner.  Every time it dropped it brought Billy’s stomach nearly to his mouth.

Billy shut his eyes.  Still the awful sensation.  Billy groaned.  He never had been so sick in all his life before, and, my, how his poor head did hurt.  Finding that it only seemed to make matters worse when he closed his eyes Billy opened them again.

He looked about the room in which he lay.  He found it a stuffy hole filled with bunks in tiers three deep around the sides.  In the center of the room was a table.  Above the table a lamp hung suspended from one of the wooden beams of the ceiling.

The lamp arrested Billy’s attention.  It was swinging back and forth rather violently.  This could not be a hallucination.  The room might seem to be rising and falling, but that lamp could not seem to be swinging around in any such manner if it were not really and truly swinging.  He couldn’t account for it.  Again he shut his eyes for a moment.  When he opened them to look again at the lamp he found it still swung as before.

Cautiously he slid from his bunk to the floor.  It was with difficulty that he kept his feet.  Still that might be but the effects of the liquor.  At last he reached the table to which he clung for support while he extended one hand toward the lamp.