n.
He found relief in that. The trade-wind was sharp in his face and he
pulled his soft hat down over his eyes. Presently he found himself in an
unfamiliar locality--the water-front--amid a bustling rough-spoken
current of humanity that eddied forward and back. There were many
sailors. From the doors of innumerable saloons came the blare of
orchestrions; now and then a drunken song.

Entering one of the swinging doors, Francisco called for whisky. He felt
suddenly a need for stimulant. The men at the long counter looked at him
curiously. He was not of their kind. A little sharp-eyed man who was
playing solitaire at a table farther back, looked up interested. He
pulled excitedly at his chin, rose and signed to a white-coated
servitor. They had their heads together.

It was almost noon the following day when Chief Mate Chatters of the
whaleship Greenland, en route for Behring Sea, went into the forecastle
to appraise some members of a crew hastily and informally shipped.
"Shanghaiing," it was called. But one had to have men. One paid the
waterfront "crimps" a certain sum and asked no questions.

"Who the devil's this?" He indicated a man sprawled in one of the bunks,
who, despite a stubble of beard and ill-fitting sea clothes, was
unmistakably a gentleman.

"Don't know--rum sort for a sailor. Got knocked on the head in a
scrimmage. Cawnt remember nothing but his name, Francisco."

CHAPTER LXXIII

THE RETURN

In the fall of 1898 a man of middle years walked slowly down the stairs
which plunged a traveler from the new Ferry building's upper floor into
the maelstrom of Market street's beginning. Cable cars were whirling on
turn-tables, newsboys shouted afternoon editions; hack drivers, flower
vendors, train announcers added their babel of strident-toned outcries
to the clanging of gongs, the clatter of wheels and hoofs upon
cobblestone streets. Ferry sirens screamed; an engine of the Belt Line
Railroad chugged fiercely as it pulled a train of freight cars toward
the southern docks.

The stranger paused, apparently bewildered by this turmoil.

He was a stalwart, rather handsome man, bearded and bronzed as if
through long exposure. And in his walk there was a suggestion of that
rolling gait which smacks of maritime pursuits. He proceeded aimlessly
up Market street, gazing round him, still with that odd, half-doubting
and half-troubled manner. In front of the Palace Hotel he paused, seemed
about to enter, but we