Heart-sick and dizzy, Tom Halstead still kept on, though, whenever he reached outer air, he took pains to inflate his lungs several times before again entering one of the wretched, squalid "joints."
Off the bunk-rooms several of these dens had "private" sleeping apartments, for white smokers who desired more privacy. Wherever he noted doors to such private rooms Tom Halstead thrust them open, glancing inside. Nor was his conduct resented. The opium smokers were too far gone to show or feel anger.
"You haven't shown me any very swell places yet," protested the young skipper, after leaving the seventh place.
The guide, a thin, undersized, slovenly man in his early thirties, turned to look the motor boat boy over keenly.
Tom noticed that the fellow's eyes had a look in them much like the look in the eyes of several of the smokers they had just seen.
"This fellow is an opium-user himself," decided Tom Halstead.
"Say, young feller," remarked the guide, in a cautious undertone, "you're looking for someone."
"Perhaps I am," the young skipper half admitted.
"Who is he?"