idn't say there was any
vacancies."

"He'll only come back out again," said the gate-keeper.

"Oh, will he?" said Archer ironically.

"Let him in," laughed one of the Secret Service men, and as he spoke he
pulled Tom's pockets inside out in a very perfunctory way and slapped
his clothing here and there. It was evident that young Archer was a
favorite. As for Tom, he felt very important.

"Didn't I tell you I was lucky?" Archer said, as he and Tom together
lugged the big valise down the pier. "Spiffy's a good sketch--but
they're getting more careful all the time. Next sailing, maybe, when
we're taking troops over, President Wilson couldn't get by with it....
You heard what he said about all the passes being taken? That means all
hands are on board. It don't mean we'll sail to-day--or maybe not
to-morrow even. We'll sneak out at night, maybe."

Tom had never been in close proximity to an ocean steamer even in peace
times, and the scene which now confronted him was full of interest.
Along the side of the pier rose the great black bulk of the mighty ship,
beneath the shadow of which people seemed like pygmies and the great
piles of freight like houses of toy blocks.

The gangways leading up to the decks were very steep and up and down
them hurried men in uniforms. Near a pile of heavy, iron-bound wooden
cases several soldiers in khaki strolled back and forth. Tom wondered
what was in those cases. Hanging from a mammoth crane was part of the
framework of a great aeroplane. Several Red Cross ambulances and a big
pile of stretchers stood near by, and he peered into one of the
ambulances, fascinated. Tremendous spools, fifteen or more feet in
diameter, wound with barbed wire, stood on the pier; there were fifty of
them, as it seemed to Tom, and they must have carried miles of barbed
wire. There were a lot of heavy, canvas-covered wagons with the letters
_U.S.A._ on them, and these were packed with poles and rolls of
khaki-colored canvas, which Tom thought might be tents. There were
automobiles bearing the same initials, and shovels by the thousand,
piled loose, all similarly marked.

There was no doubt that Uncle Sam was getting his sleeves rolled up,
ready for business.

At the foot of one of the gangways Archer had to open his bag again to
gratify the curiosity of another man who seemed to know what he was
about and who, upon Archer's statement of Tom's errand, slapped Tom here
and there in the vicinity of his pocke