,
philosophical, chatting about Fritzie and the war as if the whole thing
were a huge cricket game. Some of these were taken off farther down the
line, to be sent to different camps, Tom supposed.

At last, after an all day's ride, they reached their destination. But
alas, there was no such place as Slopsgotten! Tom was sorry for this for
he liked the name. It sounded funny when his English friends said it.
Schlaabgaurtn, was the way he read it on the railroad station. He felt
disappointed and aggrieved. He was by no means sure of the letters, and
pronunciation was out of the question. He liked Slopsgotten. In
Tennert's mouth he had almost come to love it.

It was the only thing about Germany that he liked, and now he had to
give it up!

Slopsgotten!

FOOTNOTE:

[4] Kill.

CHAPTER XXIV

HE GOES TO THE CIVILIAN CAMP AND DOESN'T LIKE IT

"'Ere we are in bloomin' old Slops! Not 'arf bad, wot? Another inch and
we'd bunk our noses plunk into Alsice! Wot d'ye s'y, Freddie?"

"I s'y it's the back o' the old front. The only thing in the w'y is the
mountains. Hi, Yankee! You see 'em? It's the ole mountains out of the
song."

Tom looked at a distant range of blue-gray heights. Crossing those
somewhere was the battle line--the long, sweeping line which began far
off at the Belgian coast. How lonesome and romantic it must be for the
soldiers up in those wild hills. Somewhere through there years ago
Frenchy had fled from German tyranny and pursuit, away from his beloved
ancestral home. Funny, thought Tom, that he should see both the eastern
and western extremities of France without ever crossing it.

He was much nearer the front than he had been when he talked with Mr.
Conne in the little French cemetery. Yet how much farther away! A
prisoner in Germany, with a glowering, sullen Prussian guard at his very
elbow!

"We used to sing about them when I went to school," he said. "'The Blue
Alsatian Mountains.'"

"I'd jolly well like to be on the other side o' them," said Freddie.

Tom clutched the little iron button in his pocket. Something prompted
him to pull a button off his trousers and to work his little talisman
into the torn place so that it would look like a suspender button. Then
he turned again to gaze at the fair country which he supposed to be one
of France's lost provinces--the home of Frenchy.

"There ain't much trouble crossing mountains," said he; "all you need is
a compass. I don't know if the