look out for him."

"Alsace--ziss is France!" said Frenchy fervently.

"_Ziss_ is the United States," shouted a soldier derisively.

"_Ziss_ is Hoboken!" chimed in another.

"Vive la Hoboken!" shrieked a third.

Tom thought he had never laughed so much in all his life.

CHAPTER V

HE MAKES A DISCOVERY AND RECEIVES A SHOCK

Soon after dusk the soldiers were ordered to throw away their "smokes"
and either go below or lie flat upon the decks. Officers patrolled the
rail while others strolled among the boys and reminded the unruly and
forgetful not to raise themselves, and soon the big ship, with its
crowding khaki-clad cargo, was moving down the stream--on its way to
"can the Kaiser." Then even the patrol was discontinued.

A crowded ferryboat paused in its passage to give the great gray
transport the right of way, and the throng of commuters upon its deck
saw nothing as they looked up but one or two white-jacketed figures
moving about.

Tom thought the ship was off, but after fifteen or twenty minutes the
throb of the engines ceased and he heard the clank, clank of the anchor
winches. A little distant from the ship tiny green, red and white lights
appeared and disappeared and were answered by other colored lights from
high up in the rigging of the _Montauk_. Other lights appeared in other
directions and were answered by still others, changing rapidly. Tom
thought that he could distinguish a dark outline below certain of these
lights. The whole business seemed weird and mysterious.

In the morning he looked from the rail at a sight which astonished and
thrilled him. No sign of land was there to be seen. Steaming abreast of
the _Montauk_ and perhaps a couple of hundred yards from her, was a
great ship with soldiers crowding at her rail waving caps and shouting,
their voices singularly crisp and clear across the waters. Beyond her
and still abreast was another great ship, the surging army upon her
decks reduced to a brown mass in the distance. And far off on either
side of this flotilla of three, and before it and behind it, was a
sprightly little destroyer, moving this way and that, like a dog jumping
about his master.

Upon the nearest vessel a naval signaler was semaphoring to the
_Montauk_--his movements jerky, clean-cut, perfect. Enviously Tom
watched him, thinking of his own semaphore work at Temple Camp. He read
the message easily; it was something about how many knots the ship
could make in a s