Then they passed an army auto truck loaded with mattresses, with the bully old initials U.S.A.on its side.

Two boys in khaki were on the seat.
"Is the _Texas Pioneer_ in ?" Tom yelled.
"What ?" one of them called back.
"He's deaf or something," muttered Tom; "we--should worry." On they sped till the road merged into a street lined with shops, where children in wooden shoes and men in blouses shuffled about.

Tom thought he had never seen people so slow in his life.
[Illustration: DOWN THE HILL COASTED UNCLE SAM BEARING TOM FURIOUSLY ONWARD.] Now, indeed, he must make some concession to the throngs moving back and forth, and he slackened his speed, but only slightly.
"Dieppe ?" he called.
"Dieppe," came the laughing answer from a passer-by, who was evidently amused at Tom's pronunciation.
"Where's the wharves ?" Again that polite shrug of the shoulders.
He took a chance with another passer-by, who nodded and pointed down a narrow street with dull brown houses tumbling all over each other, as it seemed to Tom.

It was the familiar, old-world architecture of the French coast towns, which he had seen in Brest and St.Nazaire, as if all the houses had become suddenly frightened and huddled together like panicky sheep.
More leisurely now, but quickly still, rode the dispatch-rider through this narrow, surging way which had all the earmarks of the shore--damp-smelling barrels, brass lanterns, dilapidated ships' figureheads, cosy but uncleanly drinking places, and sailors.
And of all the sights save one which Tom Slade ever beheld, the one which most gladdened his heart was a neat new sign outside a stone building, Office of United States Quartermaster.
Several American army wagons were backed up against the building and half a dozen khaki-clad boys lounged about.

There was much coming and going, but it is a part of the dispatch-rider's prestige to have immediate admittance anywhere, and Tom stopped before this building and was immediately surrounded by a flattering representation of military and civilian life, both French and American.
To these he paid not the slightest heed, but carefully lowered _Uncle Sam's_ rest so that his weary companion might stand alone.
"You old tramp," he said in an undertone; "stay here and take it easy.
Keep away," he added curtly to a curious private who was venturing a too close inspection of _Uncle Sam's_ honorable wounds.
"What's the matter--run into something ?" he asked.
"No, I didn't," said Tom, starting toward the building.
Suddenly he stopped short, staring.
A man in civilian clothes sat tilted back in one of several chairs beside the door.