In the morning the porter took out my bedding-roll and lockers, and moved my grip to the hotel veranda. He looked at the envelopes, seeking the destination of the baggage, but I coldly informed him that an army truck would take them from the baggage entrance of the hotel, and he need not worry. He felt relieved. I went to the desk and asked for my bill. A prosperous citizen asked the clerk when the next trans-Pacific ship sailed. “I’m not sure,” said the clerk. “There is some ship sailing to-day, because there are a lot of officers here going to Siberia. That’s their baggage out on the porch. But probably they are going in the transport _Sheridan_ or _Logan_--I understand they sail to-day.” The clerk did not know it, but I felt like shooting him. At least something should be done about it. We had done our best to be secret, and here he was telling a perfect stranger with a diamond in his tie and wearing most suspicious spats, the fact that this was the regular sailing date for transports from San Francisco, and that we were going to Siberia. But I paid my bill, and gave a bellboy a quarter just to show there were no hard feelings. Outside on the veranda I found the officers standing about with their luggage, the center of an interested group of civilians, and drawn up in a semi-circle, a fleet of taxis. Smith was nervously waiting my coming. Immediately he began calling out numbers, and taxis turned in and stopped, and by pairs, the officers took their places in the vehicles. Smith then went to the leading driver, and whispered something to him, got into the leading cab, and shut the door. “Follow me to the transport dock, fellers,” bawled the leading driver to the others, and secretly, a dozen taxis with officers and field clerks, wheeled out in column. We hoped that the civilians we passed in California Street and Van Ness Avenue toward Fort Mason, en route to the transport dock, would not notice us. The transports _Dix_, _Sheridan_ and _Logan_ were at the piers, the latter with naval guns mounted forward, the _Sheridan_ with field-pieces lashed on the forecastle-head, and machine-guns on the after bridge. Blue Peters, the signal-flags which announce that a vessel sails that day, hung limply from the fore-trucks of the _Sheridan_ and _Logan_. The troops to go with us marched in from nearby military posts all day, and swarms of relatives, friends and sightseers, gathered on the hills near Fort Mason to watch the transports. It was all a matter of regular routine to the dock-workers. The Pacific transports had been sailing on their regular schedule to the Philippines, Honolulu and Guam during the war, and looked no different in their gray paint than they had in the old days of the Philippine campaigns, except that the red, white and blue bands were missing from their funnels.