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There, switching the short grass with his stocky cane, stood
their grim senior surgeon, Doctor, or Major, Graham. There, close
beside him and leaning on the arm of a slender but athletic, sun-tanned
young fellow in trim civilian dress, stood the doctor's devoted wife.
With them was a curly-headed youth, perhaps seventeen years of age,
restless, eager, and impatient for the promised news. Making his way
eagerly but gently through the dense throng of onlookers, a
bronze-faced, keen-eyed, powerfully built officer in the uniform of the
cavalry came up at the moment and joined them. "Have you heard
anything yet?" he murmured to Mrs. Graham, whose kind and gentle
eyes seemed to light at sound of his voice.
"Not yet," she answered, with a shake of the head. "All we learned just
a few minutes ago was that the order was here and would be published
on parade. The commandant returned only just in time."
"And there's been no telegram--no word from outside?"
"Not a thing, Mr. McCrea. It just so happened."
"Well, if that isn't odd! To begin with, it's most unusual to get out the
order so early. They must be in a hurry to assign the graduates this year.

Pops, old boy, if you don't get our regiment, I'll say the secretary of war
is deaf to the wishes of every officer and most of the men. We told him
when he came out to look over Fort Reynolds, and incidentally look
into the mines--but that was last year--Oh, bother, Williams," he
suddenly broke off, "what do you want to lose precious time for,
putting 'em through the manual?"
This sudden outbreak was levelled at the unconscious officer
commanding the parade (the "officer in charge," as he was termed), Mr.
Williams having replied, "Take your post, sir," to the adjutant's stately
salute in presenting the statuesque line. Whereupon the adjutant
"recovered" sword, strode briskly up, passed beyond the plumed
commander, and took his station to his left and rear. With much
deliberation of manner, Mr. Williams drew sabre and easily gave the
various orders for the showy manual of arms, the white-gloved hands
moving like clockwork in response to his command until, with
simultaneous thud, the battalion resumed the "order," certain spectators
with difficulty repressing the impulse to applaud.
[Illustration: CADETS AT DRILL, WEST POINT]
Then back to the centre stalked the young adjutant, Mrs. Graham
unconsciously drawing unflattering comparison between the present
incumbent, soldierly though he seemed, and her own boy's associate
and friend, Claude Benton, adjutant of the class graduated barely a
fortnight earlier, "her own boy," perhaps the most honored among them.
She was clinging to his arm now, her pride and joy through all his years
of sturdy boyhood and manly youth. She knew well that the hope and
longing of his heart was to be assigned to the cavalry regiment of
which Lieutenant McCrea was quartermaster, the regiment once
stationed at old Fort Reynolds, in the Rockies, when Dr. Graham was
there as post surgeon and Geordie was preparing for West Point. Indeed,
Mr. McCrea had "coached" her son in mathematics, and had been most
helpful in securing the appointment. And now here was the
quartermaster on leave of absence, the first he had had in years,
spending several weeks of his three months' rest at the scene of his own
soldier school-days.

But it was "Bud," her younger son, who had come rushing down to the
surgeon's quarters only a few minutes before parade with the
all-important news. "Mither!--Geordie!" he cried, "Captain Cross says
the assignment order's come and will be published at parade. Hurry
up!"
Dr. Graham could hardly believe it. As McCrea said, the War
Department seldom issued the order before mid-July. "Mac" even
hoped to be in Washington in time to say a word to the adjutant-general
in Geordie's behalf. It was known that many would be assigned to the
artillery, to which Cadet Graham had been recommended by the
Academic Board. But all his boyhood had been spent on the frontier;
his earliest recollections were of the adobe barracks and sun-dried,
sun-cracked, sun-scorched parade of old Camp Sandy in Arizona. He
had learned to ride an Indian pony in Wyoming before he was eight; he
had learned to shoot in Montana before he was twelve; and he had
ridden, hunted, fished, and shot all over the wide West before the happy
days that sent him to the great cadet school of the nation. And now that
he was graduated, with all his heart and hope and ambition he prayed
that he might be commissioned in a cavalry regiment, if possible in
McCrea's. Give him that, he said, and he would ask no favor from any
man.
How his heart was beating as he watched the adjutant, whom he
himself