Accordingly, the recruits occupied the front benches, while the mustache of Captain Stone, who sat in the rear of the hall, began to look like the back of a dog’s neck when the dog is not pleased. The captain took down one leg that had been crossed over the other, and began sliding one hand up and down the yellow stripe of his trousers. To his brother officers and to his favorite sergeant, Jones, this hand sliding was another sign, like the singular behavior of the mustache. Nobody knew whether it was the hair itself that rose, or whether he did it with his upper lip; but when the whole thing stood straight out beyond his nose, everybody knew at a hundred yards’ range what it meant, no matter how it was done. It was the hurricane signal and you steered your course accordingly. “You never’ll get a better captain, Jock,” Sergeant Jones would often remark to Corporal Cumnor. “But you want to catch his profile at morning stables. If the muss-tash is merely standing attention, clear weather’s to be looked for. But if she’s deployed in extended order of skirmish-line, don’t you go nowheres without your slicker.” On the present occasion the sergeant was also in the hall listening to the Secretary. To him had fallen the responsibility of conducting some of the recruits to Fort Chiricahua in Arizona, to which post they had been assigned. Captain Stone was on leave, and had no responsibilities whatever until in a few weeks he should return to that same post after a honeymoon which he and his bride were completing by a visit to the lady’s parents. She was a pastor’s daughter and played the melodeon. “We are comrades,” repeated the Secretary of War to the recruits, “and that means you and I are going to stand by each other through thick and thin.” It sounded so well that the recruits all cheered.