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!"