at another door.

"Come in!" called a voice.

"Lieutenant Shackleton's compliments, sir, and two applicants to be
examined, sir."

"Very good, Orderly," replied Captain Wayburn, assistant surgeon, Army
Medical Corps, as he received the papers from the orderly. The latter
then left the room, closing the door behind him.

"You are Overton and Terry?" questioned Captain Wayburn, eyeing the
papers, then turning to the chums, who answered in the affirmative.

Captain Wayburn, being a medical officer of the Army, wore shoulder
straps with a green ground. At the ends of each strap rested the two
bars that proclaimed his rank of captain. Being a staff officer, Captain
Wayburn wore black trousers, instead of blue, beneath his blue fatigue
blouse. Moreover, the black trousers of the staff carried no broad side
stripe along the leg. The side stripe is always in evidence along the
outer leg side of the blue trousers of the line officer, and the color
of the stripe denotes to which arm of the service the officer belongs--a
white stripe denotes the infantry officer, while a yellow stripe
distinguishes the cavalry and a red stripe the artillery officer.

Captain Wayburn now laid out two other sets of papers on his desk. These
were the blanks for the surgeon's report on an applicant for enlistment.

At first this examination didn't seem to amount to much. The surgeon
began by looking Hal Overton's scalp over, next examining his face, neck
and back of head. Then he took a look at Hal's teeth, which he found to
be perfect.

"Stand where you are. Read this line of letters to me," ordered the
surgeon, stepping across the room to a card on which were ranged several
rows of printed letters of different sizes.

Hal read the line off perfectly.

"Read the line above."

Hal did so. He read all of the lines, to the smallest, in fact, without
an error.

"There's nothing the matter with your vision," remarked Captain Wayburn,
in a pleased tone. "Now tell me--promptly--what color is this?"

The surgeon held up a skein of yarn.

"Red," announced Hal, without an instant's hesitation.

"This one?"

"Green."

"And this?"

"Blue."

And so on. Hal missed with none of the colors.

"Go to that chair in the corner, Overton, and strip yourself, piling
your clothing neatly on the chair. Terry, come here."

Noll went through similar tests with equal success. By the time he had
finished Hal was stripped. Now came the real examinatio