"I can't stay to celebrate your victory, Russell," she informed him. "I've got to get back to my tribe—my scrubbing brush. I've just realized that I must look a—a scandal in this rig. Even in Gold, B.C., I have a social standing to maintain."
Her threatened departure surprised him, left him suddenly confused. "Your standing as a heroine in Gold couldn't be disturbed by a blast of dynamite after what you've done to-day," he assured her. "And have you forgotten—don't you realize what it means that at last I've got my man? I've got to go back to Glacier to-night, you know. I'd thought of dinner and an official escort home."
For a moment she considered, then the eyes which he once had likened as being "smudged in by a sooty finger," flashed him all the love in their world.
"Sorry I can't wait in this rig, Sergeant Scarlet," she teased, "but there's nothing to hinder your coming to the mission on Glacier as soon as you're ready." She started her horse. "But be sure," she called back to him, "be sure not to forget to bring my father with you. He's the only parson in these diggings."
She had gone before he could thank her; but all the platinum on Glacier couldn't buy from him the memory of those recent crowded hours.
The crowd remembered that he was a member of the Force, even if he had momentarily forgotten that fact. They clamored about him for details of the crime clean-up, few of which they would hear from him. There was Deputy Hardley to be put straight about the B.C.X. holdup; and Mrs. Caswell to thank for her "richer than gold" help, and special constables to be selected and sworn for service at the borrowed jail and on the creek. Indeed there was much for Staff-Sergeant Seymour to do in his new domain, but when at last he was free he saw to it that the Rev. Shan O'Malley brushed stirrups with him all the way to Glacier.
THE END.