"Take those young Mounties a bottle of wine and mark it down on my check," the rubric one was saying to the waiter.
The woman with him, a pretty French girl, reached across the table in an effort to quiet him.
"You leave me alone, Florette," he resented. "I got most all the money in the world and those brave lads work for next to nothing a year."
"Next to nothing a year." Seymour repeated the expression under his breath. Where had he heard that expression before as applied to the same Force which yonder cubs decorated? In a flash he was transported back to the trade-room of a sub-Arctic factor.
"But know this, girl of mine," Seymour repeated. "Get him I will."
CHAPTER XIV
A DOUBLE-BARRELLED CASE
Sergeant Russell Seymour of the Royal Canadian again was mounted—actually astride a horse with spur at heel and a fine feel of leather between his knees. The best part of the continent separated him from the Montreal fairyland and the regal beauty in whom his ambition and hope lay centered.
An exigency of the service—the policing of the mushroom gold camp which he was approaching—had been responsible for the sudden shift of action's scene. Not that the hunt for the Armistice embezzler had been forgot or abandoned, but with the idea that a cold trail might warm if left alone for a while, its crossing effected when least expected.
The problem at Gold, British Columbia, was so large a one that the authorities had overlooked no advantage. The fact that Seymour had never seen service in the province presented the attractive possibility of his making a preliminary survey in plain clothes, severely plain, in truth—as plain as stained khaki, scuffed leather and battered felt could materialize.