blue--eh?"

"Something'll turn up; it always does. I've got money in the bank--
about, two thousand here in gold dust with me,--and if what you say's
true, Grim, about me still being a trooper, then the Army owes me three
years' back pay, and I'll have it or go to Buckingham Palace and tear
off a piece of the King! We're capitalists, by Jupiter! Besides, you
fellers agreed that if I shut down the mine at Abu Kem you'd join me and
we'd be Grim, Ramsden and Ross."

"I'll keep the bargain if you hold me to it when the time comes," Grim
answered.

"You bet I'll hold you to it! Rammy here, and you and I could trade the
chosen people off the map between us. We're a combination. What's time
got to do with it?"

"We've got to use your mine," Grim answered.

"I'm game. But let's see Australia first."

"Suppose we fix up your discharge, and you go home," Grim suggested.
"Come back when you've had a vacation, and by that time Ramsden and I
will have done what's possible for Feisul. He's in Damascus now, but the
French have got him backed into a corner. No money--not much
ammunition--French propaganda undermining the allegiance of his men--
time working against him, and nothing to do but wait."

"What in hell have the French got to do with it?"