Officers riding free within two seconds (8)
I believe the answer is:
mounties
'officers' is the definition.
(Mountie is an example)
'riding free within two seconds' is the wordplay.
'two seconds' can mean two substitutions for 'second'.
'riding free' becomes 'untie' (I've seen this before. I am not sure about the 'riding' bit.).
'within' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'second' becomes 'mo' (both are short periods of time).
'second' becomes 's' (common abbreviation).
'mo'+'s'='mos'
'untie' put into 'mos' is 'MOUNTIES'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for mounties that I've seen before include "Canadian federal police" , "Police force of Canada" .)