SPIRIT-OF-IRON, Manitou-Pewabic: An Authentic Novel of the North-West Mounted Police – A Mountie Secret Revealed

NOTE: Harwood Steele wrote his classic novel, SPIRIT-OF-IRON, based on the life of his famous father — Sam Steele of the Mounted.  This exciting excerpt from the novel is based on the real incident that occured at the Mounted Police outpost at Chilkoot Pass during the height of the Klondike Gold Rush.  It reveals a secret Sam Steele and the other police never made public…

 

Hopeful Pass lay gripped in the first big cold of the Northern winter.

Every lake, creek and river in Black Elk was frozen over. The miners had deserted their claims for town or retired into their shacks till spring. Travellers in the Pass might be counted on one hand. The human tide, like the watery tide, had succumed to the wintery clutch.

And yet the Mounted Police Post was as active as in the days of the Rush. Half the men were tramping up and down in the snow. Outside their big fur coats they wore their bandoliers, belts and revolvers, and each man carried his carbine, while young Inspector Gemmell, similarly equiped, was sitting on an open box of ammunition.

They were going to fight? They were — if necessary.

Gemmell had been advised by headquarters that an attempt might soon be made by the thugs of Prospect to rush the Mounted Police post on Hopeful Pass and gain admittance to the gold-fields. He was to avert this attempt by “taking such steps as he deemed advisable” — (Let the boy run his own show!) and Gemmell, who included Hopeful Pass in his jurisdiction, had instantly taken long steps — in Hopeful Pass direction, since it was better that he should be on the scene of action himself.

To resist the advance, Gemmell had erected a barrier covering the approach to the post and had maintained a perpetual look-out in the pass a mile or two ahead. This look-out was on duty now.

From the town of Prospect that morning had come word of an advance. Gemmell had thereupon turned out half his men, leaving the rest in comfort in the tent.

Gemmell also had a Maxim machine-gun in the tent. But, as the machine-gun was water-cooled, it was liable to freeze up if left too long in the open.

If the thugs came up, Gemmell planned to emulate the Spartans of Thermopylae.

The Pass must be held to the last.

He meant to hold it.

 

Meanwhile, he wished the thugs would “get it over,” as he was sure his nose was freezing.

Gemmell’s scouts suddenly appeared over the skyline a hundred yards away.

“Gang of two hundred, heavily armed, just come into sight, sir,” the scouts reported on arrival.

“All right,” said Gemmell. Then, to the men in the tent, “Turn out, you fellows!”

The fellows turned out.

Gemmell mounted the Maxim in a conspicuous position, pointing down the Pass. He stationed his reserve behind the barrier. The remainder of the men, six all told, he drew up in a line, across the pass.

Then, in the mist of descending flakes, they waited.

“If you’ll pardon me, sir,” — Sergeant Kellett tactfully placed his superior knowledge and experience at his C. O.’s disposal — “I’d parley with them first.”

“Yes, Sergeant,” said Gemmell.

He wished his moustache was bigger.

An hour passed.

“Are you sure they’re coming?” Gemmell asked the scouts.

A sudden roar, borne on the wind, supplied the answer and a crowd of men surged over the crest below.

All alone, Gemmell advanced to meet the crowd on the boundary-line, a stone’s throw in front.

Two hundred? — a low estimate. There were at least three hundred in the crowd — ruffians all, and well armed, the dregs of Prospect, the toughest town on earth. Gemmell looked for Greasy Jones or his gang but saw none of them.

The crowd yelled with mingled passion and triumph when it saw Gemmell. He slung his carbine easily over his shoulder and unbuttoned the holster of his revolver. On the boundary-line he met the mob, face to face.

“Out of the way!” roared the crowd — and halted.

“Sorry, but this is the boundary,” replied Gemmell coolly. He was forced to raise his voice. “Behind me is Canadian territory. You can’t pass!”

These remarks produced a storm of hoots, laughs and jeers. The crowd began to advance again, intending to sweep Gemmell aside.

On the very edge of Canadian territory the crowd halted again, checked by their leader, a desperate-looking villain, who waved significantly toward the line of Police.

“Well, what have you got to say?”

Turning, when the mob had halted and had fallen into silence, the leader challenged Gemmell.

“My orders,” shouted Gemmell, in return, “are to halt you at the boundary. I have a big force of men. And a Maxim gun, that could clean up this pass in half a minute. Now, I don’t want trouble. I want you fellows to have some sense and go home.”

The leader of the mob placed himself in front of Gemmell, feet wide apart, hands on hips, and looked him up and down. “Say, kid,” he demanded, “who th’ hell d’you think you are? Who told you to stop us law-abidin’ citizens?”

“Her Majesty the Queen!” said Gemmell.

“Whoop!” shouted the man; and the crowd jeered.

“What the hell right has Her Majesty got in Black Elk, anyhow?” went on the leader. “The Black Elk miners is the boys to run that country. An’ they want us in. An’ we’re goin’ in! See?”

He thrust his lowering face to within an inch of the Inspector’s.

“Get your men an’ your pop-gun out o’ the way!” the thug continued. “An’ no one’ll be hurt! Out o’ the way, you –”

And he put out his hand to thrust Gemmell aside.

“Hard words!” smiled the Inspector.

Then he flicked the man across the mouth.

A shriek of anger rose from the crowd. The leader, his face crimson, whipped out a revolver and pointed it at Gemmell.

“Out o’ th’ way!” he roared.

“We’re on Canadian soil. You’ve broken the law!”

With that, the Inspector dashed the thug’s weapon aside and closed with him.

Sergeant Kellett, waiting with the line behind him, saw the officer struggling furiously, in a turmoil in the snow, the mob closing. Instantly, he doubled his men forward. A row of levelled carbines came suddenly to Gemmell’s rescue.

“Stand back, you!” ordered Kellett hotly. “Or I’ll open fire!”

A roaring mass, the toughs swayed to and fro before that slender barrier. Between them, as on common ground, Gemmell and his antagonist rolled and struggled.

Sergeant Kellett whipped out his handcuffs, watching his chance to plunge into the fight.

But out of the scurry of snow came Gemmell at that instant — smiling and on top! His face was lacerated, the tough kicking and clawing like a mad dog. Gemmell had pitched the revolver out of reach in the first struggle.

“Leave him, Sergeant,” Gemmell ordered. “He’s my meat!”

Then — click! — pulling a pair of handcuffs from his own pocket — the arrest was a fact accomplished.

To get back with their prisoner to the Post was the work of a moment. The crowd, now lacking determined leadership, wavered. The arrest left them dazed.

“All ready?”

The machine-gun crew and the men at the barrier nodded.

The Inspector hailed the crowd.

“Get out!” he shouted. “Do you hear? The first man moving this way will mean the end of the lot of you! Remember my Maxim!”

Then both sides waited, facing each other, in intense silence.

This was the crisis. Which was it to be — a fight or a retreat?

“Don’t fire, sir, till they’re right on us!” whispered Sergeant Kellett. “Never do, sir. Never do!”

The mob gathered itself together, yelling. The Police maintained their ominous silence. Motionless, they faced the mob — twelve men against three hundred. The flag above them blew gloriously in the breeze.

Suddenly the toughs charged.

Gemmell’s face was marble, under dried streaks of blood. This, surely, was the end.

Some members of the advancing crowd opened fire. Bullets whistled around the standing Mounted Police.

Gemmell shouted, “Machine-gun, ready there!”

“Ready!”

The mob had forgotten the machine-gun. Every man had heard that firm cry, “Machine-gun, ready there!” and the answer, “Ready!” Now they remembered. Quick as lightning, a mental picture flashed through them… a picture of the Pass, blocked with their bodies, dominated by a devil of brass and steel.

And the rush — melted away. Melted away!

The Mounted Police were left with their prisoner. The crowd went sullenly pouring back to Prospect in defeat.

Gemmell drew a deep breath. The tense line relaxed.

It was hard to believe the mob had given way, not on account of the levelled carbines but simply and solely on the account of the mere threat of the Maxim.

For the Maxim had been frozen up for the past twenty minutes.

“Bluffed ’em, by the Lord Harry!” said Gemmell.

THE END

 

ENDNOTE re the “Devil of Brass and Steel” — Americans in the mob had already heard stories of the deadly effect of machine guns used by the US Army just months earlier in the Spanish-American war.  What the raging mob trying to storm the Mountie outpost on Chilkoot Pass didn’t know was that the Maxim gun used by the Mounties in the Winter of 1898 was water-cooled.  That gun was frozen solid within minutes of assembly. “Bluffed ’em, by the Lord Harry!”

 

==>> To read my popular article on the History of Northwestern Fiction, especially the classic tales of our Famous Mounties and Top 10 writers, including Harwood Steele, go to  “The GREATEST WRITERS OF NORTH-WEST MOUNTED POLICE FICTION”

“I just discovered your blog recently and need to dig deeper into it.  That post on Mountie fiction is great!” Western Writer James Reasoner

 

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