RCMP Canada Mountie Books: Excerpt DOWNEY OF THE MOUNTED by James B Hendryx

Posted on Canada Day, 2022 in honour of the heroic men and women who have served in the red serge uniform as members of the historic Force known today as the Royal Canadian Mounted Police…

The RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police, originally called the North-West Mounted Police) have been written about since their creation in 1873.

In my popular Post “The GREATEST WRITERS OF NORTH-WEST MOUNTED POLICE FICTION” I listed my pick of THE TOP 10 MOUNTIIE WRITERS.

Among them was American writer James B Hendryx. Hendryx had travelled to the Canadian Klondike as a young man and used his own adventures as the basis for a number of stories in the popular pulp fiction magazines of the 1920’s and 30’s.

Here’s an Excerpt from DOWNEY OF THE MOUNTED by James B Hendryx…

“I, Cameron Downey, solemnly swear that I will faithfully, diligently, and impartially execute and perform the duties required of me as a member of the Royal North-West Mounted Police Force. And will well and truly obey and perform all lawful orders and instructions which I shall receive as such, without fear, favour, or affection of or toward any person. So help me, God.”

Gravely and solemnly young Cameron Downey repeated the words that inducted him into the Service.

A silence followed, broken by the voice of the Commissioner: “It has given me unusual pleasure to administer this oath. The name of Cameron Downey is no new name to me. For many years I have known your grandfather as one of the best men in the North. Your name appears with credit in Sergeant Costello’s report of the capture of the Yorkton bank robbers, some seven years ago.

“And, in the matter of application, Inspector Costello has referred to you in the highest terms. As have the president of the bank and others of your townspeople. Experience has taught me that native blood in men, and horses, and dogs has a marked advantage over imported blood. There will be times when the demands of duty will call forth every atom of your strength – mental, moral, and physical — and the man who builds up a reserve of strength, is the man who goes to the top.”

Two hours later, spick and span in his new uniform, “Regimental Number 0750, Cameron Downey,” as he was entered upon the records, reported for duty in the “awkward squad,” the youngest and the proudest recruit of them all.

Thanks to a high order of intelligence, an insatiable ambition to learn, and the fragmentary, but efficient coaching of Sergeant (now Inspector) Costello during the years that had elapsed since the Yorkton incident, young Downey easily outstripped the other recruits, who were satisfied to absorb what they might of police education through the regular channels of drill, lectures, and practice of the regular curriculum.

There was much to learn.

Cavalry drill of high order, care of horses and dogs in health and in sickness, carbine and revolver practice, instruction in the duties of constables, in the Criminal Code procedure, the laws of the different Provinces. As well as cooking, first aid, and a thousand and one tricks of the trail and bits of information that make for the efficient policing of a rapidly developing frontier.

Cameron Downey was learning his trade.

Proficiency in the saddle worked him rapidly into Number One Ride,. And his scores with carbine and revolver won the appreciation of his superiors. “Likeliest lad in the bunch,” observed Inspector Church one day to the Commissioner as the two watched Number One Ride conclude its drill.

“You mean?”

“Young Downey. Make a good man if he don’t get spoiled. The boys all like him, too, all but –”

“Grandson of old Cameron Downey of Fort Chipewyan. That breed won’t spoil. You were saying the men all like him except -?”

“Number 0687, Crossley. Been in the awkward squad longer than any of ’em. No. Crossley don’t like him.”

“Why?”

“I couldn’t say, sir. I’d noticed it when they were in the awkward together — nothing I could lay hold of. Just now and then a little sly thing, but, I noticed.

“Then, a couple of weeks ago I happened to be passing through the stables just before inspection. Downey was putting a velvet finish on his mount. Shortly afterward, I stood near the stable door, and, inside, I heard someone accuse someone of befouling his horse. The voice was quiet and low — but, the words bit like a steel point drill. Then the other voice, sneering, it was, and thick, gave him the lie, and an obscene name thrown in. There wasn’t anything else said, but there were some funny sounds –”

“Funny sounds, Inspector?”

“Yes, sir, that is, they sounded funny to me. Sort of like this,” he paused and smote, in rapid staccato, his open palm with his fist. “And the sounds were sort of mixed with other sounds — like quick breathing, and a heavy grunt or two, and then a sound sort of between a howl and a yelp, and a sound like someone had dropped a sack of oats on the floor. It was inspection time, and I moved on. A little later when they showed up for drill, I noticed a dampish stain on the flank of Downey’s mount, and Crossley worried through the drill with one eye swelled shut and sort of turning black.”

“You mean, young Downey attacked him?”

The Commissioner’s voice was stern, though possibly his lips trembled ever so slightly at the corners, as his keen eyes searched the Inspector’s face.

It’s also possible that the lid of the Inspector’s left eye flickered ever so lightly as he replied: “I couldn’t say, sir. I really couldn’t say.”

A full year’s instruction would seem a short time indeed to turn out an officer competent to perform the duties of a constable of the Royal North-West Mounted Police. Not when one considers that this mere handful of men efficiently police a territory reaching from Hudson Bay to the Alaskan frontier, and from the international boundary to the shores of the Arctic — and beyond.

Considers also that the provinces and territories are rapidly being settled by a heterogeneous hodgepodge of aliens, good, bad, and worse. And that the vast northern reach of this territory is thinly peopled by an Indigenous people who understand few words of the white man’s tongue, and have little comprehension of his many laws.

And yet, a constable, whose duties involve from time to time those of cavalryman, sheriff, attorney, coroner, surgeon, veterinarian, detective, scout, and explorer, is fortunate if he gets six months’ instruction before assuming his active duty!

Truly, a marvelous performance, and doubly so when one considers that from the very nature of these duties, the constable is thrown a great deal of the time upon his own initiative, far removed from the advice and counsel of his superiors.

Yet, year by year the feat is accomplished. Year by year a squad of capable and efficient young men go into the North to take the place of the squad of capable and efficient old men whose work is behind them. And, year by year the morale, the esprit de corps, remains at the same high level that has marked the force from its inception.

Cameron Downey spent four months at Regina barracks.

Then, one autumn day, he returned from his Saturday ride across the golden prairie, to find orders awaiting him to report for duty at Prince Albert.

It was with beating heart and high resolve that, a few hours later, with his neatly packed kit beside him, he settled back in his seat in the railway car and watched the lights of Regina twinkle and fade in the distance. It was the day he had looked forward to — for years and years.

He was a full-fledged policeman, now. The rest had been merely a matter of schooling.

And so Constable Cameron Downey, soon to become Corporal Downey, set out on a life that would see him stationed in the Yukon. And many adventures among the people of the wild Northcountry, from the hustling goldtown of Dawson City to the strange Halfaday Creek, a community of outlaws…

==>> To read my popular article on the History of Northwestern Fiction, especially the classic tales of our Famous Mounties and Top 10 writers, including the great James B Hendryx, 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