In the little Crimson Manual
It's written plain and clear
That who would wear the scarlet coat
Shall say good-bye to fear;
Shall be a guardian of the right,
A sleuth-hound of the trail
--
In the little Crimson Manual
There's no such word as "fail"
--
Shall follow on though heavens fall,
Or hell's top-turrets freeze,
Half round the world, if need there be,
On bleeding hands and knees.
It's duty, duty, first and last,
The Crimson Manual saith;
The Scarlet Rider makes reply:
"It's duty -- to
the death."
And so they sweep the solitudes,
Free men from all the earth;
And so they sentinel the woods,
The wilds that know their
worth;
And so they scour the startled plains
And mock at hurt and pain,
And read their Crimson Manual,
And find their duty plain.
Knights of the lists of unrenown,
Born of the frontier's need,
Disdainful of the spoken word,
Exultant in the deed;
Unconscious heroes of the waste,
Proud players of the game,
Props of the power behind the throne,
Upholders of the name:
For thus the Great White Chief hath said,
"In all my lands
be peace",
And to maintain his word he gave
His West the Scarlet Police.
Livid-lipped was the valley,
Still as the grave of God;
Misty shadows of mountain
Thinned into mists of cloud;
Corpselike and stark was the land,
With a quiet that crushed
and awed,
And the stars of the weird sub-arctic
Glimmered over its shroud.
Deep in the trench of the valley
Two men stationed the Post,
Seymour and Clancy the reckless,
Fresh from the long patrol;
Seymour, the sergeant, and Clancy --
Clancy who made his boast
He could cinch like a bronco the Northland,
And cling to the prongs of
the Pole.
Two lone men on detachment,
Standing for law on the trail;
Undismayed in the vastness,
Wise with the wisdom of old
--
Out of the night hailed a half-breed
Telling a pitiful tale,
"White man starving and crazy
On the banks of the Nordenscold."
Up sprang the red-haired Clancy,
Lean and eager of eye;
Loaded the long toboggan,
Strapped each dog at its
post;
Whirled his lash at the leader;
Then, with a whoop and a
cry,
Into the Great White Silence
Faded away like a ghost.
The clouds were a misty shadow,
The hills were a shadowy
mist;
Sunless, voiceless and pulseless,
The day was a dream of woe;
Through the ice-rifts the river
Smoked and bubbled and hissed;
Behind was a trail fresh broken,
In front the untrodden snow.
Ahead of the dogs ploughed Clancy,
Haloed by steaming breath;
Through peril of open water,
Through ache of insensate
cold;
Up rivers wantonly winding
In a land affianced to death,
Till he came to a cowering cabin
On the banks of the Nordenscold.
Then Clancy loosed his revolver,
And he strode through the
open door;
And there was the man he sought for,
Crouching beside the fire;
The hair of his beard was singeing,
The frost on his back was
hoar,
And ever he crooned and chanted
As if he never would tire:
--
"I
panned and I panned in the shiny sand,
And I sniped on the river
bar;
But I know, I know, that
it's down below
That the golden treasures
are;
So I'll wait and wait till
the floods abate,
And I'll sink a shaft once
more,
And I'd like to bet that
I'll go home yet
With a brass band playing
before."
He was nigh as thin as a sliver,
And he whined like a Moose-hide
cur;
So Clancy clothed him and nursed him
As a mother nurses a child;
Lifted him on the toboggan,
Wrapped him in robes of fur,
Then with the dogs sore straining
Started to face the Wild.
Said the Wild, "I will crush this Clancy,
So fearless and insolent;
For him will I loose my fury,
And blind and buffet and
beat;
Pile up my snows to stay him;
Then when his strength is
spent,
Leap on him from my ambush
And crush him under my feet."
"Him will I ring with my silence,
Compass him with my cold;
Closer and closer clutch him
Unto mine icy breast;
Buffet him with my blizzards,
Deep in my snows enfold,
Claiming his life as my tribute,
Giving my wolves the rest."
Clancy crawled through the vastness;
O'er him the hate of the
Wild;
Full on his face fell the blizzard;
Cheering his huskies he ran;
Fighting, fierce-hearted and tireless,
Snows that drifted and piled,
With ever and ever behind him
Singing the crazy man.
"Sing
hey, sing ho, for the ice and snow,
And a heart that's ever merry;
Let us trim and square with
a lover's care
(For why should a man be
sorry?)
A grave deep, deep, with
the moon a-peep,
A grave in the frozen mould.
Sing hey, sing ho, for the
winds that blow,
And a grave deep down in
the ice and snow,
A grave in the land of gold."
Day after day of darkness,
The whirl of the seething
snows;
Day after day of blindness,
The swoop of the stinging
blast;
On through a blur of fury
The swing of staggering blows;
On through a world of turmoil,
Empty, inane and vast.
Night with its writhing storm-whirl,
Night despairingly black;
Night with its hours of terror,
Numb and endlessly long;
Night with its weary waiting,
Fighting the shadows back,
And ever the crouching madman
Singing his crazy song.
Cold with its creeping terror,
Cold with its sudden clinch;
Cold so utter you wonder
If 'twill ever again be warm;
Clancy grinned as he shuddered,
"Surely it isn't
a cinch
Being wet-nurse to a looney
In the teeth of an arctic
storm."
The blizzard passed and the dawn broke,
Knife-edged and crystal clear;
The sky was a blue-domed iceberg,
Sunshine outlawed away;
Ever by snowslide and ice-rip
Haunted and hovered the Fear;
Ever the Wild malignant
Poised and panted to slay.
The lead-dog freezes in harness --
Cut him out of the team!
The lung of the wheel-dog's bleeding --
Shoot him and let him lie!
On and on with the others --
Lash them until they scream!
"Pull for your lives, you devils!
On! To halt is to die."
There in the frozen vastness
Clancy fought with his foes;
The ache of the stiffened fingers,
The cut of the snowshoe thong;
Cheeks black-raw through the hood-flap,
Eyes that tingled and closed,
And ever to urge and cheer him
Quavered the madman's song.
Colder it grew and colder,
Till the last heat left the
earth,
And there in the great stark stillness
The bale fires glinted and
gleamed,
And the Wild all around exulted
And shook with a devilish
mirth,
And life was far and forgotten,
The ghost of a joy once dreamed.
Death! And one who defied it,
A man of the Mounted Police;
Fought it there to a standstill
Long after hope was gone;
Grinned through his bitter anguish,
Fought without let or cease,
Suffering, straining, striving,
Stumbling, struggling on.
Till the dogs lay down in their traces,
And rose and staggered and
fell;
Till the eyes of him dimmed with shadows,
And the trail was so hard
to see;
Till the Wild howled out triumphant,
And the world was a frozen
hell --
Then said Constable Clancy:
"I guess that it's
up to me."
Far down the trail they saw him,
And his hands they were blanched
like bone;
His face was a blackened horror,
From his eyelids the salt
rheum ran;
His feet he was lifting strangely,
As if they were made of stone,
But safe in his arms and sleeping
He carried the crazy man.
So Clancy got into Barracks,
And the boys made rather
a scene;
And the O. C. called him a hero,
And was nice as a man could
be;
But Clancy gazed down his trousers
At the place where his toes
had been,
And then he howled like a husky,
And sang in a shaky key:
"When
I go back to the old love
That's true to the finger-tips,
I'll say: `Here's bushels
of gold, love,'
And I'll kiss my girl on
the lips;
`It's yours to have and to
hold, love.'
It's the proud, proud boy
I'll be,
When I go back to the old
love
That's waited so long for
me."
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