“Tom has got to work to break the ‘muel,’ as lie calls it, from kicking,” said Leon, “and I am going down to see how it is done. He thinks he has got a prize there, and I hope he has.”
When Leon got up with the crowd he found that the mule had been securely fastened to a tree, and that there were two men engaged in holding her head up. You may have noticed that when a mule wants to kick she always puts her head down, and by holding her head up it was impossible for her to kick Tom, who, by bringing her tail around by her side, was busy in tying a stone that weighed two or three pounds, and was wrapped up in a thick rag so that it would not bruise her heels, fast to the end of it. Leon saw through the plan at once, and he laughed heartily.
“There, now, I reckon we’re all right,” said Tom, as he took a finishing knot in the string with which the stone was tied. “Kick, now, and we will see how you will come out. Let go her head, boys.”
When Tom said this he raised the stone and let it down against the mule’s heels with a sounding whack, and the men let go their hold and backed away. In an instant you could not have told where that mule belonged. Her heels were in the air all the time; but no matter how high the stone went, it always came down, and the further it went, it came back to its place and punished her heels severely. Sometimes she seemed as if she would kick herself over her head, she stood up so straight. The men stood around and laughed heartily, until the mule, after trying in vain to rid herself of the contrivance, stopped her kicking and turned around and looked at it. She seemed to know that it was fast to her, and after looking first on one side and then on the other, and trying with more energy than before to throw off the useless appendage, which she knew did not belong there, she drew her haunches under her, looked at Tom and broke out into a faint bray, as if begging him to take it off.
“There, sir, she is done with her kicking for all time,” said one of the men.
“Tom,” said Leon, “don’t go near her. You know how treacherous a mule can be.”
The man promptly stepped up to the mule, undid the stone, lifted her tail, and did other pranks which would have led even a mule who did not know how to kick to lay back her ears.
“I said I would break her of kicking in less than two days, and we have broken her in less than half an hour,” said Tom, gleefully. “Now watch me and see me ride to camp.”
Tom mounted in regular Texas fashion, placing his left hand upon the mule’s shoulder and throwing his right leg over her back, and with a “G’lang there, muel!” went down the road at a furious pace. She loped beautifully, and Tom wasn’t even moved, although he rode bare-back. Leon was satisfied that he had got a prize, after all.
“Now all he wants is to go around that mule forty times a day, lifting her tail and patting her, and she won’t kick him,” said the man who undid the stone. “I just know, for I’ll bet on it.”