"Waal," again drawled the Captain, with a wary look towards the mule, "let's experiment." And they did. They got a howitzer tied on that mule, who remained suspiciously quiet, looking steadily at the horizon, and they placed a time fuse in position, and then led the mule out on a bluff in front of a target. The three experimenters invited a number of brother officers to the scene, and when all was ready the pudgy Colonel lit the long fuse, and retired to the group of spectators.
The unruffled mule stood steady, gazing at the vanishing-point in the perspective, until the sputtering of the fuse aroused his curiosity, and he slowly turned his head and inquiringly watched it sputter. A little thing like that shouldn't bother an army mule. But his turning bothered the spectators; for as he did so, the muzzle of the howitzer began to describe sundry sweeps in all directions, like a telescope searching for a comet or a lost star. The mule grew alarmed, and betrayed his obstinate nature as he absolutely refused to stand still, and gathering his four legs together in a bunch, he began making what seemed one thousand revolutions a minute; and there was that loaded howitzer threatening death at all points of the compass! In the mad rush to reach safety that took place before that dancing mule a stampeding herd could have found points. The pudgy Colonel was stuck between the bars of a rail fence, and all that one could see was his fat legs kicking towards the sky. As for the lanky New-England Captain, he essayed the climbing of a tree, regardless of his country's uniform, with the result that what he left on the bark looked like a patched quilt, with stray bits of regimentals and bunches of whiskers. He was having a hard time keeping the trunk of the tree between himself and the muzzle of the howitzer. The rest were rapidly losing themselves in every direction, seeking cover as if a pack of Indians had hailed down upon them.
The gun went off at last, and, alas! the mule kicked his final—or else the gun kicked it for him, for it knocked him over the bluff to his grave. As for the ball, after taking a chip out of the Captain's tree trunk, and scraping the top rail of the Colonel's fence, it danced along and careened through the windows of the Colonel's headquarters, cutting a swath in the room like the path of a cyclone, then wandered out through the opposite partition to a yard in the rear, and after playfully lopping a proud rooster's astonished head, it brought up with a smash against the kitchen chimney, completely wrecking that smoke-carrier and the dinner it had smoked for, throwing the cook into a fit, for which she is still claiming a pension. For a long time mules were disliked on that frontier post.
Any questions in regard to photograph matters will be willingly answered by the Editor of this column, and we should be glad to hear from any of our club who can make helpful suggestions.