Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 January 1910 — KEPT MULES ON THE MOVE. [ARTICLE]

KEPT MULES ON THE MOVE.

Hitched to Speeding; Automobile, Team Had Time of Their Lives. Here is a story from Manhattan with vaudeville features, not to mention the hard luck; A farmer living on Deep Creek, several miles east of Manhattan, had a thrilling experience with an automobile and a team of mules. The farmer recently had purchased a new machine, and on one of his first trips tried to cross the creek at a ford. He put the clutch at high speed and waded in. For some reason the engine went dead in midstream. Cranking failed to revive it. After a number of useless efforts, the farmer secured a team of mules, hitched them to the stubborn auto and dragged the machine across the creek and up the bank. The driver had left the clutch on at high speed, and from some unaccountable cause as soon as the machine was on level road the engine suddenly revived, the machine started forward with a bound and struck the mules squarely in their kicking apparatus. There was something doing immediately thereafter. The mules started off full lilt with the machine chugging after them; the driver being occupied with the .mules, could not give the machine much attention. The machine was soon going on the heels again and again. Both team and machine became unmanageable; but the mules suddenly jumped to one side, bringing the machine sharply around and causing It to strike a bank of earth, thus bringing the strange runaway to an abrupt end.— Kansas City Journal,