THE GALLANT MULE 49 



been shoeing gave him a sly kick on that same unoffending seat. Was that 

 savagery? Of course not. Jack and Jenny were not vicious; they just 

 wanted something to do. 



Jf mules were really as wicked as popular belief suggests, think of the 

 havoc they could work in our great Remount Depots, where the men are not 

 physically fit for combatant units, but may have been, say, piano-tuners, 

 ])aper-hangers or fried-fish merchants before King and Country called — or 

 fetched — them. You can have courage which is the product of ignorance of 

 what you are taking on. In the same way you would have seen the be- 

 spectacled piano-tuner rushing in among the hungry animals at feeding times 

 coming out unscathed and in no way conscious that he has escaped contact 

 with heels that were being uplifted for fear that the feed might be taken 

 away again the next instant to being given. Another man may have hesi- 

 tated and shouted — fatal preliminaries — and from that moment he and the 

 " donkeys " lose no love between them. 



The grudge which thus has small beginnings does not give way to feelings 

 of tender regard when after patient grooming he sees the perverse creature 

 take the first opportunity of rolling in sand or mud, the sandier and muddier 

 the better. How can they live amicably together after the man has been 

 blamed for inefficient grooming ? Actually the height of mule joy, next to 

 satisfying a healthy appetite, is to roll. \\ hy this should be so I do not pretend 

 to know except that the disconcerting habit doubtless comes of the donkey 

 blood in his veins. Is it not among one's earliest memories of learning to ride ? 

 From a military point of view there is much to censure in the irregular proceed- 

 ing ; for the}^ almost always do it before you have time to remove their packs 

 and very often just as you have restored the packs to their backs. I have said 

 that he gets into mischief for want of something to do. A long railway journey, 

 for instance, bores him horribly. Hence you will find when the trucks arrive 

 at their destination that each has made a slow meal off the other's rope halter 

 and head rope. They have then made a start on the woodwork of the trucks. 

 Now, it will be understood that he must have great merits in war as a set-off to 

 these pernicious habits. 



Most mules can buck, but few in my experience are really bad ones in the 

 sense that they are vicious and therefore dangerous. Take the average one 

 that bucks. Not only will he do it without previous warning, but often with 

 his ears pricked. I am sure those pricked ears mean something. You would 

 think it impossible for one to buck so thoroughly and skilfully as to get himself 

 out of his saddle without breaking the girths. Yet it has been known. ^ly 

 illustrator has been good enough to show the simplest method of settUng the 

 bucker ; for, unlike the bucking horse, which is practically incorrigible, the mule 

 quickly gives in. The head collar of the offender is tied close to a quiet old 

 mule of unimpeachable character, and he is then mounted. Short of lying 

 down he is unable to dislodge the rider because he is unable to get his head 

 down to buck. 



How often you have seen illustrations in the papers during the war of 

 mule races behind the lines on the various fronts. x\lmost invariably the}' have 

 been treated in comic vein, but it is nevertheless true that the animals can jump 



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