0^ THE MULE. 



the wagon-brake. In stopping to lock wheels on the 

 top of a hill, your train get into disorder. In most 

 cases, when trains are moving on the road, there is a 

 space of ten or fifteen feet between the wagons. Each 

 team, then, will naturally close up that space as it comes 

 to the place for halting to lock. Now, about the time 

 the first teamster gets his wheel locked, the one in the 

 rear of him is dismounting for the same purpose. This 

 being repeated along the train, it is not difficult to see 

 how the sj^ace must increase, and irregularity follow. 

 The more wagons j'ou have to lock with the drag-chain, 

 the further you get the teams apart. When you have 

 a large body of wagons moving together, it naturally 

 follows that, with such a halt as this, the teams in the 

 rear must make twenty-five halts, or stops, and starts, 

 for every one that the head team makes. 



Wlien the teamster driving the second team gets 

 ready to lock, the first, or head team, starts up. This 

 excites tlie mule of the second to do the same, and so 

 all along the train. This irritates the teamster, and he 

 is compelled to run up and catch the wheel-mules by 

 the head, to make them stop, so that he can lock his 

 wheels. In nine cases out of ten he will waste time in 

 punishing his animals for what they do not understand, 

 lie never thinks for a moment that the mule is accus- 

 tomed to start up when the wagon aliead of liim moves, 

 and supposes he is doing his duty. In many cases, 

 when he had got his wheels locked, he had so excited 

 his mules that they would run down the hill, cripple 

 some of the men, break the wagon, cause a " smash-up " 

 in t!ie train, and perhaps destroy the very rations and 



