As the action was instantaneous, that is to say, as steam was got up practically instantaneously and was escaping at the nozzle under full head as quickly as a gun could be fired, he did not think of his stop-watch, and it was some little time before I could get him to look at the pressure gauge on the nozzle, so as to observe the character of the escaping steam. His eyes had a blank, meaningless look, but it must be confessed that he had the grit to stand there. Not so, however, with the other members of the committee. Each of them was far more interested in his own individual run than he was in the run of the apparatus, for not one of them was in sight when the run was completed. They came straggling back sheepishly, but no urging sufficed to bring them near the apparatus during any of the succeeding runs.
In the old days when the Indians were sometimes troublesome on the Western frontier, an officer in the regular army, who was rather an ingenious fellow, conceived the idea of making a mountain gun out of a mule and the barrel of a common field-piece, using the mule for the carriage. He therefore had the gun securely mounted on the back of the beast.
They had not proceeded far with this novel battery, when a small knot of hostile savages was espied quietly eating their midday meal within easy range. The mounted gun was forthwith loaded heavily with grape and canister, the mule taken by the head and pointed in the direction of the Indians. A short piece of fuze that had been placed in the touch-hole of the gun was ignited.
The mule, hearing the sizzing of the fuze, began to rear and snort and kick and whirl about, while the officer and his men scudded to cover, and flattened themselves out upon the ground. They had not long to wait when there was a terrific crash. The gun had exploded under the overcharge, with the utter demolition of the mule carriage.
The Indians, hearing the report, looked quickly about them, and seeing the fragments of an exploded mule rocketing through the air, were frightened nearly out of their wits, and fled precipitately.
When I was a young man I taught several terms of school in Maine, where, in the small country districts, the teacher is expected to be a walking encyclopedia of information.