Show adventurers CLUB CLU B HEAD HEADLINES tines FROM THE LIVES LIVE OF P PEOPLE E 0 PA E LIKE YOURSELF i murder machine H HELLO ELLO EVERYBODY george H dowd bowdoi doi of the bronx N Y sends me a letter that ahat starts out this is the first time I 1 have ev ever er tried to experience of mine down on paper shall I 1 stop well the answer to that is for petes sake no george because george has turned in one humdinger hum dinger of a yarn its the story of a barrage of flying steel that was set oft off not n obby by p powder bowder or any other sort of explosive but by actual horsepower 28 horses galloping hell bent fo for r election di drawing awing behind behin d them a rha machine chine that death dealing projectiles right left front and center thrown k its the only case lever I 1 ever heard of where projectiles were thrown by horses maybe some of those sword rattling dictators of Europe will pick up this idea alduse and use horses when their supply of powder runs low I 1 done any experimenting with this idea and I 1 dont know ho how w well wall it would work but ill tell you george dowds story and you can figure bitout for yourself it happened along about the middle of july 1913 on the idaho falls cevelo development ment company dry farm a few miles northwest of 0 idaho falls i idaho that farm arm was a seven seve n thousand acre wheat at ranch out in id that section they harvest their wheat in july and george who was just a young fellow then had a job working on one of the big combine harvesters sewing up sacks of grain there were three of those harvesters in the fi eldone drawn by m mules les a second drawn by a steam engine or tractor and the third on which george was working drawn by 28 bead of horses those c combine harvesters have a group of cylinders in them hitched to the wheels and geared up to revolve at great speed when the ho horses r ses are walking george was working on a wooden platform on that harvester directly over those revolving cylinders but bat the cylinders revolving at the moment for or the big machine was stopped for some minor repairs the repair fil 13 0 4 piece by piece the platform was being shot away man was putting patting a draper belt into the header and the driver and the header man got down to help him leaving george alone on oa the machine steam pressure explodes safety valve and then the fun sta started arted but it any fun tor for george dondl it was the steam tractor hauling one of the other harvesters that started all the trouble rouble there was too much steam in the boiler and all of a sudden the he safety valve popped off with a ba bang ng and within the he same second says george off went the 28 21 horses with the machine I 1 was on in what you would call 11 a real runa runaway wayll k well sir a 28 horse runaway is something to write home about abut but that was only the beginning the men who were putting in the draper belt were knocked clear of the machine at the first jump the horses made then those animals were off down the field at a full gallop with the great unwieldy machine careening along behind an and d as they dashed along the cylinders of the harvester which revolved at high speed when the horses were just walking began revolving at a speed greater than even steel can stand the horses gone a dozen feet when steel cylinders ba began bursting from centrifugal force and shooting out of the machine chine e in all directions direction the first one ripped up through the he boards on which george wa was standing ta n ding ripped up with a deafening crack uke like the report of a cannon and shot past georges nose straight up to in the air another one followed and another cylinders ie gears and bits of broken metal came flying out of that machine in a veritable barrage he clung to the harvesters reeling platform I 1 was on the U S S leviathan for 22 months during the war ger george ge says and I 1 have heard beard her guns bark a good many times an and d I 1 would say that the reports these gears and hunks of metal made when leaving the machine were about as loud as those made by a six inch cannon and george standing right in the mid midst of that hall of flying steel do anything about it he was having all he could do to cling to the thel swaying reeling platform of that harvester while the horses galloped along at breakneck speed piece by piece and board by board the or flooring of the platform wa was S shot away until it was even with the heels of his shoes if held hed thought of it h he might have jumped but tor for the first few moments he was too bewildered he could feel the he wind of those thos e deadly metal projectiles sis as they whizzed by him one of them hem hit him in the calf of the leg others ripped great holes in I 1 the be canvas awning over his bead there were pieces of steel delih weighing ni three or four pounds shot from that harvester he says that were picked up later more thin than a mile away help was already on the way but meanwhile help was already anthe on the way the repair man had a g good 00 d saddle horse tied nearby bearb yand and in less than half a minute he was in the saddle riding hard the runaways had almost a quarter of a mile head bead start but gradually he closed up that distance the barrage of steel had stopped by then and george was safe as long as he could cling to his perch on the shattered platform he did cling to that platform he be clung tolt to it for a full mile while the harvester reeled and swayed and threatened to tip over but at the e end d of f 11 that hat mile the repairman caught up with the lead horses in and d brought brought the them in to stop george s says ays that harvester was nearly new started but it was a total wreck when it stopped george on the other hand was lucky his only injury was where that one piece of flying steel had hit his right leg jand and that he says serious copyright service |