| Show cea 4 d AM adventurers CLUB HEADLINES FROM THE LIVES OF PEOPLE LIKE YOURSELF 1 Ahir murder der machine ELLO EVERYBODY H HELLO george H dowd of the bronx N Y sends me a letter that starts out this is the first time I 1 have ever tried to put auf an 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 off not by powder or any other sort of explosive but by actual horsepower 28 23 horses galloping hell bent for election drawing behind them a machine that death dealing projectiles right left front and center its the only case I 1 ever heard of where projectiles were thrown by horses maybe some of those sword rattling dictators of europe will urill pick up this idea and use horses when their supply of powder runs low I 1 done any experimenting with this idea and I 1 dont know how well it would work but ill tell you george dowds story and you can figure it out for yourself it happened along about the middle of july 1913 on the idaho falls development company dry farm a few miles northwest of idaho falls idaho that farm was a seven thousand acre wheat ranch out in 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 field one drawn by mules a second drawn by a steam engine or tractor and the third on which george was working drawn by 28 head of horses those combine harvesters have a group of cylinders in them hitched to the wheels and geared up to revolve at great speed when the horses are walking george was working on a wooden platform on that harvester directly over those revolving cylinders but the cylinders revolving at the moment for the big machine was stopped for some minor repairs the repair A A kvit piece by piece the platform was being shot away man was putting a draper belt into the header and the driver and the header man got down to help him leaving george alone on the machine steam pressure explodes safety valve and then the fun started but it any fun for george dowd it was the steam tractor hauling one of the other harvesters that started all the trouble there was too much steam in the boiler and all of a sudden the safety valve popped off with a bang and within the same second says george off went the 28 horses with the machine I 1 was on in what you would call a real runaway well sir a 28 23 horse runaway is something to write home about 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 oft off down the field at a full gallop with the great unwieldy machine careening along behind them and 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 began bursting from centrifugal force and shooting out of the machine in all directions the first one ripped up through the boards on which george was standing ripped up with a deafening crack like the report of a cannon and shot past georges nose straight up in the air another one followed and another cylinders gears and bits of broken metal came flying out of that machine in a veritable barrage he clung to the harvesters reeling e platform 1 I was on the U S S leviathan for 22 months during the war ap pp george says and I 1 have heard her guns bark a good many ti times mes and 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 midst of that hail of flying steel do anything about it he was having all he could do to cling to the swaying reeling platform of that harvester while the horses galloped along at breakneck speed piece by piece and board by board the fir flooring of the platform was shot away until it was even with the heels of his shoes it hed thought ot of it he might have jumped but tor for the first few moments he was too bewildered lie ile could feel the wind of those deadly metal projectiles as they whizzed by him one of them hit him in the calf of the leg others ripped great holes in the canvas awning over his head there were pieces of steel weighing three or tour four pounds shot from that harvester he says that were picked up later more than a mile away help was already on the way but meanwhile help was already on the way the repair man had a good saddle horse tied nearby and in less than half a minute he was in the saddle riding hard the runaways had almost a quarter of a mile head 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 lie did cling to that platform lie he clung to it for a full mile while the harvester reeled and swayed and threatened to tip over but at the end of that mile the repairman caught up with the lead horses and brought them to a stop george says that harvester was nearly new when it 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 and that he says basht serious copyright service |
