Mr. Thos Moore - Master of transportation

A NON PROFAIN MULETEER-

From the book; “Dateline fort Bowie - Charles Fletcher Lummis reports on an Apache war".

"Among the noteworthy people I have met here, there is one deserving of special mention – Thomas Moore, nominally chief packer of the Department of the Missouri, but in fact master of transportation of the whole army of the United States. He has an odd, kindly, homely face, twinkling grey eyes and a droll turn of conversation. But he is a man of clear, original and often deep ideas. If there is any creed of universal popular acceptance, it is that a mule – particularly an army mule – cant be properly engineered without a club and plenty of profanity. But here is a man that has more to do with army mules than anyone else in the country; a man who never swears at anything, and who discharges any employee whom he catches raining blows and profanity upon one of the long-eared train. In speaking of his pets Mr. Moore states;

“The mule has never been done justice. It is popular to disparage him, and people do so without knowing anything about the subject. God made the mule on purpose. The horse has that in his nature which shows what he was made for more than a servant of man. God saw that man needed a straight out servant, so he built the mule. And a true servant he is. Almost as soon as he is able to walk, he begins to be used; and his tireless service ends only when the last breath leaves his worn-out carcass. You might also say that he is useful every day of his life. He is always faithful and always reliable. He understands his work, and does it as few men do theirs. The idea that he needs to be cursed and clubbed to work is pure idiocy. He does his best with kind treatment. Kick? Yes, he has a bad reputation as a kicker, but that arises mostly from faulty handling. I am in less danger of being kicked when among mules than when among horses. A greenhorn unused to handling horses or mules will be in less danger among mules than horses.”

Hand sewn hammock

Homemade Hammock

While attending the “Woodsmoke” gathering in Tetonia, Idaho a few years back. While I was sleeping off a drunk on night, I was “Birthed” from my Hennessey Expedition Hammock in the early AM. It was a pretty good tear; however I had been using this light weight hammock all over the world for several years and probably exceeded the expected usage of the product.

I tried to sew it up but the repair didn't hold so, I gave it away to a young woman who said she would patch it for her young daughter.

Needing a “new” hammock (play in Thai, and Duyen in Tagalog) I got out some fabric that was given to me by my lady friend Unitsa in Thailand. In fact, this fabric started out as a hammock but I took it apart to make a tarp for my Hennessey.

The fabric is about the same weight as Parachute material (1.1 ounce). Busting out my sewing kit, I selected a mid-sized needle and separated several feet of waxed nylon thread some folks call “artificial sinew”.

When using this type of thread, I have found that using a 3 foot (1 meter) length separated it into 4 strands (= 12 feet), gives me ample thread to sew just about anything.

I hung the fabric from an Elm tree to give me some tension and Drawing on sewing lessons learned in the Army and mainly those learned from my oldest sister Ruth; I began sewing making 9 stitches per inch. I first hemmed the ends to accommodate opposing drawstrings (2 on each end). Sewing the Hems took 12 feet of thread on each end. The length took 18 feet. Total sewing time was about 8 hours.

My hands and fingers were a bit sore when I was finished. I sewed into an open end bag shape to accommodate my sleeping pad. Once the pad is inserted, the draw string can be cinched tight and then tied into place.

The only string I had at my disposal was 30 feet of blaze orange & 30 feet of green type 5 nylon (550 cord to you commoners). I cut these into 15 foot lengths, burned the ends to prevent unraveling,  then threaded 2 into each end of the hammock. To make a stuff sack for my hammock, I took an old sleeping bag stuff sack and cut it down, then added my Philippine flag and Scout ranger patches to it

I like the finished product, it is light weight and easily packable.

Tomahawk

See you on the trail!

                                                   The tarp before it became a hammock

Arlene, my favorite Mule

Tom Moore and the Mule;

Arlene was my all-time favorite saddle mule. In my 7 years as a hunting guide and packer in Montana and New Mexico, working around Mules, I noticed 3 things they don’t like. 1. Dogs. 2. Strangers. And # 3. Rookies - they can spot a rookie pretty quick. When I met her Arlene was a well-seasoned trail mule, broke to pack and ride. I was by that time rather trail savvy myself, so Arlene and me had nary a problem. We shared many miles of trail and she brought me home day and night in all types of weather. 

There is an old frontier saw that you can never know a man until you take to the trail with him in bad weather well, the same can be said of mules and horses. Ol’ Arlene never let me down and always kept her calm disposition no matter the situation.

There are some words from Mr. Thomas Moore, who was the chief packer for the U.S. Army during the Indian wars of the American west. His words express how I feel about Mules and animals in general;

“The mule has never been done justice. It is popular to disparage him, and people do so without knowing anything about the subject. God made the mule on purpose. The horse has that in his nature which shows what he was made for more than a servant of man. God saw that man needed a straight out servant, so he built the mule. And a true servant he is. Almost as soon as he is able to walk, he begins to be used; and his tireless service ends only when the last breath leaves his worn-out carcass. You might also say that he is useful every day of his life. He is always faithful and always reliable. He understands his work, and does it as few men do theirs. The idea that he needs to be cursed and clubbed to work is pure idiocy. He does his best with kind treatment. Kick? Yes, he has a bad reputation as a kicker, but that arises mostly from faulty handling. I am in less danger of being kicked when among mules than when among horses. A greenhorn unused to handling horses or mules will be in less danger among mules than horses.”

Personally I think his words ring true with 90% of the mules I have worked with. I have met a few dangerous ones also. But, those animals were the direct result of poor handling, they can with patients be retrained.

On my last trip to New Mexico to visit my friend Alan I wanted to see Arlene. Al told me she had gone blind in one eye so he retired her to pasture. 

We saddled up and rode out to check the livestock. As we rode along, Alan’s other horses and Mules came up, and I saw Arlene out in the field. I gave her a whistle - the one I always used to call her in the past. Her head shot up, she looked my way, and began to trot towards me. I dismounted, and threw my arms around the old girls neck, and gave her a hug. It was good to see her. She was a savvy old gal, and brought me through some tough country, day and night on her own, with me as baggage. I will admit, I had a tear in my eye....

She nudged my pocket, because she knew I had them, her favorite - peanut butter flavored granola bars. I took one out of my pocket and peeled back the wrapper, and let her munch away.

It was good to see her again, I’ll never forget her. I was told my old compadre Alan that Arlene died the following winter, after 26 years of faithful service and thousands of miles of trail. People who think animals don’t remember, of have feelings for people (or vice versa) are just wrong, very wrong.

Art the spaghetti eating mule

Art the spaghetti eating mule

Man! I love spaghetti, I love it in restaurants, I love it home cooked or out of a can, but mostly, I love it cooked in the wilderness. When I a Senior Instructor for a wilderness school, my field partner Sean "Pog" Kendrigan and me would order spaghetti as our Instructor "Solo" meal when we put the students out on their 72 hour solos.

We would add salt pork or bacon to the mix, hot sauce etc. then chow down, afterward we would smoke a few cigarettes. It was good to be King.

Later in my wilderness career I was employed for several years as a packer and wrangler for a big game hunting outfit in Montana. I worked with a string of 17 mules. One, was a huge draft mule named "Art" he was about 18 hands high, well-muscled, broke to ride or pack, he was a complete scamp and piratical scallywag. And unknown to me, a spaghetti aficionado.

One of my initial introductions to Art was when my boss and me were hauling grain and hay to our hunting camp in the Bob Marshall wilderness in Montana. It was an 8 hour ride from the trail head near Seeley Lake to camp in “The Bob”.

After a long hard ride in the Heat and blistering sun, we were ready to cook a good meal. After caring for the pack and riding stock, we cooked up a huge pot of spaghetti with plenty of extras in it like onions, meat, carrots, garlic, etc…It was looking good and ready to eat. 

My partner and I sat the pot on the ground next to the fire, then went to the creek to wash our bowls. As we cleared the bank heading back I could see Ol’ Art with his nose in out spaghetti pot!

I yelled at him and he ignored me until we got closer. He raised his head ,still chewing with the dregs of our spaghetti dinner waiving in the breeze…I swear he gave me a wink, as if to say “thanks” then hobbled his way out of camp……I peeked into the now empty pot and it was clean as a whistle!

It looked like it had never been used. We ended up eating canned stew and having a good laugh at the lesson we were handed by a savvy old trail mule. I had no idea the Mules or horses could or would eat people food. I came across a reference to equines surviving and thriving on people foods in the book “Scouting on to continents” by Major Frederick R. Burnham. In his book Maj Burnham states;

 “A scout knows that a horse can thrive on most of the food that a man eats, even cooked food. One of the reasons why I was sometimes able to outride the cowboys and frontiersmen of the west was that I gave infinite care to my mount. In Alaska and the Klondike our horses would eat bread, all kinds of dried fruit and vegetables, crackers, sugar , prunes, raisins, candy, syrup - even bacon, dried meat and dried fish in very small quantities. They also ate raw eggs when obtainable, dried milk, and other things not ordinarily thought of as fodder. The twig ends cut from willow and cottonwood give roughage and some strength. In the deserts a man may save his mount by gathering the fig like fruits from the top of the pitahaya or suhauro. The "Spanish bayonet" also has a good fruit. Horses will eat crushed mesquite beans, acorns soaked and ground, and other desert shrubs and seeds in season. There are bunches of gramma and other grasses clinging to the cliffs that can be gathered for the Scouts faithful friend in time of need.”

I find this to be interesting and valuable information. I can personally attest to Ol’ Art’s love for spaghetti and my saddle mule Arlene’s love for Granola bars, breath mints, and red man chewing tobacco. I have also seen them eat the food packed in the stock dogs, and kitchen scraps like potato peels, carrot tops, onions and other things. 

This is some good knowledge to keep in your back pocket in the event you find yourself in a world where horses and Mules are the norm.

See you on the trail!

Tomahawk