Which Have More Legs -- Mules, or Jackasses?

Here is another Amazing True Story drafted for publication in another language...

The great American Civil War began when the states in the southern part of the United States quit the United States and formed their own country, called the “Confederacy,” because they were afraid that the states in the north would take away their slaves, and then they began to fire their cannons at United States forts in the southern states. During the Civil War, in 1862, a Confederate army invaded the United States territory of New Mexico. To stop them, a private contractor, Graydon’s Independent Spy Company, went to the head of the U.S. forces in New Mexico and promised to “mow down” the Southern soldiers “like wheat!” Graydon’s company was hired to do what it could.

Graydon asked for, and received, a few dozen explosive cannon shells. He very carefully drilled holes in them, and inserted fuses into the gunpowder in the holes. Then he saddled each of two mules with two wooden boxes filled with artillery shells.

Late at night, while the Southern soldiers slept in their tents, Graydon and his men very quietly led the two heavily-armed mules through the darkness to the edge of the Southern soldiers’ camp, and then they set fire to the fuses.

Then they smacked the mules very hard on their rear ends, to make them run into the Southern soldiers’ camp, and Graydon and his men immediately turned and ran back toward their own headquarters as fast as they could.

Looking back as they ran, Graydon and his men were shocked to see that their mules, with the boxes of explosive cannon shells, and with the fuses burning shorter and shorter, were right behind them, running with them back to their own headquarters!

The men scattered in different directions and ran faster than they thought possible to nearby rocks and trees, just in time to protect themselves from the exploding mules, BOOM! BOOM!

Graydon’s report to his federal employers explained that there were only two casualties -- the mules!