A mule is not a horse, and the captors of a mule-thief are not entitled to the reward offered by the state for the capture of a horse-thief.

Such is the gist of the order handed down by Judge Childress Wednesday in the matter of the applications for a reward for the capture of Thomas Greer who recently tried to steal Fred Ahren's team of mules but did not get away with it. The hearing on the applications was held at the court house Monday, and the court heard the claims advanced by C. J. Ost, Sheriff Bernhard Fischer of Waseca county, Marshal Thomas Courtney of New Richland, T. Madden, A. Madden, etc., for the reward of $200 offered by the state for the capture of a horse-thief.

Judge Childress in his order went as far as to declare that C. J. Ost did twenty-five per cent of the work of capturing the thief, and that Sheriff Fischer did the other seventy-five per cent, but there the Court stopped in his encouragement of the claimants named, and wound up the order by declaring that neither they nor anyone else were entitled to the formal reward for the capture of Greer. -- Owatonna Journal-Chronicle.