The Jungle Fugitives: A Tale of Life and Adventure in India

by Edward Sylvester Ellis

  THROWING THE RIATA.

  The skill shown by cattlemen in throwing the riata or lasso oftenapproaches the marvelous. What is more wonderful than the dueldescribed in the _San Francisco Examiner_, between Mexican vaqueros, inwhich the only weapons used were their riatas? The victor overcame theother by throwing his noose, so that his enemy's noose passed rightthrough it, and the conqueror lassoed the other man's arms against hisside and jerked him from his steed.

  The despatch then went on to tell of the skill of the victorious riataman, and mentioned among other wonderful feats, his lassoing anantelope running at high speed 100 feet away. To make the test moreextraordinary, the correspondent wrote that he would pick out one ofthe animal's feet and get the noose around that alone.

  An _Examiner_ reporter called on Louis Ohnimus, Superintendent ofWoodward's Gardens, who wielded a riata for many years, and probablyknows as much about throwing the lasso as any man on the coast, andasked him if the feats referred to were possible.

  "The Mexican may have won the duel by lassoing his adversary, riata andall," was the answer. "It is not an uncommon thing for them to settletheir differences by such a fight, and I have heard of the trick ofringing the other man's rope, but if that man can catch an antelope onehundred feet away, by the foot or any other way, he is a better riataman than I ever encountered. In the first place mighty few men arestrong enough to throw a rope such a distance. Then an ordinary riatais only fourteen or sixteen yards long--twenty yards is a very longone. So, you see, a forty-foot throw is a pretty good one."

  He was asked to explain how to throw a lasso, and consented to do so.

  "The first thing about this business," said Mr. Ohnimus, "is to have aperfect riata. If you have one perfectly stretched, oiled, and in athoroughly good condition, you can throw well; if your rope is kinky oruneven, you will find it impossible to do accurate work."

  "What do you consider a good riata?"

  "Well, I can only tell you how a good one is made. First, the rawhideis cut in thin strips, as long as possible, and half tanned with thehair on. Then these strips are soaked and stretched over a block.Then they are braided into a rope, care being taken, of course, to pullthe strands as tight as possible. When the riata is made it should beburied for a week, ten days, or even a fortnight, in the sand. Ittakes up moisture from the ground, without getting hard. Soaking it inwater won't do, nor will anything else that I know of except, as I say,burying it. When the riata is resurrected it should again be left fora time stretched over a block, with a weight to hold it taut. Then thehair should be sandpapered off the outside, and when the riata isgreased with mutton tallow and properly noosed it is ready for use.Every vaquero that pretends to take care of his apparatus will bury hisriata and stretch it every six or eight months.

  "A hair rope does not make a good riata. It is useful to stretcharound camp at night to keep snakes away. For some reason snakes willnot cross a hair rope.

  "Now, as to throwing it:

  "The riata, say, is hanging from the horn of the saddle--not tied, butready for use. No vaquero who understands his trade ties his rope tohis saddle. He knows that his life may depend on his ability to let goof his rope in an instant, and he isn't going to chance killing himselfor his horse. You see, the vaquero might be on a side hill, and a bullor steer he wishes to catch be on a trail below him, and the groundbetween them to be too steep to admit of his riding down to it. Now,suppose the noose, instead of catching around the horns of the steer,should circle his neck and draw down to his shoulders? Accidents are,of course, as likely to happen in catching cattle as in anything else,and give a bull such a hold and he could pull a house, let alone amustang. That would be one case where it would be very handy to let goquickly. Then a man is likely to get his hand caught, and if he can'tlet his rope go free he is likely to lose a finger or two.

  "Our vaquero is trotting along with his rope hanging at his saddle bowor fastened behind him. He sees a deer or whatever else he wants tocatch, and grabs his rope with the left hand if he is a right-handedman, though a man to really excel in this business should beambi-dextrous. A right-handed man can, under ordinary circumstances,rope a steer; but he has frequently to turn his horse to gain a goodposition. Now it sometimes happens that your horse is in a positionwhere you can't turn; then it would be awkward, unless you could throwwith either hand. I usually throw with my left hand, though I can useeither.

  "I take up the rope from the saddle bow, so."

  He lifted his riata in his right hand. His little finger held thestanding end of the rope, the third and middle finders supported thecoil, and the noose dangled from his first finger, while his thumbsteadied the whole rope and held it from slipping. The coils were notmore than a foot or a foot and a half in diameter. The noose was thesame size.

  "That's a smaller noose than you would use on the range, is it not?"

  "No," answered Mr. Ohnimus, "the vaquero never carries his noose long.If he did, it would be constantly getting tangled up in the horse'slegs. He makes it larger when he swings it. But to get back to theprocess of lassoing. As our cowboy gets close to his quarry, he takesthe noose in his lasso hand. I will use my left, as it is a triflehandier for me. He grips the rope, not too firmly, holding thestanding part and the side of the noose about half the length of theloop away from the knot. That is to enable him to swing the noose sothat it will fall open. If he holds it at the knot he will throw along, narrow noose that is very likely to cross and kink.

  "Meanwhile I, representing our cowboy, hold the remaining coils in myother hand, only changing the position of my forefinger so as to securebetter control of the coils. Then comes the third maneuver--enlargingthe noose. Of course, you have to have a larger noose than one a footin diameter to drop over a steer's horns forty feet away. The noose isenlarged by swinging the noose in your lasso hand until the centrifugalforce pulls it out the size you wish (this is the reason you do notgrasp it too firmly), letting go with the other hand, of course, asmany coils as are necessary to make the noose the right size. Now youhave the noose in the air you do not cease making it circle around yourhead until you let it go. When the noose has been let out to the rightsize the next trouble is to keep it open and to avoid entangling it inthe brush or other surrounding obstructions. You keep it open, as Isaid, by holding the noose from quarter to half its length from theknot, and by a peculiar twist of the wrist that is only attainable bypractice. To keep it clear of the brush is often a more difficult job,for the cowboy is not always in a clear place when he wants to throwhis rope. Then it is that his judgment comes into play and determineswhether his cast is a lost one or not. I have seen vaqueros swing alasso swiftly almost in the midst of a thicket, and keep it clearwithout losing speed, and then let it drive straight as an arrowbetween two close trees and rope an object that could not pass wherethe noose had gone. Such skill, to be sure, comes only after longpractice.

  "Well, now we have got the noose circling about the vaquero's head, andthe next thing is to let it fly. There is not much to describe aboutthis part of throwing a riata, important though it may be. It is onlyincessant practice that will enable a man to make a certain cast. Themain thing is to swing the rope just long enough--neither so long as togive it a side-wise motion when you throw it, nor short enough toprevent its getting all the force you require. Then the riata man mustthrow at a particular limb or projection. This thing of tossingblindly at an object and trusting to luck that the animal will get intothe rope somehow will not do. You must pick out your mark as carefullyas if you were shooting at it, and then time it. A steer jumping alongchanges his position constantly as regards you. If you throw at hishead high up the chances are that it will be away down when your ropereaches him, and you will overthrow. Now, if you pick out a foot youmust reckon so that that foot will be off the ground when your ropereaches him. The noose does not travel like a bullet, and this elementof time is most important.

  "Of even more importance i
s it that the distances are gauged correctly.You remember I spoke about holding the coils lightly in two or threefingers. Well, that is done in order that as many coils as may beconsidered necessary may be let go. If you are wielding a riata youknow that each of your coils is almost two feet or two and one halffeet long. So if you want to lasso something twenty feet away you letgo ten coils.

  "As to letting go, you simply open your hand at the correct time andthe rope slips off.

  "But even after you have roped your steer your work is not over.Almost any animal can pull you from your horse, and to prevent this youmust get your rope around the horn of your saddle. There is where youhave to be quick. There are two ways of making this hitch that areused ordinarily. The one I prefer is simply to take two turns aroundthe horn, taking care that the second turn comes lower and overlaps theother. No pull in the world could make that rope slip, while I can,simply by throwing off one turn, let it all slide off. This otherfashion, which is really taking a 'half-inch' around the horn, holdsjust as fast, but you have to push the rope through to loosen it. Yousee, in making this sudden twist, a finger is very likely to getcaught, and I have known many fingers being taken off before such ahitch could be unfastened.

  "It is often advisable to take an extra twist around anything you havelassoed, and this is done by simply throwing a coil. Practice again isthe only thing that can teach this.

  "Now you have the whole theory of throwing a rope.

  "There are four sorts of throws, but they are all made alike, only theposition of the arm being different. They are the overthrow, theunderthrow, the sidethrow, and the backthrow."

  "Backthrow?"

  "Yes, backthrow--catching an object behind you--something that you neednot even see. That sounds difficult, does it? Well, you stand behindme and you can see it done."

  The reporter took his station twenty feet behind Mr. Ohnimus, quite outof sight, of course. He swung the loop around his head, and, withoutturning, let it fly backward. It circled the newspaper man exactly,and by pulling it quickly Ohnimus had his arms pinioned to his side.

  "Are there any more trick throws?" asked the reporter.

  "Lots of them. I never put myself up as a crack riata man, and I amout of practice now, but I can lay the noose on the ground at my feetand kick it around your neck, or pick it off the ground from my horseand land it around you while the horse is going at full speed, and dolots of things like that, but none of them is any good. That backthrowhas been used by the Mexican highwaymen to considerable advantage. Yousee, in that country the traveler always looks out for danger from therear and is prepared for it, but when a pleasant horseman rides pasthim, playing with his riata, and wishing him 'Good-day' as he passes,he is likely to consider the danger as gone by, as well as the man.That has caused the death of a good many. The bandit gets the rightdistance ahead and then lassoes him as I did you. A touch of his spurjerks his victim from the saddle and that ends it."

  "How is the lasso as a weapon of defence?"

  "Good. A quick riata man can beat a fellow with a pistol at fairlyclose quarters."

  "How?"

  "Well, here is a pistol. Put it in your pocket and draw it on me as Icome toward you."

  The reporter did as he was directed. He had not raised the weapon whenthe noose was around his hand and the pistol was jerked a dozen feet.

  "Try again, and tighter," said Ohnimus.

  The reporter did so. The pistol was not jerked from his hand thistime, but before he could snap it Ohnimus had thrown a coil around hisneck and pulled his pistol hand up over his shoulder. In anotherinstant a second coil was around the reporter's body, and both armswere fastened firmly to his sides. He could not move that pistol aninch. No clearer demonstration of the use of the lasso as a weapon ofdefence was possible.

  "What is the most difficult animal, in your opinion, to catch with thelasso?" was asked.

  "A sea lion," answered the rope thrower. "I have caught them off thesouthern coast. They go right through a noose. The only way to getthem is to throw the rope around his neck and back of one flipper. Ahog is hard to catch, too. He pulls his legs out of a noose withouthalf trying, and you can't hold him by the neck or body. The only wayis to get him like the sea lion--back of one foreleg."