strips are soaked and stretched over a block.
Then they are braided into a rope, care being taken, of course, to pull
the strands as tight as possible. When the riata is made it should be
buried for a week, ten days, or even a fortnight, in the sand. It
takes up moisture from the ground, without getting hard. Soaking it in
water 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 for
a time stretched over a block, with a weight to hold it taut. Then the
hair should be sandpapered off the outside, and when the riata is
greased with mutton tallow and properly noosed it is ready for use.
Every vaquero that pretends to take care of his apparatus will bury his
riata and stretch it every six or eight months.

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

"Now, as to throwing it:

"The riata, say, is hanging from the horn of the saddle--not tied, but
ready for use. No vaquero who understands his trade ties his rope to
his saddle. He knows that his life may depend on his ability to let go
of his rope in an instant, and he isn't going to chance killing himself
or his horse. You see, the vaquero might be on a side hill, and a bull
or steer he wishes to catch be on a trail below him, and the ground
between 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 a
mustang. That would be one case where it would be very handy to let go
quickly. Then a man is likely to get his hand caught, and if he can't
let 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 bow
or fastened behind him. He sees a deer or whatever else he wants to
catch, and grabs his rope with the left hand if he is a right-handed
man, though a man to really excel in this business should be
ambi-dextrous. A right-handed man can, under ordinary circumstances,
rope a steer; but he has frequently to turn his horse to gain a good
position. Now it sometimes happens that your horse is in a position
where you can't tu