permitted to graze free, or only hobbled. They like
to forage about for themselves, and usually will eat more and better
grass than when tied by a picket rope. During the first three or four
days out, horse or mule is apt to wander back to the home pasture.
Hobbles can be bought or made. When bought, they are broad, flexible
strips of leather about eighteen inches long, with cuffs which buckle
around each fore leg above the hoof. Hobbles can be made on the spot by
twisting soft rope from fore leg to fore leg and tying the ends by
lapping in the middle.

It is safer to picket a horse by a rope upon the neck rather than upon
the leg. He is not so apt to injure himself by pulling or running. A
picket rope is forty feet long. To loop it securely about the neck,
measure with the end about the neck, and at the proper place along the
rope tie a single knot; knot the end of the rope, and passing it about
the neck thrust the knotted end through the single knot. Here is a loop
that cannot slip and choke the horse, and can easily be untied.

Sometimes the loose end of the picket rope may be fastened to a tree, or
to a bush. A horse should be picketed out from trees, or in the center
of an open space, so that he cannot wind the rope about a tree and hold
himself too short to graze. Sometimes the free end is fastened to a
stake or picket-pin driven into the ground. But if there is no pin, and
no tree or bush is handy, then a "dead-man" may be used. This is an old
scout scheme. The rope is tied to a stick eighteen inches long, or to a
bunch of sticks, or to a bunch of brush, or to a stone; and this buried
a foot and a half or two feet, and the earth or sand tamped upon it.
Thus it is wedged fast against any ordinary pull. By this scheme a horse
may be picketed out on the bare desert.

When an animal is allowed to graze free, a good plan is to have a loose
rope twenty or thirty feet in length trail from his neck as he grazes.
This is another scout scheme, used by Indians, trappers, and cowboys.
When the animal declines to be bridled or grasped by the mane, the
trailing rope usually can be caught up. Indians and trappers when riding
depended much upon this trailing rope, so that when thrown they could
grab it instantly, and mount again.

CHAPTER XVII

Note 57, page 206: Flowers as well as animals have their place and their
rights; and they as well as the animals help to make the great
out-of-doors different from the in-doors. A