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My father had taught me to make a flat-knot, a bowline, a clove-hitch, two half-hitches, and such sort of things; and I got through with both a long and a short splice tolerably well.
All this I saw, as it might be, at a glance. But my chief concern was to preserve my own life. I was cockswain of this very boat, and had made it fast to this taffrail that same afternoon, with a round turn and two half-hitches, by its best painter. Of course I expected the vessel would drag the boat down with her, for I had no knife to cut the painter.
Kneeling on the man's chest to tell the truth, he was badly stunned, though not unconscious Brook took two half-hitches with the halter round one wrist, passed the line under his neck as he lay, and hauled on it till the arm came under his side, then hitched the other wrist, passed the line back, hauled on it, and finally took two turns round the throat.
Now there happened to be convenient a great spike of rock, the same, indeed, to which the bo'sun had bidden Job tie the boat, and to this we ran the painter, taking a couple of turns about it and two half-hitches, and now, unless the rope carried away, we had no reason to fear the loss of the boat; though there seemed to us to be a danger of the creature's crushing it.
To make these, pass the end around the post, ring, or other object, then over and around the standing part between the post and itself, then under and around the standing part and between its own loop and the first one formed. After a little practice you can tie this knot almost instantly and by merely throwing a couple of turns around a post, two half-hitches may be formed instantly.
In the meantime he has also practised on small fish, and soon he is a regular contributor to the larder. What is known as the "Piar-piar" accomplishes the flight of the boomerang, and is therefore termed familiarly the "little fella boomerang." "Wungle" is the local title. The prickles having been sliced off with a knife or the finger nails, two distinct half-hitches are made in reverse order.
The bow-line-in-a-bight, the sheet-bend, the clinch-knot, the jam-knot, the fisherman's water-knot, the stevedore's slip-knot, the dock-hand's round-turns and half-hitches for cable makefast, the magnus-hitch, the fool's-knot, the cat's-cradle, the sheep-shank, the dog-shank, and many others all of which I had learned in books and in practise I did for them over and over again; just as I could have done for them a half-dozen different ways of throwing the diamond-hitch in a pack-train, or the stirrup-hitch in a cow camp, or many other of the devices of men who live in the open; for beginning late in life in these things, I had studied them hard and faithfully.
The most I can say just now, my poor girl, is most heartily to curse the day you or I ever saw this bit of fresh water." "But, uncle, is your life in danger do you think I ought to open the door?" "A round turn and two half-hitches make a fast belay; and I would counsel no one who is out of the hands of these devils to unbar or unfasten anything in order to fall into them.
The burglar's ankles were next bound together and to the lounge leg; and, an instant later, a brace of half-hitches about the man's neck and the nearest support entirely eliminated him as a possible factor in subsequent events. "Those loops around your throat," Maitland warned him curtly, "are loose enough now, but if you struggle they'll tighten and strangle you. Understand?"
He told me all about "day-wranglers" and "night-hawks" and "war-bags" and "round-ups"; showed me how to tie a "bull-noose" and a "sheep-shank" and a "Mexican hacamore"; put me onto the twist-of-the-wrist and the quick arm-thrust that puts half-hitches 'round a steer's legs; showed me how a cowboy makes dance music with a broom and a mouth-harp and many other wonderful feats, none of which I can myself perform.
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