Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 19, 2025
"Then another voice in that group pronounced firmly the words, 'Bring the riata here. It was the voice of Gaspar Ruiz. "A silence fell, in which the popping shots of the besieged garrison rang out sharply. They too had observed the group.
I was forced to walk and carry the saddle, and there were times when the cattle interrupted with their foolish curiosity, and I must stop and set the riata hissing to frighten them back, else they would perchance have trampled me. So I fear that I arrive too late, Don Andres. But truly I did my best; a full hour behind Manuel I started, and have walked ten miles of the sixty.
When I released them, it appeared that they had been attracted by Chu Chu's graces, and had offered her overtures of affection, to which she had characteristically rotated with this miserable result. I led her, with some difficulty, warily keeping clear of the riata, to the inclosure, from whose fence I had previously removed several bars.
He picked up the oaken stick, examined it critically for the last time, although he knew well that it was polished smooth as glass from its work on other riatas, twisted the riata once around it and signed to the other peon. Each grasping an end of the stick and throwing all their weight against it, they pushed it before them along the stretched riata.
At the corral, which was his starting-point, Jack took up the dragging riata, and with his handkerchief wiped off the dust while he coiled it again; hung it over the saddle horn and waited for the signal. He was scowling now at certain remarks that came to his ears from the seats, with titters and chuckles to point their wit.
Amidst wild shouts and a cloud of dust, into the plaza charged a lean red bull, with curving sharp horns and frothing mouth; close at his heels pursued, on dead run, a horseman in Mexican costume, swinging his riata, or noosed rawhide. The bull dodged bolted right over a stand where cakes were on sale and over the stand sped the horseman, too.
When near our camp the rider who was behind threw his riata and caught both hind feet of the animal when by a sudden movement of the horses the heifer was thrown. One of them dismounted, and at the command the horse backed up and kept the rope tight while the man went up to the prostrate beast and cut its throat.
Then came the whish of a riata through the pulseless air, the quick whir-r-r of the horse-hair rope through the loop as it settled down over his head, a snap as it flew taut, a sudden and violent shock as his feet were jerked from under him, the crack of his revolver aimless, a stunning blow on his prostrate head, then oblivion.
I follow, or rather Chu Chu darts after the roan, and in a few moments we are in the midst of apparently inextricable horns and hoofs. "TORO!" shouts George, with vaquero enthusiasm, and the band opens a way for the swinging riata. I can feel their steaming breaths, and their spume is cast on Chu Chu's quivering flank.
"You caught my horse with your riata?" he repeated slowly. "And pray how should I have caught him?" she asked. "But but, didn't he run?" She laughed. "Of course he ran. They all do that once they get away from you. But Snip never could outrun my Midnight," she retorted.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking