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Me, I could have bought three riatas for the gold I gave for this one; but the señor told me to get the best." His shoulders went up an inch, though Don Andres was frowning at the tone of him. "The señor can return it to the Mission and get the three, or he can exchange it with any vaquero in the valley for one which has four strands. I am very sorry that the señor is not pleased with my choice."
He might confess to "nerves" in private; in public, there were men who marveled at his calm. Riatas uncoiled and with each end fastened to a saddle horn, the vaqueros filed out from the corral in two straight lines, with Dade and Valencia to lead the way. When they were placed to Dade's liking, the riatas fenced in a rectangle two hundred yards long, and one-third that distance across.
Glaring at each other with bloodshot, uncertain eyes, Castro and I imagined longingly a vision of men in ponchos spurring madly out of the woods, bent low, and swinging riatas over the necks of their horses with the thunder of the galloping hoofs in the cave. Seraphina had withdrawn further into the darkness.
"We-el-l you bring me one ready to fall all to pieces, and I reckon I could tell it was poor, after it had stranded." Dade laughed. "Judge of riatas? You wait till you see him with one in his hand!" Manuel's teeth shone briefly, but the smile did not come from his heart.
Then to the music of jingling spurs, tinkling bridle chains, squeaking saddle leather, and the softer swish and rustle and flap of chaps, romals and riatas, they rode forth, laughing and joking, still, with now and then a roaring chorus of shouting comment or wild yells, as some half-broken horse gave an exhibition of his prowess in a mad effort to unseat his grinning rider.
He lifted the heavy, high-cantled saddle, flung it down upon the other side and untied the new coil of braided rawhide from its place on the right fork. "A six-strand, eh? I could tell Manuel a few things about riatas, if he calls that the best! Four strands are stronger than six, any time. I've seen too many stranded " "The señor is not pleased with the riata?"
A few became silversmiths, though none ever accomplished much in this line. They made better sandal-makers, shoemakers, and hatters. As horse-trainers they were speedily most efficient, the cunning of their minds finding a natural outlet in gaining supremacy over the lower animal. They braided their own riatas from rawhide, and soon surpassed their teachers in the use of them.
Since the last interruption, I noticed he had changed the easy slangy style of his story to a more perfect, artistic, and even studied manner. He dropped now suddenly into his old colloquial speech, and quietly said: "If you don't quit stumbling over those riatas, Juan, I'll hobble YOU. Come here, there; lie down, will you?"
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