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From the saddle-house he brought the six-strand, rawhide riata which Manuel had bought for him and which his carelessness had left still stiff and unwieldy, and walked slowly into the orchard, examining critically each braided strand as he went. Manuel, he decided, was right; the riata was perfect.
Twice a week he rode over to the Lone Wolf Crossing of the Frio, and directed Tonia's slim, slightly lemon-tinted fingers among the intricacies of the slowly growing lariata. A six-strand plait is hard to learn and easy to teach. The ranger knew that he might find the Kid there at any visit.
There will be one gringo the less when those two meet," he muttered, staring at the tiny glow of his cigarette; and afterward folded his arms tightly over a chest that heaved with the impatience within. When those two met, Manuel meant to be there also to see. "Me, I should like to drag him to death with the six-strand riata he despised!" was the beautiful thought he took to bed with him.
Twice a week he rode over to the Lone Wolf Crossing of the Frio, and directed Tonia's slim, slightly lemon-tinted fingers among the intricacies of the slowly growing lariata. A six-strand plait is hard to learn and easy to teach. The ranger knew that he might find the Kid there at any visit. He kept his armament ready, and had a frequent eye for the pear thicket at the rear of the jacal.
But if all must be told, there is to be added that her head reposed against the broad and comfortable chest of a tall red-and-yellow man, and that his arm was about her, guiding her nimble fingers that required so many lessons at the intricate six-strand plait. Sandridge glanced quickly at the dark mass of pear when he heard a slight squeaking sound that was not altogether unfamiliar.
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?"
"Cut a perfectly good lariat!" Jo picked it up. "Couldn't they have untied the knots?" Gulick took the lariat and examined it. "Thirty-five feet," he said. "Rawhide six-strand plait Been rubbed with cow's liver to soften 'er, too. What else? Whoop! What's this?"
If you let a little thing like this upset you, how do you expect " "It ain't a little thing!" gritted Jack, loading his pistols hurriedly. "That six-strand riata has got a different feel, a different weight oh, you know it's going to make all the difference in the world when I get out there with José. Whoever took it knew what it meant, all right! Some one " "Where's Surry?"
I play no spy; nor do I assume to master the thoughts of any human heart; but I assert, by the chronicler's right, that before a quarter of an hour had sped, Sandridge was teaching her how to plaint a six-strand rawhide stake-rope , and Tonia had explained to him that were it not for her little English book that the peripatetic padre had given her and the little crippled chivo , that she fed from a bottle, she would be very, very lonely indeed.
And when the rawhide hung loose between the two horses he freed José of the deadly noose, and saw where it had burnt raw the skin of his neck on the side where it touched. A snaky, six-strand riata can be a rather terrible weapon, he decided, while he loosed it and flung it from him.
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