Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 February 1880 — The Mexican and His Lasso. [ARTICLE]

The Mexican and His Lasso.

The South Texas correspondent writes as follows: “ An accomplishment of the cowboy, and one in which, to be successful, he must invariably be an adept, is * roping’ cattle, or horses for that matter, with a lasso. It is an ordinary half-inch hempen rope,' usually sixty feet long, and provided with what farmers call a * slipknot.’ The Mexioans often use a ‘lariat,’ which is even stronger, and, by hand, made of rawhide thongs. The cowboy, when about to use his lasso, secures one end to the strong and substantial horn of his saddle, wliicb| is itself secured to the animal he rides by two strong, broad girths of hair from the cow’s tail. With the bridle reins in his left hand and the rope coiled up in his right, the cowboy gallops off into the prairies and directs his course toward some horse or cow he desires to catch. At sight of him they likewise set off at a gallop, and the race continues until the pursuer has gained sufficiently on them to use his rope. The coil is at length suddenly thrown into the air, and so accurately has the rider calculated time and distance that, although his own animal and the one he is pursuing are dashing along like a locomotive, the noose descends on the head or around the horns of the fleeing cow. Bo woll trained is the cowboy's horse that the latter instantly stops in his oareer and pulls back. The cow has also been halted and secured, the rider and his horse experiencing a profound jolt, to which, however, they are not by any means strangers. A horse is caught in the same manner as a cow, only that the cowboy throws the rope around the neck instead of the horns as in the case of the cow. But cattle and horses are not the only subjects of the lasso, which is, and has long been, used by Mexicau bandits and highwaymen in assaulting and killing or robbing unwary travelers on the Rio Grande. For this purpose the stealthy

thug generally conceals himself in a thicket of chaparral or behind a grove of cactus (prickly pear, which here grows higher than a man’s head) near by the roadside. In this position he, panther-like, awaits the approach of his victim, who comes riding along, totally unapprehensive of danger. All at once away goes the lasso high in the air, nor does Hie wayfarer have time to recover from his surprise before the fatal noose has been so tightly drawn around his throat that his breathing is suddenly stopped, he is dragged from his horse in the death agonies, and soon all is over. The thug first secures the horse, if valuable enough, then waits till the last struggles are past, then quickly rifles his pockets, drags his corpse into the chaparral, and rides away on the dead man’s horse.