“I am lost—­lost—­” I moaned; “there is no help for me!”

An extraordinary collapse must have come over me, for my senses seemed to forsake me on the instant.  I went down in the eddying, blinding snow, and knew no more.

At the moment of giving way I was less than a hundred yards from the easternmost house of the village.  My despairing cry was heard, and hospitable hands carried me into the dwelling within a quarter of an hour after losing my consciousness.  Intelligent and prompt treatment prevented any serious consequences, but the remembrance of that brief time exposed to the fury of the blizzard will remain with me to my dying day.

THROWING THE RIATA.

The skill shown by cattlemen in throwing the riata or lasso often approaches the marvelous.  What is more wonderful than the duel described in the San Francisco Examiner, between Mexican vaqueros, in which the only weapons used were their riatas?  The victor overcame the other by throwing his noose, so that his enemy’s noose passed right through it, and the conqueror lassoed the other man’s arms against his side and jerked him from his steed.

The despatch then went on to tell of the skill of the victorious riata man, and mentioned among other wonderful feats, his lassoing an antelope running at high speed 100 feet away.  To make the test more extraordinary, the correspondent wrote that he would pick out one of the animal’s feet and get the noose around that alone.

An Examiner reporter called on Louis Ohnimus, Superintendent of Woodward’s Gardens, who wielded a riata for many years, and probably knows as much about throwing the lasso as any man on the coast, and asked him if the feats referred to were possible.

“The Mexican may have won the duel by lassoing his adversary, riata and all,” was the answer.  “It is not an uncommon thing for them to settle their differences by such a fight, and I have heard of the trick of ringing the other man’s rope, but if that man can catch an antelope one hundred feet away, by the foot or any other way, he is a better riata man than I ever encountered.  In the first place mighty few men are strong enough to throw a rope such a distance.  Then an ordinary riata is only fourteen or sixteen yards long—­twenty yards is a very long one.  So, you see, a forty-foot throw is a pretty good one.”

He was asked to explain how to throw a lasso, and consented to do so.

“The first thing about this business,” said Mr. Ohnimus, “is to have a perfect riata.  If you have one perfectly stretched, oiled, and in a thoroughly good condition, you can throw well; if your rope is kinky or uneven, you will find it impossible to do accurate work.”

“What do you consider a good riata?”