“Well, I can only tell you how a good one is made.  First, the rawhide is cut in thin strips, as long as possible, and half tanned with the hair on.  Then these strips are soaked and stretched over a block.  Then they are braided into a rope, care being taken, of course, to pull the strands as tight as possible.  When the riata is made it should be buried for a week, ten days, or even a fortnight, in the sand.  It takes up moisture from the ground, without getting hard.  Soaking it in water won’t do, nor will anything else that I know of except, as I say, burying it.  When the riata is resurrected it should again be left for a time stretched over a block, with a weight to hold it taut.  Then the hair should be sandpapered off the outside, and when the riata is greased with mutton tallow and properly noosed it is ready for use.  Every vaquero that pretends to take care of his apparatus will bury his riata and stretch it every six or eight months.

“A hair rope does not make a good riata.  It is useful to stretch around camp at night to keep snakes away.  For some reason snakes will not cross a hair rope.

“Now, as to throwing it: 

“The riata, say, is hanging from the horn of the saddle—­not tied, but ready for use.  No vaquero who understands his trade ties his rope to his saddle.  He knows that his life may depend on his ability to let go of his rope in an instant, and he isn’t going to chance killing himself or his horse.  You see, the vaquero might be on a side hill, and a bull or steer he wishes to catch be on a trail below him, and the ground between them to be too steep to admit of his riding down to it.  Now, suppose the noose, instead of catching around the horns of the steer, should circle his neck and draw down to his shoulders?  Accidents are, of course, as likely to happen in catching cattle as in anything else, and give a bull such a hold and he could pull a house, let alone a mustang.  That would be one case where it would be very handy to let go quickly.  Then a man is likely to get his hand caught, and if he can’t let his rope go free he is likely to lose a finger or two.

“Our vaquero is trotting along with his rope hanging at his saddle bow or fastened behind him.  He sees a deer or whatever else he wants to catch, and grabs his rope with the left hand if he is a right-handed man, though a man to really excel in this business should be ambi-dextrous.  A right-handed man can, under ordinary circumstances, rope a steer; but he has frequently to turn his horse to gain a good position.  Now it sometimes happens that your horse is in a position where you can’t turn; then it would be awkward, unless you could throw with either hand.  I usually throw with my left hand, though I can use either.

“I take up the rope from the saddle bow, so.”

He lifted his riata in his right hand.  His little finger held the standing end of the rope, the third and middle finders supported the coil, and the noose dangled from his first finger, while his thumb steadied the whole rope and held it from slipping.  The coils were not more than a foot or a foot and a half in diameter.  The noose was the same size.