"Lariat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... than Hilario Trinfan had voiced. Just how stupid could one be? Around him now were men trained from early childhood to this life, and he could show no skill at their employment. All the way out from Texas he had practiced doggedly with the lariat, and his best fell far short of what a ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... was his "rope." This was carried in a close coil at the side of the saddle-horn, fastened by one of the many thongs scattered over the saddle. In the Spanish country it was called reata and even today is sometimes seen in the Southwest made of rawhide. In the South it was called a lariat. The modern rope is a well-made three-quarter-inch hemp rope about thirty feet in length, with a leather or rawhide eye. The cowboy's quirt was a short heavy whip, the stock being of wood or iron covered with braided leather and carrying a lash made of two or three heavy ...
— The Passing of the Frontier - A Chronicle of the Old West, Volume 26 in The Chronicles - Of America Series • Emerson Hough
... several hours before our train was in motion and finally headed for "Pike's Peak." The train consisted of fourteen wagons, a driver for each, forty yoke of oxen, one yoke of cows and one pony with a Mexican saddle and a rawhide lariat thirty feet long, with an iron pin at the end to stick in the ground to ...
— A Gold Hunter's Experience • Chalkley J. Hambleton
... Gledware's pony a vicious cut with his lariat, and drove the spurs into his own broncho. The thunder of hoofs as they plunged in different directions, caused a sudden commotion within the isolated cabin. The door was flung open, and in the light that streamed forth, ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... had never seen him before. And in obedience to his commands to "Tie him up!" the Deputy and Billy Jackrabbit took a lariat from the wall and proceeded to bind their prisoner fast. When this was done Ashby called to Nick to ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... tree—you would throw it away in contempt in the East, it was so puny. There it meant something. The love of Christmas? It was there in his dead hands. The spirit of Christmas? It showed itself in that bit of verdant pine over the lariat at the saddle-bow of the ...
— A Little Book for Christmas • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... know her fingers were busy preparing the rawhide lariat that depended from the side of the saddle. On the very bank she brought up with a jerk that dragged her mount together, and at the same moment slipped ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... with his sitters. He talked but little, because he could not hear, and to hold an ear-trumpet and paint with both hands is rather difficult. On the moment when the sitting was over, the patron was bowed out. The good ladies who lay in wait with love's lariat never found an opportunity ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... ribbon far away that revealed the winding river, and the songs of birds coming from a hundred leafy retreats on the hillsides, the horseman gave a deep sigh, as though memories most sad were awakened in his breast by the scene, and then dismounting began to unwrap a lariat from his saddle-horn. ...
— Buffalo Bill's Spy Trailer - The Stranger in Camp • Colonel Prentiss Ingraham
... see an old grey goose Or a young turkey running loose, You may be pretty certain that He'd catch it with his lariat. ...
— Little People: An Alphabet • T. W. H. Crosland
... Dan Baxter, and brought forth a stout lariat. With this Toni's hands were bound behind him, and his feet ...
— The Rover Boys out West • Arthur M. Winfield
... he came back with a load snaked in with his lariat, and he did not disturb her. Leaving the wood he rode on up the canyon looking for signs of De Launay. But, although he spent the better part of the afternoon in the search, riding in and out of every branch gully, and quartering up the slopes to where the black stands of timber ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... menagerie of pets, and into this world of life Alexander was very early introduced. We hear of young Alexander breaking the wild horse, Bucephalus, and beyond a doubt Aristotle was seated on the top rail of the paddock when he threw the lariat. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... day. Next he climbed into the House of the Sun and laid in wait. When the sun came tearing along the path, bent on completing its journey in the shortest time possible, the valiant youth threw his lariat around one of the sun's largest and strongest beams. He made the sun slow down some; also, he broke the beam short off. And he kept on roping and breaking off beams till the sun said it was willing to listen to reason. Maui set forth his terms of peace, which the sun accepted, agreeing ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... got him," replied Cameron, loosing the lariat from the horn of his saddle and handing the end to an orderly. "But," he added, "it seems hardly ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... whirl half around, and look down at his left arm; but as he dropped lower, he rested his rifle on a bit of sage brush, and fired once more. With a snort the horse, which had been pulling back wildly on its lariat, now broke free and went off, ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... farther delay, we went into action. The old captain stood, knife in hand, ready to cut the lariat which held the cow to the tree, but, before he did so, he hailed, ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... rigging; traces, harness; yoke; band ribband, bandage; brace, roller, fillet; inkle[obs3]; with, withe, withy; thong, braid; girder, tiebeam; girth, girdle, cestus[obs3], garter, halter, noose, lasso, surcingle, knot, running knot; cabestro [obs3][U. S.], cinch [U. S.], lariat, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... up a lariat, and followed by the others started for the hole. It was as they had guessed. Venturing too close to the brink of the excavation, old Mr. Bell had slipped, and the former hermit was floundering about like a grampus in the ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... spurs to his saddle-pony and pulling on the lariat of old Betsy, Uncle Dick disappeared over the edge of the steep bank. His hardy little animal clapped its feet close together and almost slid down the long muddy incline. Old Betsy calmly followed, and by the time the first horse was at the bottom of the deep and narrow valley the boys ...
— The Young Alaskans in the Rockies • Emerson Hough
... hauled up the rope. Now, with a speculative air, he was making a slip noose at one end. He still hadn't a very definite idea of what he was going to do to the bull. Prescott was making a lariat, though he had no skill in the use ...
— The High School Boys in Summer Camp • H. Irving Hancock
... quite expert in managing horses, even steeds that had never known a saddle, and at throwing the lariat, or lasso, few on the ranch could beat him. He was a good shot with the revolver and rifle, and, in short, ...
— The Boy from the Ranch - Or Roy Bradner's City Experiences • Frank V. Webster
... was the greatest mistake he could have made. The men on horseback didn't want any better fun, so they made a charge, in line of battle, just like Sheridan's cavalry, down the bank, into the creek, yelling and waving lariat ropes, and snapping whips and the elephants got out of that creek in a hurry. The cowboys threw lassoes over the hind feet of the elephants, and tried to hold them, and the elephants bellowed, and dragged the cowboys and their ponies right amongst the other animals, and in ...
— Peck's Bad Boy at the Circus • George W. Peck
... Yaller Bull Flat— Thar was Possum Billy, an' Tom, an' me. Right smart at throwin' a lariat Was them two fellers, as ever I see; An' for ridin' a broncho, or argyin' squar With the devil roll'd up in the hide of a mule, Them two fellers that camp'd with me thar Would hev made an' or'nary feller ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... that's about right," said that sober-faced puncher; "Ace is the pote lariat of this here outfit, an' he sure has got a lot of right clever lines in his pomes. I've read them ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer
... softly. When he got down below the terrace, he broke into a run, with his hand in Baba's mane, as if it were a frolic; and in a few moments they were safe in the willow copse, where Alessandro's poor pony was tethered. Fastening Baba with the same lariat, Alessandro patted him on the neck, pressed his face to his nose, and said aloud, "Good Baba, stay here till the Senorita ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... summer at home his father added extension courses in the saddle and bridle, spur, hackamore and lariat to his education. He taught him to rope, throw and mark, to use a coffee pot and frying pan, and at last on the great day—the Commencement day, so to say of the boy's frontier education—he presented him with his degree—a ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... and they turned off a macadamized road that was prematurely dark with trees and into a lariat of driveway that elicited from Zoe a ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... the approach of spring roundup. Perhaps it was because he heard so much range talk at the ranch, where the boys of the Flying U were foregathered in uneasy idleness, their fingers itching for the feel of lariat ropes and branding irons while they gazed out over the wide ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... "roped" of a frosty morning would skate him all across and about the plains if it were not for these heels. The buckskin gloves tied in one of the saddle strings are used when roping, and to keep the half-inch manila lariat—or mayhap it's horsehair or rawhide pleated—from burning his hands. The red silken sash one was wont aforetime to see knotted about his waist, was used to hogtie and hold down the big cattle when roped and thrown. The sash—strong, soft and close—could be ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... much fun watching you try to catch your players as it is to get scored on. Why don't you hobble them, Mr. Bost? A fifty-yard rope wouldn't interfere much with that gay young Percheron of yours, and it would save you lots of time rounding him up. Do you have to use a lariat when you put his ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... ribband, bandage; brace, roller, fillet; inkle^; with, withe, withy; thong, braid; girder, tiebeam; girth, girdle, cestus^, garter, halter, noose, lasso, surcingle, knot, running knot; cabestro [U.S.], cinch [U.S.], lariat, legadero^, oxreim^; suspenders. pin, corking pin, nail, brad, tack, skewer, staple, corrugated fastener; clamp, U-clamp, C-clamp; cramp, cramp iron; ratchet, detent, larigo^, pawl; terret^, treenail, screw, button, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... cast a rapid glance around him. In his quickness of perception he had already noted that the led horse among the cavalcade was fastened by a lariat to one of the riders so that escape by flight was impossible, and that he had not a single weapon to defend himself with or even provoke, in his desperation, the struggle that could forestall ignominy by death. Nothing was left ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... traditions of la belle France, but of France before Voltaire and the encyclopaedists, the Convention and the Jacobins—ere she had lost faith in all things, divine and human, save the bourgeoisie and avocats. Mounted on his pony, with lariat in hand, he herded his cattle, or shot and fished; but so gentle was his nature, that lariat and rifle seemed transformed into pipe and crook of shepherd. Light wines from the Medoc, native oranges, and home-made sweet cakes filled his largest conceptions of feasts; and ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... bizarre. Egypt and St. Petersburg and Buenos Ayres and Samoa have all become commonplace to you. You've overdone them. That's why you're back here in New York waiting with stretched nerves for the Adventure of Life to cat-creep up from behind and toss the lariat of rainbow dreams ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... a lariat in my pack," said Ike Furner. "I'll git that. It will be better'n nuthin'." And off he ...
— The Rover Boys in Alaska - or Lost in the Fields of Ice • Arthur M. Winfield
... against the house a dozen feet away. Alma, the little waitress, quietly mixing a mayonnaise on the kitchen porch, was pressed into service, and five minutes later Sally's suit-case was cautiously lowered, on the end of a Mexican lariat, and Sally was steadying the top of the ladder against her window-sill. Alma was convulsed with innocent mirth, but her big, hard hands were effective in steadying the lower ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... he did not handle a rope. He could not tell the noose end of a lariat from the straight end, hardly. Neither did Ronicky Doone know the slightest thing about barbed wire, except how to cut it when he wished to ride through. Let us look closely at the hands themselves, as Ronicky stands in the door of the hotel ...
— Ronicky Doone • Max Brand
... were said "to do all the labor, the Mexicans generally on horseback from morning till night. They are perhaps the greatest horsemen in the known world and very expert with lariat and lasso, ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock
... "To lariat them, to lasso them. And Dad and Von timed us in the saddling and made a most rigid examination of the result. It was the same way with our revolvers and rifles. The house-boys always cleaned them and ...
— Adventure • Jack London
... one with which David slew Goliath. In Athens I saw small boys using it to throw stones at an electric-light pole. The one the fisherman used was about eight feet long. To get the momentum he whirled it swiftly above his head as a cowboy swings a lariat, and then let one end fly loose, and the stone, escaping, smashed into the mass of ducks. If it stunned or killed a duck the human water-spaniel in the boat would row out and retrieve it. To duck hunters at home the sport would ...
— With the French in France and Salonika • Richard Harding Davis
... he must get the horse at once—but what then? Noiselessly turning, he led Gregg, wondering, back to the glade in which the other horses were tethered, and quickly drove his picket pin and put him on the half lariat. But how was he to conceal the severed side line? Off it came, both nervous hands working rapidly, and then when he had about determined to cut off the lines of one of Jim's mules and so throw suspicion on him, his ...
— Sunset Pass - or Running the Gauntlet Through Apache Land • Charles King
... voice barely audible in the blast. "Close up, men; come here to me—lively now? That you, Wade? Wasson; oh, all right, Sam. Here, pass that lariat back; now get a grip on it, every one of you, and hold to it for your lives. Let me take the lead, Sam; we 'll have to run by compass. Now then, are ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... exchanged for a horse came into camp, and appeared overjoyed to see his white friends again. A piece of buffalo-hide was attached to his neck. He had been tied, but had succeeded in gnawing the lariat in two, and thus made his escape, following the trail of the party ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... raised above the back of his fellows so that Tad got a good roping sight. The lariat began curving in the air, then its great loop opened, shot out and dropped neatly over the head of the pink-eyed pony. Tad drew it taut before it settled to the animal's shoulder, at the same time throwing his full weight on ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... supper of bacon and flapjacks was soon followed by the spreading of blankets on the nearest stretches of sand. The Navahos went off to one side. Slade ordered Lennon to keep near him and carefully encircled their bedding-down place with the coils of a horsehair lariat. ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... words again and again, the parson forced his way through the surge in the wake of the buffalo. This creature the Latins had secured by a lariat over his head, and were dragging across the old rampart and into a street of ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... with fringe down the leg, wearing wide-brimmed felt hats and on their heels immense spurs, which made a great noise as they walked. They were a great attraction to me as they galloped like mad after cattle, throwing with great skill a rawhide lariat or lasso, which rarely missed its victim. My thirst for adventures led me with several other kindred spirits to play hookey from school, and go into the country to see these Mexicans drive wild cattle about, and then to the slaughterhouse to see them ...
— Some Reminiscences of old Victoria • Edgar Fawcett
... as abalone, tough as the hondo of my lariat. I suspicioned he'd peter out when Pap Spooner died, but he fooled us the worst kind. No, Mandy, the old gentleman ain't a-goin', as he says, till he gits ready. He told me that to-day, an' he ain't a liar. He's close as a clam, is Mr. Bobo, but he ain't no liar. As for ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... the "pilgrims" mentioned in "The Innocents Abroad" were real persons. "Dan" was Dan Slote, Mark Twain's room-mate; the Doctor who confused the guides was Dr. A. Reeves Jackson, of Chicago; the poet Lariat was Bloodgood H. Cutter, an eccentric from Long Island; "Jack" was Jack Van Nostrand, of New Jersey; and "Moult" and "Blucher" and "Charlie" were likewise real, the last named being Charles J. Langdon, of Elmira, N. Y., a boy of eighteen, whose sister would ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... rode wur a young mustang colt, about half-broke. I had bought him from a Mexikin at Bent's only the week afore, and it wur his fust journey, leastwise with me. Of coorse I had him on the lariat; but up to this time I had kept the eend o' the rope in my hand, because I had that same day lost my picket pin; an' thinkin' as I wan't agoin' to sleep, I mout as ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... me, and, stretching himself, sprang out into the channel. The next moment, I held him by the bridle. There was no time to be lost. I was still going down, and my arm-pits were fast nearing the surface of the quicksand. I caught the lariat, and, passing it under the saddle-girths, fastened it in a tight, firm knot. I then looped the trailing end, making it secure around my body. I had left enough of the rope, between the bit-ring and the girths, to enable me ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... boys set out to hunt for Knight's horse, as nothing had been seen or heard of that frisky pony since he had vanished so unceremoniously the evening before. Alec carried a lariat, for learning to lasso had become the absorbing passion of his life, and young Judson, in spite of the hampering folds of the sling about his left arm, could give lessons in that art to any boy ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... hair, you bet yer; no, nor wash, unless it rains. And bimeby I'll come home, bringin' loads of gold and di'mon' rings; My, won't all the boys be jealous when they see those kind of things! 'N' I'll have a reputation, folks'll call me "Lariat Ben," Gran'ma'll think I 'mount ter somethin', maybe, when she sees ...
— Cape Cod Ballads, and Other Verse • Joseph C. Lincoln
... in the little stone town of St. Mary's, Ont., so studious that he never could catch a baseball that wanted to drop into his pocket; at college immersed in mathematics, at Osgoode in law; as a young man opening a forlorn office in Portage, still a sort of lariat town, when Meighen was shy of even a ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... dim blackness ahead already revealed the nearness of the southern bank, when Neb's pony went down suddenly, swept fairly off its legs by some fierce eddy in the stream. Keith heard the negro's guttural cry, and caught a glimpse of him as the two were sent whirling down. The coiled rope of the lariat, grasped in his right hand, was hurled forth like a shot, but came back empty. Not another sound reached him; his own horse went steadily on, feeling his way, until he was nose against the bank, with water merely rippling about his ankles. Keith driving feet again ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... what was to happen; and so absorbed were we in our occupation—he in his happiness, I in the contemplation thereof—that neither of us noticed the rapid approach of a third party until a whinny of astonishment sounded close beside us, and Van, trailing his lariat and picket-pin after him, came trotting up, took in the situation at a glance, and, unhesitatingly ranging alongside his comrade of coarser mould and thrusting his velvet muzzle into my lap, looked wistfully into my face with his ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... retreating out of a large hacienda, heavily incumbered with horse-provender, when we saw the landlord and his peons, with machetes in their hands, coming to meet us. As we trotted up toward them, the angry man stood at the roadside, lariat in hand, frowning, and in the attitude to arrest our foremost horseman;—but the filibuster drew his revolver, concealed hitherto by his burden, and cocked it,—and the poor man, seeing that he was unequal, was fain to vent ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... easily answered," I replied; "my ship is from the moon, it has taken her a month to come, and she is here for a cargo of boys." But the intimation of this enterprise, had I not been on the alert, might have cost me dearly; for while I spoke this child of the campo coiled his lariat ready to throw, and instead of being himself carried to the moon, he was apparently thinking of towing me home by the neck, astern of his wild cayuse, over the ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... is all I desired to know." And he was away again, swinging his lariat and whooping joyously at the ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... unwinding a long lariat that bent the captive nearly double and secured him firmly to the panting horse. When the bonds were removed Dan'l would have tumbled prone to the ground had not willing hands caught him and supported him upon his ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John • Edith Van Dyne
... outer fence, one of them had just been caught by a whirling lariat and dragged, stubbornly protesting, into the adjoining corral. Once there he made a wild dash to escape and lashed out fiercely with his heels at the men who held him. But with a skill born of long experience ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... tramp and the girl, oblivious to everything else, discussed rawhide riatas as compared with the regular three-strand stock rope, or lariat,—center-fire, three quarter, and double rigs, swell forks and old Visalia trees, spade bits and "U" curbs,—neither willing, even lightly, to admit the ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... When she dared to look she could see at first only a welter of men and horses half-hidden by the dust. Near her lay the gold horse with his head twisted backward by the taut rope, which choked him until his eyes bulged, and foam dripped from his lips. The man who had held the lariat lay half under his fallen pony, whose efforts to rise were checked by the tightened rope still tied to the saddlebow. The two other men were on their feet, one clutching the straightened halter, the second deftly slipping a lariat around the prisoner's pawing ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... the aerials caught in a tree top. The car, jerked back like a mad horse caught by a lariat, reared up on its hind wheels, threatened to turn turtle, then crashed over on its side with its engine still ...
— Curlie Carson Listens In • Roy J. Snell
... propped the door open, and then went to relieve the girl from the strain of holding her captive. Seizing the lariat he gripped it tightly and proceeded to pass slowly, hand over hand, towards the beautiful, wild-eyed chestnut. Golden Eagle seemed to understand, for, presently, the tension of the rope relaxed. For a moment the animal looked fearfully around and snorted, then, as "Lord" Bill determinedly ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... see me, I am old and poor. All the day I see no one. When I wish to drink, this raw-hide lariat leads me to the stream near by. When I need dry sticks for my fire, I follow this other rope and feel my way among the trees. I have food enough, for these bags are packed with dried meat for my use. But alas, my grandson, I am all alone here, and I ...
— Wigwam Evenings - Sioux Folk Tales Retold • Charles Alexander Eastman and Elaine Goodale Eastman
... wondered why "the rope"—as our western cowboys call the lariat, and the Mexican lariata—has not become a national sport, for its proper use requires great skill, and it is distinctly an ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort
... have one who would take care of her. The milk was good for Pavel, who was often sick, and he could make butter by beating sour cream with a wooden spoon. Peter was very fond of his cow. He patted her flanks and talked to her in Russian while he pulled up her lariat pin and set it in a ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... with a little flag on it, an' rode a hoss built like a barrel. He had been in the brewery business all his life an' looked the part. About the only item in the whole parade that put me in mind of myself was my lariat. I smuggled that along for company, an' so I'd have somethin' to work with, provided anything ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... to where the herding ponies were tethered, Cummings sprang from his horse and, whipping out his keen bowie knife, cut lariat after lariat, stampeding the whole herd. This done he remounted his ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... Harry caught the coiled lariat from the other's saddle and rode as he had never ridden before. All was vague in his mind, except that Pauline was near, was in peril, and ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... Indian maid, crude humor in bronze; for Columbus brought Indian maids anything but protection. Near at hand in the joyous tropical sunshine lay a great steamer that in another week would be back in New York tying up in sleet and ice. A western bronco and a lariat might perhaps have dragged me on ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... for I knew that the papers in my hand would be taken to be the wanted letters, and that if I could only get inside the car even for a moment the suspicion would be that I had been able to hide them. Unfortunately, the plan was no sooner thought of than I heard the whistle of a lariat, and before I could guard myself the noose settled over my head. I threw the papers toward Fred and Lord Ralles, shouting, "Hide them!" Fred was quick as a flash, and, grabbing them off the ground, sprang up the steps of my car and ran inside, just escaping a bullet from my pursuers. I tried ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... that looked to him the meekest, and moved toward it. The ponies began to circle close to the fence. The one he wanted was racing behind the white-stockinged roan. For a moment it appeared in front. The rope snaked out and slid down its side. Bob gathered in the lariat, wound it, waited for a chance, and tried again. The meek bronco shook its head as the rope fell and caught on one ear. A second time the loop went down into ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... carried into the interior on pack-horses, three barrels to a horse. The traders traveled for hundreds of miles through the woods, bartering with the Indians on the way and receiving, in exchange for their goods, bear and deer skins, beaver furs, and wild ponies which had been caught by lariat in the ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert
... to be slacked, cars dart off the road and up a gravel driveway that encircles Claxton Inn like a lariat swung, then park themselves among the trees, lights dimmed. Placid as a manse without, what was once a private and now a public house maintains through lowered lids its discreet white-frame exterior, shades drawn, and only slightly revealing ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... his other stirrup, causing the lariat to pull taut and, the next instant the calf flopped on ...
— The Boy Ranchers on the Trail • Willard F. Baker
... hunted small game, and tried various feats of horsemanship, lariat casting, and even—when they were especially energetic, played ball. There was a fairly good team among the ranchmen and they entered into the sport with vim. Only Leslie found the exercise too violent and was content to lounge ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond
... jaw, this being sufficient to enable the rider to guide the docile little animal where he pleased; while for tethering purposes, during a halt, there was a stout long peg, and the rider's plaited hide lariat or lasso, ready for a variety of uses in ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... then complaining of a pain in his chest, the origin of which he attributed to a fall received in 1860. It happened while he was descending a mountain. The declivity was so steep that he led his horse by the lariat, intending, if the horse fell to throw ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... the smaller tilted his head back when the horses first swept in, and the larger leaned to watch when Diaz, the wizard with the lariat, commenced to whirl his rope; but in both cases their interest held no longer than if they had been old vaudevillians watching a series of familiar acts dressed ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... noise at his ear, and what seemed to be the uncoiling stroke of a leaping serpent at his side. Instinctively he threw himself forward on his horse's neck, and as the animal shied into the grain, felt the crawling scrape and jerk of a horsehair lariat across his back and down his horse's flanks. He reined in indignantly and stood up in his stirrups. Nothing was to be seen above the level of the grain. Beneath him the trailing riata had as noiselessly vanished as if it had been indeed a gliding snake. Had he been the victim of a practical ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... constantly meeting with in books about American prairies. A horse-rope, or a lazo, is called in Spanish reata; and, by absorbing the article, la reata is made into lariat, just as such words as alligator, alcove, and pyramid were formed. The flexible leather riding-whip or cuarta is apparently the quirt that some American politicians use in arguing ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... race go on for a few minutes, and then she saw an exhibition of roping that made her gasp. From a point fifteen or twenty feet in advance of the steer, Randerson threw his rope. He had twisted in the saddle, and he gave the lariat a quick flirt, the loop running out perpendicularly, like a rolling hoop, and not more than a foot from the ground, writhing, undulating, the circle constricting quickly, sinuously. The girl saw the loop topple as it neared the steer—it was much ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... of a mustang? that was my first thought now. Whenever one dismounted, it was necessary to loosen his long lariat, and let it trail on the ground. Without this there was no chance of catching him. I saw at once what had happened: by the greatest good fortune, at the last moment, he must have made an instinctive start, which probably saved his life, and mine too. The bull's horns had just ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... night?" he asked, indifferently. Then, suddenly, his eye fell upon the sorrel that snipped grass at the end of a lariat rope near the picketed black, and he leaped to his feet. "Where'd you get that horse?" he exclaimed sharply. "It's Fatty's! There's the reins he busted ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... did no one knew, but not long after Teddy had laid aside the lariat, as the lasso is sometimes called, loud squawks, crowings and cackles from the chicken yard ...
— The Curlytops at Uncle Frank's Ranch • Howard R. Garis
... showed fight the day before. Knowing his temper would not be improved by soaking in the quicksand overnight, we changed our tactics. While we were tying up the steer's tail and legs, McCann secreted his team at a safe distance. Then he took a lariat, lashed the tongue of the wagon to a cottonwood tree, and jacking up a hind wheel, used it as a windlass. When all was ready, we tied the loose end of our cable rope to a spoke, and allowing the rope to coil on the hub, manned ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams
... with some terror that the young wife sees a display of native horsemanship. Lumbering across the pathway of the train a huge grizzly bear attracts the dare-devils. Bruin rises on his haunches; he snorts in disdain. A quickly cast lariat encircles one paw. He throws himself down. Another lasso catches his leg. As he rolls and tugs, other fatal loops drop, as skilfully aimed as if he were only a helpless bullock. Growling, rolling, biting, ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... view of another attack was very ticklish. And it had, in fact, the air of occupying the anxious-seat. The Mexican, it may be added, uses neither dog nor crook. He may have a cur or pillone to share his solitude, but its function is purely social: for catching sheep there is his lariat. He is measurably faithful and trustworthy, a careful observer of his flock, and quick to appreciate their troubles. Of course he loses sheep semi-occasionally, causing those long sheep-hunting rides among the hills which the ranchman curses and the visitor enjoys; and occasionally in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... the third day of the downpour, however, the clouds lifted. A new moon appeared, holding its chin up,—a promise of sunshine,—and the little girl ran happily to the barn, slipped a lariat into the blue mare's mouth, secured it with a thong under the jaw, and, bareback, started toward the sloughs beyond the reservation road to bring home the herd. When she was a mile away, the eldest brother followed her, for he wanted ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... to give you a meal or two if you are hard-up for food; but if the ball goes through the muscles of the neck, just above the spine, the shock knocks him over as surely as if you had hit him in the heart. It stuns him, and you have only got to run up and put your lariat round his neck, and be ready to mount him as soon as he rises, which he will do in two or three minutes, and he will be none the worse for the shock; in fact you will be able to break him in more easily than if you had caught him by ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... boys with sharp knives. The squaws would at the same time keep up a howling, accompanied with a backward-and-forward movement. When the muscles were lifted out by pincers on the breast, one end of a kind of lariat (used for fastening horses while grazing), or buffalo thong, was tied to the bleeding flesh, while the other end was fastened to the top of the pole in the middle of the lodge. The first young man, when thus prepared, commenced dancing around ...
— Three Years on the Plains - Observations of Indians, 1867-1870 • Edmund B. Tuttle |
