THE MUSTANGS. 233 
‘Waal, it ain’t over ten mile, but a mighty 
bad road at that.—Here, Joe, saddle up, and 
bring round two mustangs.’ 
The mustangs are small compact horses, sel- 
dom exceeding fourteen-and-a-half hands in 
height, descended from Spanish stock, originally 
brought into Mexico on its conquest by the 
Spaniards. They run wild in large herds on the 
grassy prairies in California and Texas, and are 
just lassoed when needed. I may perhaps men- 
tion, en passant, that a lasso is from thirty to forty 
feet long, and made of strips of raw hide plaited 
together. When a mustang is to be caught, an 
experienced hand always keeps the herd to wind- 
ward of him; sufficiently near he circles the 
lasso round his head, and with unerring certainty 
flings it over the neck of the horse he has selected. 
The end of a lasso being made fast to a ring in 
the saddle, as soon as the horse is captured, the 
rider turns his steed sharp round, and gallops 
off, dragging the terrified and choking animal 
after him. ‘The terrible noose becomes tighter 
and tighter, pressing on the windpipe, until, un- 
able to offer further resistance, the panic-stricken 
beast rolls in agony, half suffocated, on the prairie. 
Never after this does the horse forget the lasso— 
the sight of it makes him tremble in every limb. 
