16 THE LOG OF A TIMBER CRUISER 
careless ease, ducking perfunctorily whenever the 
loop by any chance threatened to fall in the vicinity 
of one of their number. Whereat Horace would 
carefully recoil his rope and swear mightily. He 
was, he assured us, a ‘‘fearful blasphemer.”’ 
After a time the unsuccessful roper decided that 
his methods were too precipitate. He selected an 
inoffensive-looking jinny with drooping ears and be- 
gan a policy of stealthy and insidiously slow ad- 
vances. He stalked his victim, infinitely cautious, 
until within a few yards, then with a yell of triumph 
rushed upon her and holding the noose in both hands 
dropped it over her head. 
“‘T’ve got one! I’ve got one!’’ he shouted, much 
as an angler hails the landing of a three-pound trout. 
But instead of driving his captive to the fire he 
attempted to lead it, a procedure to which the burro 
is notoriously averse. There was a brief but fervid 
tug of war. Horace and the jinny, a few feet apart, 
glared into each other’s eyes and strove fiercely. 
It was indubitably a draw, since neither moved. 
Wetherby, however, now thoroughly aroused, was 
not to be denied. He looped his rope around the 
burro’s nose, shutting off her ‘‘wind,’’ and the strug- 
gle began anew. Half suffocated, she advanced per- 
force a few short steps; the rope slackened sid- 
denly, and Horace stumbled and fell full length upon 
his back. This manceuvre, practically simultaneous 
with the burro’s forward movement, convinced the 
alarmed youth that he was being attacked. He 
