The White Scalper: A Story of the Texan War

by Gustave Aimard

Loyal Heart was a Mexican; like all his countrymen, whose skill is proverbial in the management of certain weapons, from his youth he had been familiarized with the lasso, that terrible arm which renders the Mexican horsemen so formidable. The lasso or reata, for this weapon has two names, is a strip of plaited leather, rendered supple by means of grease. It is ordinarily forty-five to fifty feet in length, one of the ends terminating in a running knot, the other being fastened to an iron ring riveted in the saddle; the rider whirls it round his head, sets his horse at a gallop, and on arriving within thirty or five-and-thirty yards of the man or animal he is pursuing, he lets the lasso fly, so that the running knot may fall on the shoulders of his victim. At the same time that he lets the lasso go, the rider makes his horse suddenly turn in the opposite direction, and the enemy he has lassoed is, in spite of the most strenuous resistance, hurled down and dragged after him. Such is the lasso and the way in which it is employed on horseback.

Afoot, matters are effected much in the same fashion, save that, as the lassoer has no longer his horse to aid him, he is obliged to display great muscular strength, and is often dragged along for a considerable distance. In Mexico, where this weapon is in general use, people naturally study the means to neutralize its effects, the most efficacious being to cut the lasso. This is why all horsemen carry in their boot, within arm's length, a long and sharp knife; still, as the horseman is nearly always unexpectedly lassoed, he is strangled ere he has had time to draw his knife. Of one hundred riders lassoed thus in a combat or chase, seventy-five are inevitably killed, and the others only escape by a miracle, so much skill, strength, and coolness are needed to cut the fatal knot.

Loyal Heart had the simple idea of forming a running knot at the end of his picquet rope, and lassoing the first rider who passed within reach. On getting behind the rock he unrolled the long cord he had fastened round his body; then, after making the slip knot with all the care it demands, he coiled the lasso in his hand and waited. Chance seemed to favour the project of the bold hunter, for, within ten minutes at the most, he heard the gallop of a horse going at full speed. Loyal Heart listened attentively; the sound approached with great rapidity, and soon the black outline of a horseman stood out in the night. The direction followed by the rider compelled him to pass within a short distance of the block of granite behind which Loyal Heart was concealed. The latter spread out his legs to have a firmer holdfast, bent his body slightly forward, and whirled the lasso round his head. At the moment when the horseman came opposite to him, Loyal Heart let the lasso fly, and it fell with a whiz on the shoulders of the rider, who was roughly hurled to the ground ere he knew what was happening to him. His horse, which was at full speed, went on some distance further, but then perceiving that its rider had left it, it slackened its pace, and presently halted.

In the meanwhile Loyal Heart bounded like a tiger on the man he had so suddenly unsaddled. The latter had not uttered a cry, but remained motionless at the spot where he had been hurled. Loyal Heart at first fancied him dead, but it was not so; his first care was to free the wounded man from the running knot, drawn so tightly round his neck, in order to enable him to breathe; then, without taking the trouble to look at his victim, he pinioned him securely, threw him over his shoulders, and returned to the spot where his comrades were awaiting him.

The latter had seen, or at least heard, what had happened; and far from dreaming of the means employed by the young man, although they were well acquainted with it, they knew not to what they should attribute the rough way in which the rider had been hurled from his horse.

"Oh, oh," Tranquil said, "I fancy you have made a fine capture."

"I think so too," Loyal Heart answered, as he deposited his burden on the ground.

"How on earth did you manage to unsaddle him so cleverly?"

"Oh! In the simplest way possible. I lassoed him."

"By Jove!" the hunter exclaimed, "I suspected it. But let us see the nature of the game. These confounded Indians are difficult to tame when they take it into their heads not to unlock their teeth. This fellow will not speak, in all probability."