I was even full of self-gratulation—chuckling over the conquest I had accomplished—anticipating one of those pleasant little triumphs one feels on having performed a feat, however trifling, under the eyes of one’s everyday associates.
I believed I should have nothing more to do than attach the captured mustang to the ring of my saddle-tree, remount my own steed, and ride back to the “false enclosure.”
The “cup” was at my lips; I had forgotten the “slip.”
Literally may I say the “slip,” though the word may need explanation.
I was returning towards my own steed, with the intention of once more regaining my saddle, and riding back in the direction I had come, when a swishing noise fell upon my ear, that caused the blood to curdle within my veins, as if the sound so heard had been the summons of the last trumpet.
The wild cry that succeeded this sound added little to its terrors; for I knew that one was but the prelude to the other.
The first was to me a noise well known and easily identified. It was the whistling of lazos projected through the air. The second was but the triumphant cheer that accompanied their projection.
I looked up in dismay, which instantly became despair. It was not causeless. The air above me was a network of ropes, each with a running noose at its end.
I might not have observed their intricate coiling, nor perhaps did I at the moment. I was not allowed much time for minute observation. Almost in the same instant that the “swishing” sounded in my ears, I felt my body encircled by closing cords; and the next moment I was jerked from my feet, and flung with violence upon my back.