The Jungle Fugitives Part 25

"Meanwhile I, representing our cowboy, hold the remaining coils in my other hand, only changing the position of my forefinger so as to secure better control of the coils. Then comes the third maneuver--enlarging the noose. Of course, you have to have a larger noose than one a foot in diameter to drop over a steer's horns forty feet away. The noose is enlarged by swinging the noose in your la.s.so hand until the centrifugal force pulls it out the size you wish (this is the reason you do not grasp it too firmly), letting go with the other hand, of course, as many coils as are necessary to make the noose the right size. Now you have the noose in the air you do not cease making it circle around your head until you let it go. When the noose has been let out to the right size the next trouble is to keep it open and to avoid entangling it in the brush or other surrounding obstructions. You keep it open, as I said, by holding the noose from quarter to half its length from the knot, and by a peculiar twist of the wrist that is only attainable by practice. To keep it clear of the brush is often a more difficult job, for the cowboy is not always in a clear place when he wants to throw his rope. Then it is that his judgment comes into play and determines whether his cast is a lost one or not. I have seen vaqueros swing a la.s.so swiftly almost in the midst of a thicket, and keep it clear without losing speed, and then let it drive straight as an arrow between two close trees and rope an object that could not pa.s.s where the noose had gone. Such skill, to be sure, comes only after long practice.

"Well, now we have got the noose circling about the vaquero's head, and the next thing is to let it fly. There is not much to describe about this part of throwing a riata, important though it may be. It is only incessant practice that will enable a man to make a certain cast. The main thing is to swing the rope just long enough--neither so long as to give it a side-wise motion when you throw it, nor short enough to prevent its getting all the force you require. Then the riata man must throw at a particular limb or projection. This thing of tossing blindly at an object and trusting to luck that the animal will get into the rope somehow will not do. You must pick out your mark as carefully as if you were shooting at it, and then time it. A steer jumping along changes his position constantly as regards you. If you throw at his head high up the chances are that it will be away down when your rope reaches him, and you will overthrow. Now, if you pick out a foot you must reckon so that that foot will be off the ground when your rope reaches him. The noose does not travel like a bullet, and this element of time is most important.

"Of even more importance is it that the distances are gauged correctly.

You remember I spoke about holding the coils lightly in two or three fingers. Well, that is done in order that as many coils as may be considered necessary may be let go. If you are wielding a riata you know that each of your coils is almost two feet or two and one half feet long. So if you want to la.s.so something twenty feet away you let go ten coils.

"As to letting go, you simply open your hand at the correct time and the rope slips off.

"But even after you have roped your steer your work is not over.

Almost any animal can pull you from your horse, and to prevent this you must get your rope around the horn of your saddle. There is where you have to be quick. There are two ways of making this. .h.i.tch that are used ordinarily. The one I prefer is simply to take two turns around the horn, taking care that the second turn comes lower and overlaps the other. No pull in the world could make that rope slip, while I can, simply by throwing off one turn, let it all slide off. This other fashion, which is really taking a 'half-inch' around the horn, holds just as fast, but you have to push the rope through to loosen it. You see, in making this sudden twist, a finger is very likely to get caught, and I have known many fingers being taken off before such a hitch could be unfastened.

"It is often advisable to take an extra twist around anything you have la.s.soed, and this is done by simply throwing a coil. Practice again is the only thing that can teach this.

"Now you have the whole theory of throwing a rope.

"There are four sorts of throws, but they are all made alike, only the position of the arm being different. They are the overthrow, the underthrow, the sidethrow, and the backthrow."

"Backthrow?"

"Yes, backthrow--catching an object behind you--something that you need not even see. That sounds difficult, does it? Well, you stand behind me and you can see it done."

The reporter took his station twenty feet behind Mr. Ohnimus, quite out of sight, of course. He swung the loop around his head, and, without turning, let it fly backward. It circled the newspaper man exactly, and by pulling it quickly Ohnimus had his arms pinioned to his side.

"Are there any more trick throws?" asked the reporter.

"Lots of them. I never put myself up as a crack riata man, and I am out of practice now, but I can lay the noose on the ground at my feet and kick it around your neck, or pick it off the ground from my horse and land it around you while the horse is going at full speed, and do lots of things like that, but none of them is any good. That backthrow has been used by the Mexican highwaymen to considerable advantage. You see, in that country the traveler always looks out for danger from the rear and is prepared for it, but when a pleasant horseman rides past him, playing with his riata, and wishing him 'Good-day' as he pa.s.ses, he is likely to consider the danger as gone by, as well as the man.

That has caused the death of a good many. The bandit gets the right distance ahead and then la.s.soes him as I did you. A touch of his spur jerks his victim from the saddle and that ends it."

"How is the la.s.so as a weapon of defence?"

"Good. A quick riata man can beat a fellow with a pistol at fairly close quarters."

"How?"

"Well, here is a pistol. Put it in your pocket and draw it on me as I come toward you."

The reporter did as he was directed. He had not raised the weapon when the noose was around his hand and the pistol was jerked a dozen feet.

"Try again, and tighter," said Ohnimus.

The reporter did so. The pistol was not jerked from his hand this time, but before he could snap it Ohnimus had thrown a coil around his neck and pulled his pistol hand up over his shoulder. In another instant a second coil was around the reporter's body, and both arms were fastened firmly to his sides. He could not move that pistol an inch. No clearer demonstration of the use of the la.s.so as a weapon of defence was possible.

"What is the most difficult animal, in your opinion, to catch with the la.s.so?" was asked.

"A sea lion," answered the rope thrower. "I have caught them off the southern coast. They go right through a noose. The only way to get them is to throw the rope around his neck and back of one flipper. A hog is hard to catch, too. He pulls his legs out of a noose without half trying, and you can't hold him by the neck or body. The only way is to get him like the sea lion--back of one foreleg."

A WATERSPOUT.

Doubtless many of my readers have heard of the dreadful encounters of vessels with waterspouts, when the ship escaped destruction by firing a cannon-ball into the waterspout, thus causing it to break apart.

Now these things are by no means such terrible objects as many believe.

No doubt the vessels of the present day are larger and stronger than formerly, and perhaps waterspouts have become smaller. Be as it may, the people who go down to the sea in ships need give themselves no uneasiness about them, for really they amount to little.

The _Slavonia_, of the Hamburg line left Brunshausen, on the Elbe, on February 26 last, under the command of Capt. H. Schmidt. She had only two pa.s.sengers. The weather was squally and the air full of mist when she reached the outer Banks, 900 miles from New York, shortly after sunrise on Sunday, March 16. The big vessel was heading west by north, when, at 7 o'clock, Second Mate Erichsen, who was on the bridge, saw emerge through the mist on the starboard side of the ship, at the distance of about a thousand feet, a towering column which united sea and sky. The column was in front of the ship to starboard, and was moving in a southeasterly direction, apparently at the rate of eight knots an hour.

Although the Slavonia was running 9 1/2 knots, the column seemed likely to pa.s.s in front of the steamship when their paths crossed.

Accordingly Erichsen did not try to alter the course of the Slavonia; indeed, he would not have altered it had he known ship and spout were sure to meet, for he had encountered waterspouts before and wasn't afraid of them. All he did--in fact, all he had time to do--was to call Third Mate Lorentzen, also an expert in waterspouts.

On rushed the _Slavonia_, heading west by north: nearer came the waterspout, heading south by east. It soon became evident that the spout could not get by before the _Slavonia_ reached it, and it was now too late to slow up--indeed, a collision was manifestly unavoidable from the start. Lorentzen had scarcely reached the bridge when the watery Philistine was upon the Samson. It just hit the steamer's bows on the starboard side, as depicted in the second cut. A rushing noise accompanied the column, and the water foamed in its wake. Immediately above was a great black cloud from which clouds less dark descended to form a funnel, or inverted cone. The middle of the column was white, apparently because it contained snow.

The column's narrowest diameter was about twelve feet, while it was three times as broad as its base, which reproduced in water and inverted the cloud-formed funnel above. The whole column rotated with a spiral motion.

The waterspout, when it approached, took all the wind out of the fore-staysail of the steamship, which went blind, but the schooner-sail still kept full, and presently the fore-staysail filled again.

The Slavonia shook under the shock caused by contact with the column of water, but kept on her course none the worse for the collision. A few flakes of snow on her bow were the only evidence of the collision after the pillar of water had pa.s.sed off to port.

While the vessel was uninjured, the waterspout soon showed signs that it had received its death-blow. As it sailed off to the southeast it parted in the middle, and the cone of water which formed its base and the cone of cloud which formed its top began to grow smaller by degrees. The waterspout was slowly but surely ceasing to be a waterspout when it disappeared from view in the misty distance some fifteen minutes or more from the time it was sighted.

The _Slavonia's_ encounter with the waterspout took place in lat.i.tude 42 degrees 22 minutes north and longitude 52 degrees 35 minutes west.

This is rather far north for waterspouts so early in the year. The waterspout crop is generally more plentiful when thunder and lightning are on top, which is in warmer weather. The temperature of the air at the time of the encounter was 37 degrees; water 54 degrees. It had been cold during the night, but grew warmer in the morning. The clouds which overspread the firmament were of the c.u.mulus pattern.

Erichsen and Lorentzen have not only seen other waterspouts, but the first, when on a sailing vessel in the tropics, ran into the very middle of one with no worse result than to deluge the deck of the ship with water as a heavy shower would have done. He thinks an unusually large waterspout might possibly sink a very small vessel, say a pilot boat, but with a ship of ordinary size he considers bombarding a waterspout with cannon a waste of powder.

AN HEROIC WOMAN.

Every boy and girl should learn to swim. When one recalls how easily the art is acquired, and the many occasions that are liable to arise, we cannot but wonder that the accomplishment is so universally neglected by the other s.e.x. It is pleasant to note, however, that swimming is growing to be popular among women, and the day is not far distant, when the majority of young ladies will become the rivals of their brothers in their ability to keep their heads above water.

Torres Strait separates Australia from Papua or New Guinea; and connects the Arafura Sea on the west, with the Coral Sea on the east.

Its current is swift and the waters from time immemorial have been dangerous to navigation. It has been the scene of many shipwrecks, and it is only a few months since that the steamer _Quetta_ was lost in those waters. One hundred and sixteen persons perished on that terrible night in the South Pacific, but among the survivors was Miss Lacy, whose experience was not only among the most interesting and thrilling ever recorded, but emphasizes the statement we have made at the opening of our sketch.

Miss Lacy says she was sitting in the saloon, engaged in writing a letter, the other ladies practicing for a concert which it was intended to give on shipboard. Everything was going along, merrily, and all were in high spirits, when, without the least warning, they were startled by a harsh, grating noise, the steamer rocked violently, and nearly every one was thrown into the wildest panic.

The confusion and shouts above showed that some fearful disaster had occurred. Instantly Miss Lacy made a rush for the deck to learn what it meant. Quick as were her movements, she found the ship was already sinking. Going aft was like climbing a steep hill, but she saw that one portion was high above water, and she struggled bravely to reach it. But, so rapidly did the _Quetta_ go down that she had hardly gone forward, when the steamer was swallowed up in the furious waters.

That which followed is beyond description. In an instant, two hundred human beings were struggling frantically, shrieking in their terror for the help which was nowhere to be found, clutching each other, praying and drowning by the score.

Miss Lacy was caught in this fearful swirl, and was in imminent danger of being dragged down by those around her, who were crazed by the one wild, despairing hope of saving themselves, no matter at what cost.

But she was a powerful swimmer, and retaining her self-command, she shook herself free of several who attempted to cling to her. The whirlpool caused by the sinking of the steamer pulled her beneath the water, but, with the same wonderful presence of mind she had shown from the first, she fought her way to the surface, and swam from the dangerous spot.

Finding herself her own mistress, and fully aware that her life now depended on her ability to swim, she removed all her superfluous clothing and moved hither and thither in the darkness, in the hope of coming upon some of the survivors.

It was about midnight, that she heard some one shout. The gloom was too powerful for her to distinguish anything, but she swam toward the point, whence the call issued, and came upon a raft, that had been hastily thrown together by the chief officer of the _Quetta_. Several persons were clinging to it, and she accepted the invitation to avail herself of the temporary refuge and give her weary limbs a rest.