keep my seat and hold him down while the other
fellow takes his aim. Sometimes a beef will
struggle so much while thus bound down, that
I have known him kill himself by dashing his
head against the ground. Sometimes when we
are after him, if he is very wild, he will chase
the horse, who lets him follow for a time, within a
yard or so, and then suddenly wheels round and
flanks him, so that we can rope him in a moment.
The horse helps as cleverly as any man, watching
the sport and calculating his own movements
almost without any bidding from the
rider. As soon as the end of the lasso is made
fast to the raised pommel of the saddle, the
horse is on the alert. When a beef is caught
by the horns, as the rope becomes too loose or
too tight the horse retreats or advances,
suiting himself to every movement, till the beef
falls to the ground."

One day our young Texan was walking along
the edge of a "timber," as the strips of forest,
which for the most part border the rivers, are
commonly called, when he heard a great hissing
and spluttering overhead. He looked up and
saw a large wild cat snarling in the forks of the
branches, where she had a nest of kittens. She
was in the act of pouncing upon him, but he
had only to point his gun with alacrity and
bring the wild cat to the ground. If he had
not done so, the flesh would, in the next moment,
have been torn from his face and neck.

Another day, young Texas was riding fast and
saw what he took to be a pine-branch lying
across the road. The tint, and the regular
scaly bark of what is called the long-leaved
pine, give a snake-like appearance to fragments
of branches which may be lying along the edge
of sandy roads. The Texan was so accustomed
to such fragments, that in this case he mistook
a snake for a tree branch. As for me, I have
often run away in alarm from a tree branch,
mistaking it for the snake it so strongly
resembles. The Texan's horse, in this case,
seemed to be as much deceived as his master,
for he galloped quietly over the reptile without
the usual sign of terror. This proved to be
an unusually large rattlesnake, seven feet long,
and thick in proportion. As the horse passed, the
snake glided into the long grass by the roadside,
and attracted the attention of the rider, who
was not willing to let it escape so easily. He
leaped from the saddle, and called to his servant
to come and thrash it out into the open
space, intending to despatch it according to the
usual method; namely, by seizing it promptly
and firmly by the tail, and then whipping off its
head before it had time to turn and bite him.
Young boys in Texas are expert at this, while
even small children will snatch up a stick and,
having given the animal a sharp blow or two to
break its spine and disable it, repeat the blows
upon the head till that is crushed. Great quickness
is all that is required for safety in dealing
thus with venomous snakes, yet no boy of nine
or ten years old in the Southern States has
either fear or mercy for a snake, however
dangerous. And so when here there was a big
snake not to be spared, Sambo thrashed the
long grass as furiously as if he were working a
flail on a barn floor. " Here's his head, boy,"
cried Young Texas at last. "Thrash away.
Again! Quick! Now for him!" Now out
glides the long lithe creature with its eyes
steadily fixed upon its enemy. The youth leaps
lightly over it to seize it by the tail, when he
finds that the tail has been too much injured by
Sambo's flail to be either safe or pleasant holding.
In an instant the revolver is pointed and
a bullet pierces the uplifted head. There are
more ways than one of meeting an enemy;
more enemies than one to meet; more weapons
than one in readiness.

Sometimes, while Young Texas is breaking in
a mustang, he may be threatened at one moment
by wild cats above, and snakes below, with,
perhaps, a bear, a boar, or a panther within
hail. But he comes safe out of any difficulty.
With a firm, sure seat in the saddle, one hand
at least is free. His lasso is ready, his barrels
are all loaded, his knives and daggers sharp. He
tames his wild mustang, so far as a Texan's
notion of "taming" goes, and rides home to
dinner, without giving so much as a second
thought to the little brushes with wild cats and
rattlesnakes.

Great faith is put in whisky for cure of the
bite of a rattlesnake. The person bitten is
required to drink the raw spirit until he is
"dead drunk," and is then left to sleep himself
sober. By the time he awakes with restored
faculties, the intense stimulus, or whatever else
the healing power may be, is said to have
carried the system safe over the poison's
period of dangerous activity. I once heard of
a bitten man who drank above a quart of raw
whisky, before the desired symptoms of
intoxication would appear. That bushranger must
have been a very seasoned toper, or, if the cure be
on the homoeopathic principle, he must have
received a terrible amount of poison in his foot to
need so large a corresponding dose of poison in
his head, to counterbalance it.

To " rope " a mustang is another of the
regular sports or duties of the Texan. The wild
horses will often, in their exceeding fierceness,
gallop towards those who approach them, and
finish by a vicious leap of eight or ten feet over
a stream, to attack a man. A cruel recklessness
is shown in taming these beautiful
creatures, which abound in such vast numbers
as to be sometimes sold for only a few dollars
apiece. In being caught, they may be so far
injured as to become useless, and frequently
they are brought to a cruel death by the rough
handling and hard riding they undergo. If
not immediately wanted when caught, they are
branded with the captor's mark, and turned
loose again, or " hobbed," to prevent their
straying far away. "Hobbing" is tying the
fore legs together, so that the mustang can
proceed only by little leaps a movement
grotesque enough in the elegant creature naturally
so agile. Mustangs, however, submit to the
hobbing more passively than one would expect;