Law knelt upon him, and with a jerk of his riata secured the fellow's wrists; rising, he set the knot with another heave that dragged the prisoner to his knees.
A carbine lay across his saddle-horn, a riata was coiled beside his leg, a cartridge-belt circled his waist.
All day long he snaps his revolver and pretends to be a bandido, and when he is not risking hell's fire in that way he is whirling his riata and jumping through it.
He mounted his own horse and took a turn of the riata round the saddle-horn.
By shoving the riata under the colt's belly with a forked stick, and fishing the loose end up on the other side, he managed to get a loop round the animal's hind quarters.
And Collie disentangled his legs from an amazing contortion of the riata and tried to whirl the loop as he had seen the cowmen whirl it.
They'll string a riata across the road and hold up the car, most likely.
It was the riata with which he had picketed the pony.
He leaped from his pony, the coiled riata in his hand as he touched the ground.
As she spoke, she began uncoiling the rawhide riata which was tied to her saddle.
He passed the free end of the riata about them both, tying them close together.
He unfastened the riata from its sling, shook loose the noose, and moved forward in the direction in which he had last seen the buckboard.
The loop of the riata fell wide over him, immediately to be jerked tight, binding his arms tight to his side.
Finally he sat down, picked up his coiled riata and began braiding the brushy end of the rope and overlaying it with twine.
The cowboy must have divined something of what was going on in Matt's mind, for, as he laid aside his repaired riata and got up, he looked toward Matt.
He gathered up the riata of the mare, and started to pick his way with her through the Lava Beds to the oasis where the Navajos were camped, while the Pueblos speedily made themselves scarce in the opposite direction.
While the workers were thus busily engaged, the cacique came forward, holding his horse by the riata of plaited buckskin.
The cacique gathered up the buckskin riata of his plump mustang, which stood there champing the Spanish ring-bit till his jaws dropped flakes of foam, and retired to a safe distance.
His riata was wound around the pummel of my saddle, and so, as he went by he dragged me from my horse and the two animals traveled briskly on without me.
As the ascent grew steeper he grew proportionately less satisfied with his cargo, and began to pull back on his riata occasionally and delay progress.
Finally, there appeared his Riataand Spurs, Boston, 1927, a summation and extension of previous autobiographies.
Tinged with the blood of Aztec lands, Sphinx-like, the tawny herdsman stands, A coiled riata in his hands.
Some of the horses were stampeded, and one man had gotten his riata around his leg.
He said this with that Sancho-like simplicity with which most of his countrymen utter a proverb, as though it were an experience rather than a legend, and, taking the riata from the floor, held it almost tenderly before him.
I understood the gravity of the old man's face, the hushed footfalls, the tomblike repose of the building, in an electric flash of consciousness; I held the clue to the broken riata at last.
She saw that he was uncoiling his riata as he spoke, and divined his purpose, as, with a cluck and a boot to Panchito, she thundered after the big cat, her heart thumping with mingled fear and excitement.
An ancient straw stack stood in the rear of the barn and in the shadow of this he halted, removed the riata from the pommel, dragged the body close to the stack, and with a pitchfork he hastily covered it with old, weather-beaten straw.
The strain on the riata was thus momentarily slackened, permitting the big cat to scramble to all fours and turn to investigate this trap into which he had fallen.
The mare was at a fast lope and Pablo's rawhide riata was uncoiled now; the loop swung in slow, fateful circles-- There could be no mistaking his purpose.
He stepped up to the lion and stunned it with a blow over the head, after which he removed the riata from the creature's loins, slipped the noose round the cat's neck, and hoisted the unconscious brute clear of the ground.
A snaky, six-strand riata can be a rather terrible weapon, he decided, while he loosed it and flung it from him.
Dade uncoiled his riata with aimless, fumbling fingers and swung the noose facetiously toward the bottle, uptilted over the eager mouth of a weazened little Irishman.
Jack's riata was coiled in his hand and his head was turned towards the girl, his brain busy with his thoughts of her and her wilfulness.
The other end he tied to the second hair rope, drew the riata taut and tied the rope securely to the second tree.
The riata must be dressed now, Diego, and dressed until it is soft as a silken cord, sinuous as the green snakes that live in the streams, and not one strand must be frayed and weakened.
The riata loop shot from his upflung hand and sped whimperingly on its errand, even as Tejon tried to swing away, tripped, and tumbled to his knees.
At each riata length, all down the line, a vaquero sat quiet upon his horse, a living fence-post holding the riata fence tight and straight.
He had been nursing since yesterday a secret hope that the blue-eyed one would teach him that wonderful trick of making a riata climb upward of its own accord as if it were a live thing.
From the hide of a very old bull was this riata cut; perhaps the señor is aware that the hide is thus of the same thickness throughout and strong as the bull that grew it.
Jack, loosening his riataas he dismounted, caught the loop over the high horn and let the rope drop to the ground.
I said it to Manuel, when Manuel was sneering that Jack didn't know a good riata from a bad one.
The coiled riatain his hand shot out like an immense, writhing snake.
The Mexican, fifteen feet in the rear of Traynor had untied the riata which hung on his saddle and coiled it cautiously, watching the other man sharply.
When I left the cabin and started along the Waunakee road, some one in the bushes threw a riata at me.
When he was through he had a thirty-foot riata in his left hand and was holding the noose in his right.
The Sergeant mounted and took a turn of the riata around the saddle-horn.
A fresh burst of blasphemy greeting his request, he picked up the riata again and, dropping a loop over the rustler's head and shoulders, drew it taut.
It is sometimes made of plaited hair from the manes and tails of horses, but these are not common except where wild horses are plentiful, one such riata requiring the hair of not less than twenty animals.
A good riata (lasso) requires a great deal of labor and patient care.
Had Father Vicentio been inclined to scoff at this apparition as a heretical innovation, there was still the story of Concepcion, the Demon Vaquero, whose terrible riata was fully as potent as the whaler's harpoon.
Then when she had pulled against the riata until her narrow head and prettily arched neck were on a perfectly straight line with it, she as suddenly slackened the tension and condescended to follow me, at an angle of her own choosing.
He cannot loose himself, for his riata is fast to the saddle; the dragons cannot help, for he is drag so fast.
He would have taken the riatawhich she was still holding, but she motioned him to precede her.
Footnote: Stirrup hoods] A rawhide riata hung in its loop on the right-hand side of the horn.
But he could no longer protect himself from attacks from behind, and the riata was finally passed around his body, pinioning his arms to his sides.
One of them had a riata snatched from a saddle-pommel, and with this they tried to bind him.
Laying a course to pass directly over the man, Matt leaned forward and flung the riata downward.
All six of the cowboys watched while the Comet, catching the air under her outspread pinions, mounted gracefully--and then continued to mount, the riata trailing beneath.
Spearman, in his shirt sleeves, was tying one end of a riata to the timber which passengers in the aëroplane used as a footrest.
Bending down, he tried with one hand to untie the riata and rid the machine of its weight, but the knot had been drawn too tight by the pulling of Spearman and Slim.
Beneath him the trailing riata had as noiselessly vanished as if it had been indeed a gliding snake.
The lasso slips not much, but holds; the riata slips much and strangles.
No, for the noose of the riata was perhaps large,--who knows?
The horse-hair riata comes from over the range--south.
The Mexican may have won the duel by lassoing his adversary, riata and all," was the answer.
A quick riata man can beat a fellow with a pistol at fairly close quarters.
If you are wielding a riata you know that each of your coils is almost two feet or two and one half feet long.
Then the hair should be sandpapered off the outside, and when the riata is greased with mutton tallow and properly noosed it is ready for use.
Then an ordinary riata is only fourteen or sixteen yards long--twenty yards is a very long one.
The skill shown by cattlemen in throwing the riata or lasso often approaches the marvelous.
Every vaquero that pretends to take care of his apparatus will bury his riata and stretch it every six or eight months.
When the riata is resurrected it should again be left for a time stretched over a block, with a weight to hold it taut.
When the riata is made it should be buried for a week, ten days, or even a fortnight, in the sand.
Then the riataman must throw at a particular limb or projection.
The despatch then went on to tell of the skill of the victorious riata man, and mentioned among other wonderful feats, his lassoing an antelope running at high speed 100 feet away.
Then Bob's riata fell true, and as the powerful horse plunged and fought that strangling noose Phil came leisurely down from the fence.
Then he moved toward the corral gate, the coiled riata in one hand, the bridle rein in the other.
The cowboy's horse, understanding from long experience that this threatening mark for his master's riata was in no gentle frame of mind, fretted uneasily as though dreading his part in the task before them.
Leaving the cow-horse to hold the riata tight, Phil sprang from his saddle and ran to the fallen man.
Then he watched with admiration while the cowboy sent his horse after the calf and, too quickly for an inexperienced eye to see just how it was done, the deft riata stretched the animal by the heels.
Then Phil mounted Curly's horse, and from his hand the loop of another riata fell over the bay's head.
Bob's riata whirled, shot out its snaky length, and his trained horse braced himself skillfully to the black's weight on the rope.
As the men rode toward them, Phil took down his riata while Patches watched him questioningly.
He was taking down his riata and watching the bull, who was rumbling a sullen, deep-voiced challenge, as he spoke.
She even noted the fringed leather chaps, the faded blue jumper, the broad hat of the rider, and that in his rein hand he held the coil of a riata high above the saddle horn, while in his right was the half-opened loop.
The black dodged skillfully, and the loop of Curly's riata missed the mark.
With a quick motion he snatched the riata from the cowboy's neck.
As the pedestrian crossed the creek at the Burnt Ranch, Joe Conley, leading a horse by a riata which was looped as it had fallen about the animal's neck, came through the big corral gate across the road from the house.
Had Patches, too, at some time in those days that were gone, been caught by the riata of circumstance or environment, and in some degree robbed of his God-inheritance?
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "riata" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
