If a fellow takes to the range, who is not in search of trouble, but merely intends to earn an honest living and make a decent home, he is better without a weapon. When I was a younger fool than I am now, and took a delight in revolvers, and bluffed with a gun, it nearly always got me into trouble. I found that it was a poor thing to shirk the first obligation of manhood, which is self-reliance, and sink to mere dependence on a weapon. [Sidenote: Self-reliance] Nobody who can possibly run away is fool enough to encounter single-handed a homicidal maniac on the war path, a gang of vigilantes or desperadoes in a nasty temper, or a hostile tribe of savages. Against such odds the use of a weapon in the open is merely suicide. The first thing needed is an inward prayer which makes one's nerve quite steady. A serene manner fills the enemy with misgivings that one has unseen support. To throw one's weapon to the enemy as a gift is to surprise him into talking. Once he begins, the more vociferous he is, the sooner he talks himself out. {176} A maniac temper will evaporate in talk in about forty-five minutes, but savages will sometimes last two hours or more before they are quite run down. After the first laugh one may walk away in safety. It is not safe to be seen in the state of collapse which follows the overstrain. The killing of live creatures or even men has always been abhorrent to me. I am not sure of having murdered anything bigger than a crow with a broken leg, who had to be knocked out with a stone as an act of mercy. Not being a sportsman I may not advise on the use of weapons for sport. [Sidenote: Range weapons] WEAPONS. There are three weapons used only by range horsemen. The lasso, known on the range as The Rope, consists of a noose which is spun by a delicate play of the thumb, thrown to its length, and the strain taken by saddle and horse as it catches a running beast. We share this practice with the ancient Peruvians, Sarmatians, Sagartians, and Scythians, and the modern Tartars of the Asiatic steppe. The bolas are three egg-shaped weights connected by as many plaited strings with a rawhide rope, and thrown like the riata to catch wild animals. This instrument belongs to Patagonia and the Argentine pampas. {177} [Sidenote: The stock-whip] The stock whip. This is an Australian development of the switch. It consists of an 18-inch wooden tapering handle, a keeper of kangaroo hide, a 10-foot thong of kangaroo hide in a tapering 12 or 16 plait, an 18-inch tail of green hide, and a plaited cracker of sewing cotton. At a range of twenty feet one flick knocked a revolver out of my hand and lashed my wrist to the thigh, making me a disarmed prisoner, yet causing no more pain than the brush of a fly's wing. It convinced me as to the usefulness of this weapon. III. THE WAYS OF RANGE HORSEMEN.