Loyal Heart stopped behind an enormous block of red granite, whose height enabled him to stand up, in shelter on all sides save in the direction of the forest. But he had no great risk to run from any enemies concealed in the chaparral, for the night was so dark that it would have been necessary to have followed the hunter's every movement, to discover the spot where he now was. Loyal Heart was a Mexican; like all his countrymen, whose skill is proverbial in the management of certain weapons, from his youth he had been familiarized with the lasso, that terrible arm which renders the Mexican horsemen so formidable. The lasso or reata, for this weapon has two names, is a strip of plaited leather, rendered supple by means of grease. It is ordinarily forty-five to fifty feet in length, one of the ends terminating in a running knot, the other being fastened to an iron ring riveted in the saddle; the rider whirls it round his head, sets his horse at a gallop, and on arriving within thirty or five-and-thirty yards of the man or animal he is pursuing, he lets the lasso fly, so that the running knot may fall on the shoulders of his victim. At the same time that he lets the lasso go, the rider makes his horse suddenly turn in the opposite direction, and the enemy he has lassoed is, in spite of the most strenuous resistance, hurled down and dragged after him. Such is the lasso and the way in which it is employed on horseback. Afoot, matters are effected much in the same fashion, save that, as the lassoer has no longer his horse to aid him, he is obliged to display great muscular strength, and is often dragged along for a considerable distance. In Mexico, where this weapon is in general use, people naturally study the means to neutralize its effects, the most efficacious being to cut the lasso. This is why all horsemen carry in their boot, within arm's length, a long and sharp knife; still, as the horseman is nearly always unexpectedly lassoed, he is strangled ere he has had time to draw his knife. Of one hundred riders lassoed thus in a combat or chase, seventy-five are inevitably killed, and the others only escape by a miracle, so much skill, strength, and coolness are needed to cut the fatal knot.