Page:A La California.djvu/86

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66
IN THE MISTS OR THE PACIFIC.
66

but actually so tie him up and entangle him as to eventually tire him out, and bring him into the town an unresisting prisoner.

But it is not every man who can do that little trick. The natives relate with pardonable exultation the story of a Yankee who came to California in early days, and soon acquired the trick of throwing the lasso with considerable dexterity. Hearing others talk of lassoing the grizzly, he started out full of confidence, to show them that he could do what any other man could do in that line. He soon raised a bear, threw the lasso with unerring aim, and reined back his trembling steed to give the brute an astonisher; when the rieta—which is attached always to the pommel of the saddle—came up taut. Judge of his astonishment, my little friends, when that bear quietly assumed a sitting position, took hold of the rieta, and commenced to draw it in, hand over hand! The hapless descendant of the Pilgrim Fathers stuck to the horse and saddle until he saw the slack all drawn in, and the bear and horse coming rapidly together,—with what result could not be for a moment doubted,—then hastily descended and hunted a tree, abandoning the horse to the underwriters. He had learned only half of the trick. Two skillful men, operating from opposite sides, can master a bear and choke him between them; but with only one man, one horse, and one bear, it is "bear and for bear" all the time.

Returning from the Steele Brothers' dairy at Point Año Nuevo, we passed the famed "Pebble Beach of Pescadero," a great resort, especially for