I generally like to have it hangin' on a nail at the head of my bunk.

The fellers always laugh at me, but I can't help it; makes me feel more at home." And with that, still smiling at his own folly in a rather shamefaced way, he turned in the blankets and dropped the big coil of the lariat over a nail which projected from the boards just over the head of his bunk.

The noose was outermost and could be disengaged from the nail by a single twist of the cowpuncher's hand as he lay passive in the bunk.
On this noose Bard cast a curious eye.

To cityfolk a piece of rope is a harmless thing with which one may make a trunk secure or on occasion construct a clothes line on the roof of the apartment building, or in the kitchen on rainy Mondays.
To a sailor the rope is nothing and everything at once.

Give a seaman even a piece of string and he will amuse himself all evening making lashings and knots.