"Alert" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... shot for our pains. No, thank you. They are all on the alert, and all have their six-shooters in readiness. No, we must postpone our plan. There's one of the fellows that I mean to be revenged upon yet—the one that ferreted out our secret plan. I must bide my time, but I ...
— Do and Dare - A Brave Boy's Fight for Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... had arrived during this alert. La Grivotte passed by with her feverish eyes and excited, dancing gait, followed by Elise Rouquet and Sophie Couteau, who were very gay, and quite out of breath through running. All three hastened to their carriage, where ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... editor, who was fond of Harry, and who liked his alert mind. "If it comes to a breach, I'm going with my people. It's hard to tell what's right or wrong, but my ancestors belonged to the South ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler
... were on the alert for any chance that might offer to slip away, or even attack their guard, but the number of Brazilians around them was doubled in the evening, and after supper, which was served to them on deck by the light of swinging lanterns, they were taken ...
— Tom Swift and his Submarine Boat - or, Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure • Victor Appleton
... taken as a treat to see the Borghese Gardens by her uncle and aunt! It behooved her not to be tired by more sightseeing, since her betrothed would arrive when they returned for tea, and would expect her to be bright and on the alert to please him, Aunt Caroline felt. As for Stella, as that moment approached it seemed to her that the end of ...
— The Point of View • Elinor Glyn
... sitting outside a cafe on the boulevards on a public festival and observing his neighbours and the passers-by: their imperturbable good humour; their easy manners; their simple enjoyments; their quick intelligence, alert gait and expressive gestures; the wonderful skill of the women in dress. The glittering halls of pleasure that appeal to so many visitors, the Bohemian cafes of the outer boulevards, the Folies Bergeres, the Moulins ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... Montresor's bridge my thought went back to my former escape, and, avoiding all appearance of haste, I stayed to ask the sergeant in charge of the guard what the blaze meant. He said it was an alert. ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... was instantly on the alert. He was not to be caught napping, as he had been once before ...
— Dyke Darrel the Railroad Detective - Or, The Crime of the Midnight Express • Frank Pinkerton
... something, she could not tell what, roused Betty and she sat up suddenly in bed, every nerve taut, every sense alert. ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point - Or a Wreck and a Rescue • Laura Lee Hope
... several days, but still hopeful and cheerful; and as the weather mended, and the calm brightness of October set in, he rallied, and came downstairs again, not looking many degrees more wan and hectic than before, with a mind as alert as usual, and his kind heart much gratified by the many attentions of his parishioners during ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... hops brought it opposite to my post of observation. Here it halted as though it seemed to see me. At any rate it sat up in the alert fashion that hares have, its forepaws hanging absurdly in front of it, with one ear, on which there was a grey blotch, cocked and one dragging, and sniffed with its funny little nostrils. Then it began to talk to me. I do not mean that it really ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... help admiring the agility as well as the valour of my Mexican packers and muleteers on such occasions. They moved about as sure-footed and quick as sailors on their ship, and always on the alert. Whenever one of the poor beasts lost its foothold, the men would instantly run after it, and as soon as some obstacle stopped its downward career they would be by its side and relieve it of its burden. ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... search? And was this strange guide going on at random, or did he know—something? A suspicion leaped to St. George's mind that made his heart beat. The king—might he be down here after all, and might this weird old man know where? His own consciousness became chiefly conjecture, and every nerve was alert in the pursuit; not the less because he realized that if he were to lose this strange conductor who went on before, either in secure knowledge or in utter madness, he himself might wander for the rest of his life in that ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... fearsome eye out for was any man who might be an African magician. That he would know such a man he felt sure, having a fair idea from a picture in his book of the robe, headdress, sandals and beard proper to magicians in general. But though he was alert enough as he traveled, the only unusual-looking person he met up with was a man with a peg leg and a ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... where it had no business to be, and it was Cameron's business to see that it was not there. They had been given strict orders that there must be no lights and no sounds to give away their position. Even though his thoughts were with the stars in his search for God, his senses were keen and on the alert. He sprang instantly and silently, appearing before the delinquent ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... like a log, and did this time until about midnight. Then all at once I came broad awake and sitting up in my blankets. Nothing had happened—I wasn't even dreaming—but there I was as alert and clear as ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... Louisa, how delighted I was with these few lines; I enclosed them indeed in the cabinet given me by the author of them, but laid up their meaning in my heart:—I was quite alert the whole day, but infinitely more so, when in the evening my admired Henricus made me a visit introduced by lord H——, who had been one of my late husband's particular friends, and had ever kept a good ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... obeyed. While our hero stalked ahead, stroking his luxuriant whiskers ever and anon, we pursued him at an interval so great that not the most alert citizen of Little Arcady could have suspected this sinister undercurrent ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... her; and, like a prudent steward, she found a use for everything. She told many a good story about Miss Crawley's illness in after days—stories which made the lady blush through her artificial carnations. During the illness she was never out of temper; always alert; she slept light, having a perfectly clear conscience; and could take that refreshment at almost any minute's warning. And so you saw very few traces of fatigue in her appearance. Her face might be a trifle paler, and the circles round her eyes a little blacker ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... had herself seen him carrying the flowers and entrusting them to a commissionnaire with a message for Miss Brooke. She believed, too, that Lesley knew from whom they came. But she was not sufficiently alert and interested just then to make these matters of great importance to her. She did not think it worth her while to say how much she knew. With a short quick sigh she turned away, and expected to see her young mistress ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... marched secretly toward the Spanish camp, but owing to the bright moonlight they were not unseen by the vedettes. Besides that, Cortes had accustomed his army to sleep with their arms by their side and the horses ready saddled. In an instant, as it were, the whole camp were on the alert and under arms. The Indians, meanwhile, were stealthily advancing to the silent camp, and, "no sooner had they reached the slope of the rising ground than they were astounded by the deep battle-cry of the Spaniards, followed by ...
— The Story of Extinct Civilizations of the West • Robert E. Anderson
... stonily, and he knew instinctively that he was again a fresher calling on the second year. One, a Captain, raised his head to look at him better. He was a man of light hair and blue, alert eyes, wearing a cap that, while not looking dissipated, somehow conveyed the impression that its owner knew all about things—a cap, too, that carried the Springbok device. The lean face, with ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... to maintain his position, till the tree began to lean, when he slid down to about fifteen feet from the ground, and then clasped his fore-paws over his head and let himself tumble amongst them. Every club was raised, but Bruin was on the alert; he made a charge, upset the man immediately in front, and escaped with two or three thumps on the rump, which he valued not one pin. When once they have killed a pig, if you do not manage to kill the bear, you will never keep one hog; for they will come back till they have taken the last of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20, Issue 561, August 11, 1832 • Various
... we had the mortification of feeling that we had been deceived like children and huddled like sheep as an atonement for the sluggishness or obstinacy of that less alert and punctual class of travellers who, as the experience of steamboat agents had proved, could be aroused only by successive bell-ringings and repeated threats of a forfeited passage. We had some compensation and revenge, however, as, seated ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... to "what can Ramrod be up to now?" And often did we boys try to catch a glimpse of what was going on within that mysterious shed; but in vain. Ramrod seemed to be always on the alert, and the instant an intrusive boy's head appeared above the first dusty pane of the small window by which the shed was lighted, it was greeted with a fierce and harsh gar-r-ar-r-r, often accompanied with a dash of cold water, which the old fellow ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... every article of covering obtainable was in use. Lilama told a maid to bring out her dresses and wrappers, which she divided among the servants, each donning several garments. Peters, stoical, but always on the alert, called Pym aside, and explained to him that this change meant nothing less than the devastation of Hili-li—that the temperature was steadily falling, the wind increasing, and that the storm was only beginning. Pym could not but perceive that the cold was due to ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... his saddle, and was present at all hours of the night and day along the line he guarded seeing that the men were watchful and on the alert, instructing the outposts in their duty, and infusing his own spirit and vigilance among them. He had been educated at West Point, and had seen much service with the cavalry against the Indians in the West. Such was the man who was to become the most famous cavalry ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... to the sortie of the 16th April, Sir Sidney Smith kept the besiegers constantly on the alert by landing parties from the ships' boats on the flanks of their lines of trenches. The attacks were sometimes pushed home, the earthworks were overthrown, the fascines carried off for use in the redoubts, guns spiked, and intrenching tools captured, and these attacks ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... betrothed to one of those alert grim-jawed young Americans one sees in the advertising pages of The Ladies' Home Journal, learns of the suffering in Belgium at the beginning of the great War and finds she must do something about it. She ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 19, 1919 • Various
... followers had been expecting them with great anxiety. His alert and buoyant spirit had conceived a plan for enlivening the courage of the company, a little dashed of late by misgivings and forebodings. Accordingly, as Poutrincourt, Champlain, and their weather-beaten ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... often heard from Joyce. She cheered him with words of love and comfort, but absolutely refused to come and see him, saying it would be dangerous. In this she was right, for Andrew Harmon was alert. He believed that Joyce had had something to do with the disappearance of Calhoun, and had her closely watched. Fortunately his suspicions did not extend to Abe, so that communication between Joyce and Calhoun was not interrupted. ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn
... on the scene with his fine pointed nose, alert eyes, incessantly vibrating little tail, and miniver black and white coat picked out with tan, caused May as much excitement and delight as if she did not know one Greek letter from another, and were innocent of Latin quantities. She was so wrapped up in her acquisition, ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... him to be alive in any important sense, and not all beasts to be powerful. He is a practical thinker and deals with each phenomenon as it presents itself, and particularly as it shows itself to be connected with his interests. He is constantly on the alert to distinguish between the profitable and the unprofitable, the helpful and the injurious. He himself is the center of his whole scientific and religious system, and the categories into which he divides all things are determined by ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... bivouacked in sight of the cliffs under which the hated Aya Kinne{COMBINING BREVE} had their homes. At daybreak on the following morning they made their attack on the pueblo, but the villagers, ever alert and well prepared for an onslaught, offered desperate resistance, every man fighting bravely for his life and his family. All day long the contest raged; arrow, lance, and stone hammer dealing death on every hand. As nightfall shrouded the combatants in darkness, the invaders, depleted in ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... day. Up and despatched packets for Ballantyne and Cadell; neither of them was furiously to the purpose, but I had a humour to be alert. I walked over to Huntly Burn, and round by Chiefswood and Janeswood, where I saw Captain Hamilton. He is busy finishing his Peninsular campaigns.[341] He will not be cut out by Napier, whose work has a strong party cast; and being, besides, purely abstract and professional, ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... persons would also call the 'consciousness of a presence.' But the difference for me between the two sets of experience is as great as the difference between feeling a slight warmth originating I know not where, and standing in the midst of a conflagration with all the ordinary senses alert. ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... coming in such style, was, of course, likely to be honoured in every possible way by the landlord of the inn, and accordingly he was shown most obsequiously to the handsomest apartment in the house, and the whole establishment was put upon the alert to attend to any orders he ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... had all been reinforced, at the northern batteries; pickets had been stationed across the neutral ground; the guard, at the work known as the Devil's Tower, were warned to be specially on the alert; and the artillery in the battery, on the rock above it, were to hold themselves in readiness to open fire upon the enemy, should they be ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... Bowney was lifted off and placed on the ground again, and the woman threw herself on the ground beside him, caressed his ugly face, and wailed pitifully. The judge and jury fidgeted about restlessly. Still the horses stood on the alert, and soon three came through the ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... Ruffo know when a cigarette was coming, but kept him on the alert, pretending, holding it poised above him between his finger and thumb until even his eyes blinked from gazing upward; then dropping it when she thought he was unprepared, or throwing it like a missile. But she soon knew that she had found her match in the boy. And when ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... desire to set off instantly in search of Imbrie's camp. Knowing it must be near, it was hard to be still. Yet better sense told him he would be at a fatal disadvantage in the dark, particularly as Imbrie must now be on the alert. There was no help for it. He must ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... resettlement was slow and painful. Fortifications were built, old and young trained for soldiers, watch and ward kept night and day, scouts ranged the surrounding forests, and all were constantly on the alert. All hunting or fishing, all labor in forest or field, all journeying, was at the imminent risk of life or liberty. From the nearest swamp or thicket, from behind some fence, stump, or clump of brake, at any moment might appear the flash of the musket or gleam ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 3, March, 1886 - Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 3, March, 1886 • Various
... In like spirit, alert and buoyant, on this bright June morning go I also to reap my harvest,—pursuing a sweet more delectable than sugar, fruit more savory than berries, and game for another palate ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... increased, owing to a lull in the wind behind; the sinking implied that the force of a contrary wind was diminished, and that the inertia of the machine prevented it from readily accommodating itself to the new conditions. During this part of the voyage Smith had to be constantly alert to warp the planes instantaneously when he detected the least sign of instability, and he was very glad when he saw once more the reflection of the stars in the sea beneath him, and knew that he would encounter no more obstacles between Timor, ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... the alert, felt some change in his manner, and one Sunday morning received a shock. She was chopping wood in the yard. She swung the axe with a grunt, and the billet, split in two, left the axe wedged in the block. As she was wrenching it out, ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... would get George, or one of the other men or women, to go in and quiet the little girl. These games would not break up until two or three o'clock. Emeline would be playing excitedly, her face flushed, her eyes shining, every fibre of her being alert, when suddenly the life would seem to fade out of the whole game. An overwhelming ennui would seize her, a cold, clear-eyed fatigue—the cards would seem meaningless, a chill would shake her, a need of yawning. The whole company would be suddenly likewise affected, the game would break up with ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... Curator glanced earnestly at the detective, who seemed to have fallen into a kind of anxious dream. Would it do to interrupt him with questions? Would he obtain a straight answer if he did? The old man moved heavily but the now fully alert Curator could not fail to see that it was with the heaviness of absorbed thought. Dare he disturb that thought? They had both reached the broad corridor separating the two galleries at the western end before ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... for each took his position behind the tree barricade with all senses alert for any indications of ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... diaries for us. Reverend Mr. Smith, who was settled in Portland in the early part of the eighteenth century, wrote thus in his journal of an ordination which he attended: "Mr. Foxcroft ordained at New Gloucester. We had a pleasant journey home. Mr. L. was alert and kept us all merry. A jolly ordination. We lost all sight of decorum." The Mr. L. referred to was Mr. Stephen Longfellow, greatgrandfather ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... on the alert, though he little realized the danger betokened by the bird's rapid dart into the void. Turning first to peer at Iris, he satisfied himself that she was still asleep. Her lips were slightly parted in a smile; ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... expression of positive anger, the name of Gallia escaped his lips, as though he were dreaming that his claim to the discovery of the comet was being contested or denied; but although his attendant was on the alert to gather all he could, he was able to catch nothing in the incoherent sentences that served to throw any real light upon the problem that they were all ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... traffic with dressmakers, milliners, coiffeurs, maids, cooks, and furnishers; of paying and receiving calls; of delicious surprise journeys to the City to bring home the breadwinner; of giving and accepting dinners; of sitting alert and appreciative in theatres and music-halls; of supping in golden restaurants; of being serious, cautionary, submissive, and seductive; of smiles, laughter, and kisses; and of continuous sympathetic responsiveness—she ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... have come down to us from distant times through the songs of ancient poets. The narrow and tempestuous channel between Scylla and Charybdis bristled unquestionably with violent problems, but with none, I should suppose, that called for a nicer hand upon the wheel, or an eye more alert, than this steering of your little trireme to a successful marriage, between one man who believed himself to be your destined bridegroom and another who expected to be so, meanwhile keeping each in ignorance of how close you were sailing ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... the sun was pouring in through the looped backed Nottingham curtains upon the clean white matting and the varnished surface of the melodeon, passed on through the bedroom, with its framed lithographs of round-cheeked English babies and alert fox terriers, and came out into the brick-paved kitchen. The kitchen was clean as a new whistle; the freshly blackened cook stove glowed like a negro's hide; the tins and porcelain-lined stew-pans might have been of silver and of ivory. Trina was in the centre of the room, wiping off, with ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... to him, and we need hardly say that the M.P. was honored by instant attention. The Still-hound read it over very complacently. "Very well," he exclaimed; "very well, indeed, so far. Harry, we must be on the alert, now the elections are approaching, and Chevydale will be stoutly opposed, it seems. We must work for him, and secure as many votes as we can. It is our interest to do so, Harry,—and he will ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... which he originally offered to the world his interpretation of dreams was as circumstantial as a legal record to be pondered over by scientists at their leisure, not to be assimilated in a few hours by the average alert reader. In those days, Freud could not leave out any detail likely to make his extremely novel thesis evidentially acceptable to those willing to ...
— Dream Psychology - Psychoanalysis for Beginners • Sigmund Freud
... places the Spanish soldiers were in direct contact with the foremost of the restless backwoods host, and with the Indians who were most friendly or hostile to them. Open collision was averted, but the Spaniards were kept uneasy and alert. There were plenty of American settlers around Natchez, who were naturally friendly to the American Government; and an agent from the State of Georgia, to the horror of the Spaniards, came out to the country with the especial ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... my intention to be up and doing early on the following morning, but my slumbers proved so profound, that I did not wake until about eight; on arising, I again found myself the sole occupant of the apartment, my more alert companion having probably risen at a much earlier hour. Having dressed myself, I descended, and going to the stable, found my horse under the hands of my friend the ostler, who was carefully rubbing ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... doesn't describe at all the half-hour preceding the opening of the caucus, because the excitement was not suppressed in the least. Eager, shining, tanned faces, eyes alert, heads erect, straight-bodied and straight-talking men one by one took seats which were assigned to them ...
— The Story of The American Legion • George Seay Wheat
... him, shrewdly alert. He had never before ventured to utter words of counsel on this delicate subject. But having started, he was minded to make a neat job of it. Adam had never been the man to ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... conscious of undue excitement. Thought is easy." Dorothea dared not insist, and she read for an hour or more on the same plan as she had done in the evening, but getting over the pages with more quickness. Mr. Casaubon's mind was more alert, and he seemed to anticipate what was coming after a very slight verbal indication, saying, "That will do—mark that"—or "Pass on to the next head—I omit the second excursus on Crete." Dorothea was amazed to think of the bird-like ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... a hundred the old man would have gone by dreaming, but he was alert enough at odd moments, and this chanced to be one of them. He saw Paul arm-in-arm with a bandaged drunken woman, and as he recognised his son the ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... sakes, for commendations and applause. Let me then recommend this principle of vanity to you; act upon it 'meo periculo'; I promise you it will turn to your account. Practice all the arts that ever coquette did, to please. Be alert and indefatigable in making every man admire, and every woman in love with you. I can tell you too, that nothing will carry you higher in ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... some sign of an unusual or dangerous object. On one occasion I was able to walk to a spot where a large bull frog was sitting by the edge of the water, after the frogs about it had plunged in. This individual, although it seemed to be on the alert, let me approach close to it. I then saw that the eye turned toward me was injured. The animal sat still, despite the noise I made, simply because it was unable to see me; as soon as I brought myself within the field of vision of ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... the bout, however, could have failed to admire the skill and pluck of Terry. He acquitted himself well and kept up the struggle, even after he was convinced that he could do nothing with his alert antagonist. Then, when Deerfoot began to trifle with him, he turned around as I have shown ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis
... afterward, but Mack Nolan lay for a long while with his eyes wide open and his ears alert for strange sounds in the gulch. He was a new man in this district, working independently of sheriff's offices. Casey Ryan was the first man he had confided in; all others were fair game for Nolan ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower
... made precious little difference whether they knew or not. Children were being lifted into waggons, surreys, buggies. Great hampers were being stowed and re-arranged under the seats of the vehicles, sometimes tied to the single-trees to swing there with solemn, heavy gaiety. Young men, very alert, in red neckties and unbuttoned kid gloves, wheeled and turned recklessly through the streets in light road sulkies, drawn by high-stepping trotters. Dogs trotted about with their tails in the air, sniffing, quivering; there was a warm, cutting smell of harness, axle-grease, horse-flesh. ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... an alert voice that called from a huddled group of urchins in the forefront of the crowd, but the child flashed past without heeding, straight up the stone steps where stood a beautiful baby smiling on the ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... taken effect I should not have been able to tell this story. But I had been too much with my friend Jimmy not to be well upon the alert. We had often played together—he like a big boy—in mimic fight, when he had pretended to spear me, and taught me how to catch the spear on a shield, and to avoid blows made with waddies. Jimmy's ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... cry caught his ear. His eyes, suddenly alert, focussed themselves on the observation platform of the private car as it picked up speed and began the diminishing process. Braced against the garish brass bars that enclosed the little platform was Phoebe, in her white fur coat and hood, her mittened fingers clutching the rail, above which ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... Humphrey heard that," Bors said, and drew a deep breath. "Combat alert!" he ordered crisply. "We're attacking the Mekinese fleet. Handle your missiles smoothly and don't try to fire while we're in overdrive! We'll be going in and out.... Choose your targets and fire as we come out and while I count down. Overdrive point ...
— Talents, Incorporated • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... meet any one at all; but that was chiefly because he did not want to meet any one. He went with his ears and his eyes alert, and was not above hiding behind a clump of stunted bushes when two horsemen rode down a canyon trail just below him. Also he searched for roads and then avoided them. It would be a fat morsel for ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... notice, even amidst the many calls he had upon his attention, that Dr Lascelles grew more and more absorbed and dreamy every day. When they first started he was always on the alert about the management of the expedition, the proportioning of the supplies and matters of that kind; but as he found in a short time that Bart devoted himself eagerly to everything connected with the successful ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... To an alert observer the indifference with which Moore turned and pretended to study the gold ornaments in Ah Sih King's window might have seemed a trifle too obvious, and the smile on his lips, one might go on to ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... a barrack, my dear, The captain I'm sure will always come here; I then shall not value his deanship a straw, For the captain, I warrant, will keep him in awe; Or, should he pretend to be brisk and alert, Will tell him that chaplains should not be so pert; That men of his coat should be minding their prayers, And not among ladies to give themselves airs." Thus argued my lady, but argued in vain; The knight his opinion resolved to maintain. But Hannah,[6] who listen'd to ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... look at it; and presently you become conscious of a difference between it and all the other houses. They are all alert, busy, noisy, crowded with life in every storey, oozing vitality from every window; but of all the narrow vertical strips that make up the houses of the street, this strip numbered thirty-seven is empty, silent, and dead. ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... as he was, he had only the instincts of his kind. All his senses were alert, and his eyes looked for enemies in all directions but one, and that one direction was above. He never looked up, and it never occurred to his stupid, old head, sharp as he thought himself, that the little fire-carriers might have climbed up into ...
— Rataplan • Ellen Velvin
... not, monsieur," said De Coude; "but yet it will do no harm to be on the alert, and to know that you have made at least one enemy today who never forgets and never forgives, and in whose malignant brain there are always hatching new atrocities to perpetrate upon those who have thwarted or offended him. To say that Nikolas Rokoff is a devil would be to place ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... sentimentally—contented face of one who lives unthinkingly from day to day, sheltered in an assured position in her little world. MARK, her husband, is a lean, tall, stooping man of about forty-five. His long face is alert, shrewd, cautious, full of the superficial craftiness of the lawyer mind. MARTHA kisses the two women, shakes hands with MARK, uttering the usual meaningless greetings in a forced tone. They reply in much the same spirit. There ...
— The First Man • Eugene O'Neill
... their houses and churches wherever these had not been destroyed, and religious communities of both men and women were set up again close to their former monasteries and convents, though at the same time the Catholic Lords of the Pale were alert lest they should be asked to return any of the ecclesiastical or monastic lands that had been granted to them by royal patent. In Dublin and wherever Ormond and the Royalists had authority, both clergy and people enjoyed complete toleration, ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... thought that since he was come he would make him brave whether he would or not. And when the Cid began to war upon the town, and sent parties against it twice and thrice a day, as ye have heard, for the Cid was alway upon the alert, there was fighting and tourneying every day. One day it fell out that the Cid and his kinsmen and friends and vassals were engaged in a great encounter, and this Martin Pelaez was well armed; and when he saw that the Moors and Christians were ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... feet fell soft and noiseless on the narrow trail. Her head was high in ever alert attention; her long tail moved slowly in sinuous and ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... some opportunity to declare, that they always shewed the utmost readiness to carry into execution, in the most effectual manner, every measure I thought proper to take. Under such circumstances, it is hardly necessary to say, that the seamen were always obedient and alert; and, on this occasion, they were so far from wishing the voyage at an end, that they, rejoiced at the prospect of its being prolonged another year, and of soon enjoying the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... sky. But except for a hot wind the night was peculiarly quiet, and not a single shell was thrown: only from time to time the sharp double knock of a rifle showed that the outposts on both sides were alert. ...
— Ladysmith - The Diary of a Siege • H. W. Nevinson
... come," and then dashed up to their room, emptied the savings bank, packed their few necessities into small bundles and, carefully avoiding the rear of the section house where the kitchen was located, and keeping on the alert to prevent meeting or being seen by any of the section men or train crew, they ran down the side of the train, which was just pulling out of the siding, climbed—as they had so often seen hoboes do—into an empty box car, and ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)
... Ever alert and never once permitting anyone to stand behind him, with a gun in its holster thumping on his hip every step he took, Elbert Hargis must have lived again and again the days when his brother Jim directed the carryings-on of the Hargis clan. But if you'd ask him ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... many tasks I have alluded to requires the continuous strengthening of the spiritual, intellectual, and economic sinews of American life. The steady purpose of our society is to assure justice, before God, for every individual. We must be ever alert that freedom does not wither through the careless amassing of restrictive controls or the lack of courage to deal boldly with the ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Dwight D. Eisenhower • Dwight D. Eisenhower
... "Nineteenth Century," he concluded his tilt with Mr. Gladstone upon the interpretation of Genesis. His supposed] "unjaded appetite" [for controversy was already satiated; and he begged leave to retire from] "that 'atmosphere of contention' in which Mr. Gladstone has been able to live, alert and vigorous beyond the common race of men, as if it were purest mountain air," [for the] "Elysium" of scientific debate, which "suits my less robust constitution better." [A vain hope. Little as he liked controversy ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... coats, buff waistcoats, and broad-brimmed white hats, and wore riding trousers strapped very tightly over their boots. They were evidently father and son, though the elder seemed almost as young and alert as the younger. The old gentleman took off his hat, bent his grey head over Lady Eleanor's out-stretched hand, and kissed it with the old-fashioned courtesy which has now vanished. Then beckoning the younger man forward, ...
— The Drummer's Coat • J. W. Fortescue
... Yet I'm thinking of the great danger you'd be running. At this moment Terrero's spies must be plentiful in Rio Janeiro. Why, even every steamer that leaves New York for Brazil may carry his men aboard, alert, watchful and deadly. You don't know what a man like Terrero is like. ...
— The Motor Boat Club and The Wireless - The Dot, Dash and Dare Cruise • H. Irving Hancock
... arriving there about a quarter before eleven, after I had waited a few minutes in one of the small parlors, the President came down the stairs rapidly, and I took note that his movements were very alert. I had not seen him since the night when Mrs. Garfield had notice of the illness that had become alarming, and from which she was now convalescent, and said first: "Mrs. ...
— McClure's Magazine, Volume VI, No. 3. February 1896 • Various
... current of broken water, which swirled and eddied about with a rough irregular motion. As our boat passed the bowsprit of the Lydia, my father turned her head towards the ship, and my uncle Mansie was alert and ready to catch the coil of rope that was at that moment thrown down to us from ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... as the ceiling. He was never trained for hunting. We never thought of killing anything except snakes and tigers, and these we killed when they came toward the village and injured men. So Kari never had the training of a hunting elephant. Just the same, he was very alert and steady in the face of danger, so when it was a question of going into the jungle on the back of an elephant, we generally took Kari with us. During such trips we did not put a cloth of gold on his back or ...
— Kari the Elephant • Dhan Gopal Mukerji
... from too much sentry-go and too little sleep. There is little distinction between sailors and Legation people, for we are all in the same dilemma. On this eventful 20th of June, instead of being resolute and alert, everybody is merely tired and weakened by a couple of weeks' watchfulness against Boxers during an unofficial semi-siege, a state of affairs which has quite unfitted us for fresh strains. Yet beyond our barricades of upturned carts and stolen building-bricks ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... that the captain of the pirates—for such they were—being more alert and observant than his men, had noticed the presence of the two strangers, and had remarked the Caliph whisper to his companion, and the departure of the latter. Instantly divining that their proceedings had been discovered, and that the man who ...
— Tales of the Caliph • H. N. Crellin
... his horse's head, lance in hand, dirty, smoke-blackened, his ears deafened by the cannonade, his eyes cool and alert, warily scanning ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... troops - stationed in Lebanon since 1976 in an ostensible peacekeeping role - were withdrawn in April 2005. During the July-August 2006 conflict between Israel and Hizballah, Syria placed its military forces on alert but did not intervene directly on behalf of its ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... Bill Ward were on the alert. They had missed Courtland from the festivities the night before, but were so thoroughly occupied with their own part in the busy week that they had little time to question him. Later in the day Tennelly began to wonder why ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... did their best to outshine one another and were lost in the vast expanse of sky. To the east the rounded edges of the spreading clouds were tinged with a faint flush of dawn. Suddenly Nejdanov trembled and became alert. Something squeaked near by, the opening of a gate was heard; a tiny feminine creature, wrapped up in a shawl with a bundle slung over her bare arm, walked slowly out of the deep shadow of the laburnums into the dusty road, and ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... question of getting into them quickly my mother swept aside; and when I was complete, down even to the new shoes—Bluchers, we called them in those days—took me by the hand, and together we crept down as we had crept up, silent, stealthy and alert. My mother led me to the ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... much fame. This leads him at once to the Piedmontese business. Is not that an opportunity for the co-operation his Serenity had mentioned? At any rate, it behoves all Protestant princes to be on the alert; for who knows how far the Duke ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... alert in political matters, ready to seize every opportunity to do good and to promote the cause of freedom. He was, in a word, one of that large army of pilgrims whose ambition is to "make whole flawed hearts, and bowed necks straight." In 1791 he wrote an anonymous ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... in, laughing, for I took the drift of her meaning, and was wishful to prove myself alert. "Most allegorical lady," I protested, "I take you very clearly when you explain your own fable." And I rubbed my hands, instantly pleased ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... maltreat any sick or wounded Union soldier that chance might throw into his hands. The less reserved tongues of his daughters told plainly enough where the family stood on the great question of the day. But while they recounted to some of the junior officers who were always on the alert in making female acquaintances, their long lists of famous relatives, they had all the eagerness of the Yankee, so much despised in the Richmond prints, in disposing of half-starved chickens and heavy hoe-cakes ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... further on, as we passed the edge of a dense hammock, we heard the bay of an Indian dog, and fearing the proximity of a party of marauders, we were instantly on the alert. The dog did not, however, come out of the wood, and we rode from the dangerous vicinity with all dispatch. Arrived again at Fort Andrews, without any further adventure worth recording, we found a party of volunteers about to proceed to Fort Pleasant, in the direction we were going. After ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... cannot say. It may have been for an hour, it may have been for several. Suddenly I sat up on my rock couch, with every nerve thrilling and every sense acutely on the alert. Beyond all doubt I had heard a sound—some sound very distinct from the gurgling of the waters. It had passed, but the reverberation of it still lingered in my ear. Was it a search party? They would most certainly have shouted, and vague as ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... way, one that led down-hill to further dishonor; and Nasmyth considered gloomily what the end of it all would be. Occasionally he glanced at the lithe figure of the Canadian, standing knee-deep amid the froth of the stream. Serious-eyed, alert, resolute, he could be depended on to carry out any purpose he had determined on; it was his firm hands that would ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... half shout got through to alert the men on the jungle floor. True to their nature, the rock apes, now streaming downhill, were coughing their challenges, advertising their attack. And it was only that peculiarity of their species which saved their ...
— Voodoo Planet • Andrew North
... of the vast power given by material resources when under the control of a cool intelligence. And in the competition of nations it is not surprising that there should be an imperious demand for the most alert and well-trained minds to utilise these resources in war and in industry. It is not surprising; nor would it be a fit subject for regret, did not the concentration of the outlook upon material success tend to the neglect of 'things which are more excellent.' Writing many years ago J.S. Mill remarked ...
— Recent Tendencies in Ethics • William Ritchie Sorley
... been on the alert for such a chance ever since my imprisonment began. My seal-skin hat and jacket lay ready to my hand in a drawer; but I could find no gloves; I could not wait for gloves. Already there were ominous sounds overhead, as if the servant had ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... shooting trip of plume hunters to the Corkscrew might well net the gunners as much as five thousand dollars, and in a country where money is scarce that would mean a magnificent fortune. The warden is fully alive to this fact, and is ever on the alert. Many of the plume hunters are desperate men, and he never knows what moment he may need to grasp his rifle to defend his life in the shadows of the Big Cypress, where alligators and vultures would make short shrift of ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson
... of organization for country Societies," and the founding of "Alert-clubs," as originated in Norwalk (Ohio), also infused new life into the tributaries. Her master-mind smoothed all difficulties, and her admirable Reports so full of power and pathos, probed the patriotism of all. Societies were urged to work as ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... strange inherent power of the mind to rise to the occasion of a sudden emergency—to stretch itself long to the length of an event; I do not hesitate to say that no combination of circumstances can defeat a vigorous brain fully alert, and in possession of itself. With a quickness to which the lightning-flash is tardy, I remembered that this was a spot indicated by the symbols on the papyrus: I remembered that this same papyrus was always placed under the ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel
... things are possible. His constant endeavor was to discover new avenues of trade, or new modes of doing business, and then to utilize his discoveries to the full extent, by persistent energy and unwearied industry. He was always on the alert to find a new customer for his wares, and to discover a cheaper place to purchase his stock, or a better way of bringing them home. Whilst thus securing unusual advantages in supplying himself with goods, Mr. Gordon was losing no opportunity of pushing his business ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... returning, and she was on the alert in a moment. She caught the rope, and held it firmly. "The new clothes line!" she exclaimed, "Bless the boy! ...
— The Island House - A Tale for the Young Folks • F. M. Holmes
... when he predicted that the garrison of Quebec would soon slacken its vigilance. Arnold with the small remnant of his shattered forces gave up all attempt at a complete investment, but confined himself to an alert blockade. He burned the houses in the suburbs that interfered with his plan of operations. On his side, Carleton made a sortie or two to burn the rest of the houses in St. Roch's, with the double purpose of clearing the spaces before his guns and supplying the town with fire-wood, which ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... Westminster, and Lord Talbot made some inquiries as to his companions, adding that there were strange stories and suspicions afloat, and that he feared that the young man was disaffected and was consorting with Popish recusants. Diccon's tongue was on the alert with his observation, but at a sign from his brother, who did not wish to get Babington into trouble, he was silent. Cavendish, however, laughed and said he was for ever in Mr. Secretary's house, and even had ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was tired, and that the brightness with which she welcomed his advance was a trifle taught and perfunctory. Not the frankness, though, or the touch of "Now we are getting to business," that stood somehow in her expression. She looked alert and pleased. ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... fascination for him: never failed to soothe him and give him a sense of liberty. He liked the night, the dark rain, the river, and even the traffic. He enjoyed the sense of friction he got from the streaming of people who meant nothing to him. It was like a fox slipping alert among ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... poor, he says truly: "These are the sort of evils which, where there are no resident gentry, grow to a height almost incredible, and on which the remedial influence of the mere presence of a gentleman known to be on the alert is inestimable." But nothing, as I often had occasion to remark, could be more judicious than his interference on behalf of the poor, or more unlike the fussy impertinence of the philanthropists who think ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... eager to hear. The number of men professing Protestantism was above sixty, and counting the women and the children, the number was one hundred and fifty, the largest in Syria. Their enemies were on the alert, and it was a sad fact, that no competent native teacher could be found to reside among them. They were then dependent on a native teacher, who came to them each Sabbath from a distance, having first preached in his ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson
... provinces.[406] These affiliated themselves with the "mother" society at Paris and kept in constant communication with it. In this way the Jacobins of Paris stimulated and controlled public opinion throughout France, and kept the opponents of the old rgime alert. When the Legislative Assembly met, the Jacobins had not as yet become republicans, but they believed that the king should have hardly more power than the president of a republic. They were even ready to promote his deposition if he failed to ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... pistols. These were all loaded and placed ready for use, with a number of boarding-pikes, for we thought that at any moment the savages would come off in their canoes and attempt to board us. The whole night long they kept us on the alert, howling and shrieking in the most fearful manner. Soon after day broke their numbers increased, and as they could now take aim with their firearms our danger became greater. Fortunately they were very bad marksmen, or they would have picked us all off. Strange as it may seem, no one was ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... day, whenever Charlotte could bring her work into the sitting-room, she sat facing the glass door. She was not exactly happy; she was too strangely excited for happiness; but she was keenly awakened and alert. Every nerve in her seemed keyed up to its ultimate tension, and if the shadow of a cloud passed, even if a red leaf fell outside, she looked out ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... left hand that night, across the table from Chris Quinnion, and had seen the look of naked hatred in two pairs of eyes when Lee had risen to his feet and coolly branded Quinnion as a crook and a card sharp. For a little the two men had glared at each other, their muscles corded and ready, their eyes alert and suspicious, their hands close to their pockets. Then Quinnion had sneered in that evil voice of his: "You got the drop on me this time. Look out for the next." He too had risen and with Lee's eyes hard upon him had gone out of the room. And Carson had been disappointed in a fight. ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory
... not, however, destined to be very sorely taxed. He had fallen into a light sleep, and was dreaming of a hand-to-hand struggle with Long Robin, when some unwonted sound smote upon his ears, and he started up all alert on ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... any thing happened? You are surely ill," were the exclamations that met him on all sides. He tried to carry it off as well as he could, but felt that the movements he would have wished to appear alert were only convulsive, and that the smiles with which he attempted to relax his features were but distorted grimaces. However, the church was not the place for further inquiries; and while Natalie gently pressed his hand in token of sympathy, they ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... or disliked. As he entered the picture-gallery and paused for a moment looking at Felix on the sofa, his large, cold, steady gray eyes rested on the little man with an indifference that just verged on contempt. Felix, on the other hand, sprang to his feet with alert politeness and greeted his friend with ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins |
