"Desperado" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... do so. The elder Toodles, who appeared to have been meditating a rescue, unclenched their fists. The younger Toodles clustered round their mother's gown, and peeped from under their own chubby arms at their desperado brother and his unknown friend. Everybody blessed the gentleman with the beautiful teeth, who wanted ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... this same month of September, 1861, sacked and in part burnt Humboldt, for which dastardly and quite unwarrantable deed, James G. Blunt, acting under orders from Lane, took speedy vengeance; and the world was soon well rid of the instigator and leader of the outrage, the desperado, John Matthews.[109] ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... stop a mob! Can Jack Fairfax stop a mob! Well, I should smile! Ex-desperado—nineteen scalps on his string. Can ...
— A Double Barrelled Detective Story • Mark Twain
... to be of a desirable class. The banks of the Mississippi River had long been hiding-places for pirate bands, whose exploits were notorious, and the "half-breed tract" was a known place of refuge for the horse thief, the counterfeiter, and the desperado of any calling. The settlement of the Mormons in such a region, with an invitation to the world at large to join them and be saved, was a piece of good luck for this lawless class, who found a covering cloak in the ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... disturbed by this unforeseen turn of events. He had decided against informing Matak until he had lodged Malabanan safely behind prison walls, then to confront him with the Moro and if he proved to be Matak's long sought enemy, he would add the charge of triple murder against the desperado. The day of private vengeance must pass in Mindanao—vengeful killings were ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... braggadocio, swaggering tone, others in low, murmuring voices, audible only to themselves, and still others in confidential whispers. Of those who have figured heretofore in the incidents of this story, we may mention the hard-featured, desperado-looking fellows who had conceived a dislike to Duval, as being very earnestly engaged in some matter among themselves, doubtless of a vile character; it would seem, too, from their manner, that others than themselves were not to ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison
... towards her but was going onwards slowly before her. She hastened, and presently came up with an old man, poorly dressed in a dreadful frock-coat and disgraceful trousers, wearing on his long gray locks a desperado of a top hat, and carrying, in a bloated and almost purple hand, a large ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... by a sudden effort, burst open the door, rushed upon Bettys, and seized him in such a manner that he could make no resistance. He was then pinioned so firmly that to escape was impossible; and so the desperado, in spite of all his threats, was a tame and quiet prisoner, and no one hurt in taking him. Bettys then asked leave to smoke, which was granted; and he took out his tobacco, with something else which he threw into the fire. Cory saw this ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson
... Erskine, "are the two best companies of the regiment to be kept at bay by a single desperado? Shame on ye, fellows! If his hands are too many for you, ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... be hanged for shooting a watchman named Twyford, on the night of July 22, 1806. An alibi was set up in defence, and though it was unsuccessful, circumstances afterwards came to light tending to prove that though Matsell was a desperado of the worst kind, who had long kept clear of the punishments he had deserved, in this instance he suffered for another. There was a disreputable gang with one of whom, Kate Pedley, Matsell had formed an intimate connection, who had a grudge against Twyford on account of his interfering and ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... sword in hand on a blood-stained deck, in a gory uniform trimmed with skulls and cross-bones, and order his enemies to be thrown one by one into the sea. "The shark awaits your car-casses!" spouted the imaginary desperado with a vicious snap of his teeth; and when Aunt Greg interrupted by asking him to bring in an armful of kindling, he glared at her like the Red Rover himself. Poor Aunt Greg! how little she guessed what was passing in ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... muscle in his frame tightened. He saw the beginning of the grooves in the barrel of the pistol and the gray cones of the bullets at the side in the cylinder; he saw the cruel, black, drunken eyes of the young desperado. It was all in a flash. He had not a chance for his life. Yes, ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... that what just before might have seemed to him a thing most momentous, now seems but a part of the general .. joke. There is nothing like the perils of whaling to breed this free and easy sort of genial, desperado philosophy; and with it I now regarded this whole voyage of the Pequod, and the great White Whale its object. Queequeg, said I, when they had dragged me, the last man, to the deck, and I was still shaking myself in my jacket to fling off the water; Queequeg, my fine friend, does ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... clutches, some transparent pretext was found—the suppression of a slavery different from and not so cruel as that of commerce; the pushing of a religion no longer believed in by its promoters; the 'rescue' of some desperado or homicidal madman whose misdeeds had got him into trouble amongst the natives of the 'barbarous' country—any stick, in short, which would beat the dog at all. Then some bold, unprincipled, ignorant adventurer was found (no difficult task in ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... fair sons and daughters to an undemonstrable creed. The heavy air of ecclesiasticism still hangs over her. The priests and monks who accompanied every sanguinary expedition of the Conquistadores, ready at all times to absolve any desperado who might slay a harmless Indian in the name of Christ, have their successors to-day in the astute and untiring sons of Rome, who conserve the interests of Holy Church within these battered walls and guard their portals against the entrance of ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... justice from the guiltless to the guilty when I entreat you to look elsewhere for the culprit who committed this deed." Pausing, she held her two hands out before him. "It must have been some common burglar or desperado; can you not bring him, then, ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... as he spoke—a frightful smile—and laid a very strong emphasis on those two words, "Somebody else." There is evidently a third ruffian, a nameless desperado, concerned in ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... deeds are done by daylight. I could tell you of some, as scaling castles, making prisoners, and the like, where one who shall be nameless hath run higher risk and gained greater favour than any desperado in the train of desperate Charles of Burgundy. And if it please his Majesty to remain behind, and in the background, while such things are doing, he hath the more leisure of spirit to admire, and the more liberality of hand to reward the adventurers, whose dangers, perhaps, and whose ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... they were or what their business was, but he suspected the latter to be something illegal, and despite the poor showing they had made in the fight on the boat it was apparent that there was in them at least a tinge of the desperado. The swamps of Southern Florida, he knew, were favorite hiding places for scores of bad men. These men probably spent a good deal of time on the river which he must use, and therefore he had no wish to make them his ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... his lawless career this supernaturally gifted desperado, having collected a band of followers, fastened round their ankles such heavy weights that they were at first totally unable to move; but, as the fruit of continual exertions, they by-and-by managed to creep a few paces, later on ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... was a judge and was holding court in a small settlement, a border ruffian, a murderer and desperado, came into the court-room with brutal violence and interrupted the court. The judge ordered him to be arrested. The officer did not dare approach him. "Call a posse," said the judge, "and arrest him." But they also shrank with fear from the ruffian. "Call me, then," said Jackson; "this ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... not appear like a desperado or outlaw," he thought. "There is nothing to distinguish him from the majority of men one meets in ordinary intercourse. He is a problem to me, I should like to ...
— Do and Dare - A Brave Boy's Fight for Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... parts of the ships, at first in little knots of two and three, which gradually increased and became formidable, joining in murmurs and menaces against the admiral. They exclaimed against him as an ambitious desperado who, in a mad fantasy, had determined to do something extravagant to render himself notorious. What obligation bound them to persist, or when were the terms of their agreement to be considered as fulfilled? ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Volume I. - Voyages Of Discovery And Early Explorations: 1000 A.D.-1682 • Various
... deal from Jacques who, despite his desperado exterior, proved to be friendly and communicative, glad no doubt of someone to chat with since his master was so particularly reserved. His master, Jacques confided about the third day, was not a man at ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... entered the room in which they were assembled, and called upon them to surrender. Smithers, an active police-officer, rushed forward to secure the ringleader; but he was pierced through with the desperado's sword, and fell. The lights were now extinguished, and the conflict became general, while some of the gang endeavoured to make their escape. Although, indeed, the police were soon aided by thirty soldiers of the Coldstream Guards, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... settlers were impinging on the old Irish families. A bold man might indeed keep the forces of law at bay for a time; but James McMurrough, notwithstanding the folly into which he had been led, was no desperado. He had no desire to live with a rope round his neck, to flee to the bog on the least alarm, and, in the issue, to give his name ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... all the prisoners at once, all except Hinkey," Sergeant Noll reported back to his chum and to Lieutenant Prescott. "The leader of the gang is a half-popular fellow with some classes here in the mountains. Despite the fact that he's a desperado, he is often surprisingly good-natured, and always game when he loses. His name is Griller—Butch Griller, he's called. His crew are called the Moccasin Gang, because Griller has always preferred that his men wear moccasins instead of shoes. Shoes ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... man put on the true look of a desperado, resolved on mischief if opposed: but that, after pausing a moment, he began, with a kind of humorous anger, to rub the side of his face, as if it were benumbed] Faith, on recollection, I believe ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... Chick was but a dirty, ragged little boy, undersized and underfed, and rather frightened, to himself at least he was a bold desperado, about to avenge ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... holster that hung from the pommel of the saddle of each girl there was a double-barreled pistol, loaded and ready for instant use; and it was not there for ornament. Both girls had been trained to use the rifle and the pistol; and never, since Iola's frightful experience with the Mexican desperado, Padilla, some three years before,[1] had either girl been permitted to ride, even a short distance from the house, without having one or both of these weapons with her. Consequently, trained and ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... of national trait, you know, very much like the way we English bury our heads in the sand when we hear unpleasant truths. The last thing Fischer wants is advertisement, and yet he goes to some of his Fourteenth Street friends and unearths a popular desperado to get rid of me. The fellow happens most unexpectedly to fail, and now Fischer has to face a good many awkward questions and a good deal of notoriety. No, I don't think Fischer is ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... he was arraigned before a jury, tried for his life. He proved the accident by an existing friendship-he was honourably acquitted. His employer, after reproaching him for his proceedings, again admitted him into his employment. Such, however, was his inclination to display the desperado, that before the expiration of another year he killed a negro, shot two balls at one of his fellows, one of which was well nigh proving fatal, and left the state. His recklessness, his previous acts of malignity, his want of position, all left him little ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... this cave was one of the hiding places of a famous desperado and horse thief whose gang operated over all this country in early days. The only entry is by means of a ladder in a narrow crevice 20 feet deep. The place may have been a refuge, but never a residence. It is one-fourth of ...
— Archeological Investigations - Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 76 • Gerard Fowke
... the awful sentence that thundered from his lips. What was grammar to a desperado like that? I was glad in my heart that I had been spared these scenes of malignant carnage. No Bedouins attacked our terrible rear. And none attacked the front. The new-comers were only a reinforcement of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... then the rage in every settlement from Dawson to the coast. I mention the bar, as it was the scene of a somewhat amusing incident, which, however, is, as a Klondiker would say, "up against me." About this period a "desperado" of world-wide fame named Harry Tracy was raising a siege of terror in the State of Oregon, having committed over a dozen murders, and successfully baffled the police. We had found Dawson wild with excitement ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... of the melon. There's a scheme on to get the stuff, when who should come on the scene but our little party, and that makes 'em all nervous, 'cause Monty's a bad man to be up against. Remember: she claimed that she knows Monty and he knows her. She means by that that he knows she's a desperado, and she thinks he'll draw the line at a trip that promises murder and blackmail and such like dirty work. So she puts a scare into us with a view to our throwing a scare into him. If I scare any one, it's going to be ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... "The bay and harbour are defended by batteries, formerly consisting of upwards of a hundred pieces, but lately suffered to fall into decay. These batteries received extensive additions after the alarm caused by the descent of the notorious Paul Jones in 1778. This desperado, who was a native of Galloway, and had served his apprenticeship in Whitehaven, landed here with thirty armed men, the crew of an American privateer which had been equipped at Nantes for this expedition. The success of the enterprise was, however, frustrated by one of the company, through ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... looked upon as a hero even by those colonists who had no sympathy with pirates, and as for Esquemeling, he simply worshipped the great Brazilian desperado. If he had been writing the life and times of Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, or Mr. Gladstone, he could not have been more enthusiastic in his praises. And as in The Arabian Nights the roc is described as the greatest of birds, ...
— Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts • Frank Richard Stockton
... party. Irwin House. Dongarra. An address presented. A French gentleman. Greenough Flats. Another address. Tommy's tricks. Champion Bay. Palmer's camp. A bull-camel poisoned. The Bowes. Yuin. A native desperado captured. His escape. Cheangwa. Native girls and boys. Depart for the interior. Natives follow us. Cooerminga. The Sandford. Moodilah. Barloweerie Peak. Pia Spring. Mount Murchison. Good pastoral country. Farewell to the last ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... into the Blackwater before, but never when there were any logs in the pot. Moreover, on this particular morning, he was overwrought with weariness. For a little short of three days he had been at the utmost tension of body, brain, and nerve, in hot but wary pursuit of a desperado whom it was his duty, as deputy-sheriff of his county, to capture and bring ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... For the apprehension and arrest of a notorious young desperado who hails to the name of Deadwood Dick. His present whereabouts are somewhat contiguous to the Black Hills. For further information, and so forth, apply ...
— Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road - or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills • Edward L. Wheeler
... and him was all too narrow for his liking. Well he knew how swiftly Jean could move, how certainly he could strike when the need arose. But for this Bill had done murder that night, as surely as ever softly treading human desperado in the dead of night has done murder at a bedside. As it was he thought he must fight. Well, he was prepared. Nay, his bowels yearned for it just as strongly as any dog's bowels had yearned for fresh-killed meat ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... was no coward; had there been a single chance in his favor, he would have grappled with the robber, rather than yield to his demand; yet he was slender and by no means powerful—he was also unarmed; and besides, the idea flashed through his mind that the desperado might be of use to him, and these considerations prompted him to speak in ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... impulse, and the unforeseen result had been to save this desperado from justice. But the worst of it was that she could not find it in her heart to regret it. Granted that he was a villain, double-dyed and beyond hope, yet he was the home of such courage, such virility, that her unconsenting admiration went out in spite of herself. ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... green table. They seemed to see a frowzy desperado, shaggy as a bison, in a red shirt and jackboots, hung about the waist with an assortment of six-shooters and bowie-knives, and standing against a background of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... companion, came over them in a blind wave of fury. The sun, now well above the horizon, shone warmly down upon them. They were in the midst of an infrequent Winter thaw. The full current of the river was between them and the desperado. It might be days, a week, before ice would again form; yet, connecting the island with the western bank, it was even now in place. Blair had but to wait until cover of night, and depart in peace—on foot, ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... to approach him. They tried to starve him into submission; but finding he was not to be subdued in that way, they sent for Friend Hopper, as they were accustomed to do in all such difficult emergencies. He went boldly into the cell, looked the desperado calmly in the face, and said, "It is foolish for thee to contend with the authorities. Thou wilt be compelled to yield at last. I will inquire into thy case. If thou hast been unjustly dealt by, I promise thee it shall be remedied." This kind and sensible remonstrance had ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... will when I've got through with ye," replied the desperado with brutal coolness. "I'll take some more o' that meat—an' don't you let it burn, neither. Where's the sugar for the coffee? I'll get a bigger club if ye don't look spry," and so the tramp was served with his meal. "Now ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... a fast train, and they let it pass. They flagged the freight train, and one of the robbers, who was doubtless new at the business, caught the passing engine and climbed into the cab. The engineer, seeing the man's masked face at his elbow, struck it a fearful blow with his great fist. The amateur desperado sank to the floor, his big, murderous gun rattling on the iron plate of the coal-deck. Yank, the engineer, grabbed the gun, whistled off-brakes, and opened the throttle. The sudden lurch forward proved too ...
— The Last Spike - And Other Railroad Stories • Cy Warman
... night, while the party were at cards, "Wild Dick" Minton entered. He was a desperado, and it was said that he had killed at least two men in ...
— The Hunted Outlaw - Donald Morrison, The Canadian Rob Roy • Anonymous
... desperado named Vandemark, well known to the annals of local crime as 'Cow Vandemark,' was arrested last Wednesday for leading the riots which have cleaned out those industrious citizens who have been jumping claims in this county. A reporter of the Journal, which finds out everything ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... have refrained from dwelling on the lawless characteristics of the frontier, because they are sufficiently well known. The gambler and desperado, the regulators of the Carolinas and the vigilantes of California, are types of that line of scum that the waves of advancing civilization bore before them, and of the growth of spontaneous organs of authority where legal authority was absent. Compare Barrows, "United States ...
— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... produced the inevitable effect. A great number of adventurers flocked into the country, some desirable and some very much the reverse. There were circumstances, however, which kept away the rowdy and desperado element who usually make for a newly opened goldfield. It was not a class of mining which encouraged the individual adventurer. There were none of those nuggets which gleamed through the mud of the dollies at Ballarat, or recompensed the forty-niners in California for all their travels and their ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Scriptures; so therein that short but sweet digression, against black-mouthed Parker, wherein the gracious author takes out his own soul, and sets before thine eye, the image of God impressed thereon; for while he deals with that desperado by clear and convincing reason, flowing natively from the pure fountain of divine revelation, he hath the advantage of most men, and writers too, in silencing that proud blasphemer of the good ways of God, with arguments taken from what he hath found acted upon his own soul. And ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... a sound. Finally, at the risk of losing an eye which I justly value, I peered around and into the room. There was no desperado there: only a fresh-faced, trembling-lipped servant, sitting on the edge of her bed, with a quilt around her shoulders and the empty revolver at ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... her brave part in the capture of the famous desperado. But Cap was too sincerely sorry for Black Donald to care for ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... inferior form. The proper smoking is a briar, and, remember, it is not smart to have a new pipe. So soon as he buys it, the Blade takes his pipe home, puts it on a glowing fire to burn the rim, scrapes this away, burns it again, and so on until it looks a sullen desperado of a pipe—a pipe with a wild past. Sometimes he cannot smoke a pipe. In this case he may—for his stomach's sake—smoke a cigarette. And, besides, there is something cynical about a cigarette. For the very young Blade ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... Kintail's illegitimate son, to join him, and, according to one authority, became "a common depredator," while according to another, he became what was perhaps not inconsistent in those days with the character of a desperado - a person of considerable state and property. They often "spoiled" Caithness. The Earl of Cromarty, referring to this raid, says that Paul "desired to make a spoil on some neighbouring country, a barbarous custom but most ordinary in those days, as thinking thereby ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... book is in the Edinburgh for January, 1830, with this reference to Lamb's criticisms: "Captain Singleton is a hardened, brutal desperado, without one redeeming trait, or almost human feeling; and, in spite of what Mr. Lamb says of his lonely musings and agonies of a conscience-stricken repentance, we find nothing of this in ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... explained the causes which led to his expulsion from school after school. They tracked him to Australia, and unearthed dark secrets in his life out there which would have made the bushranger Kelly reject him from his historic gang. Finally, they brought him back to England a ruined desperado, intent on getting at his relative's wealth by fair means or foul. The robbery of her jewels was only part of his scheme. By killing her he obtained the whole of her wealth at once. Then a victim became necessary—a ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward
... had our hold-up; the cut-and-dried, melodramatic sort of thing you read about, or used to read about, in the early days, with a couple of Winchesters poking through the scrub pines to represent the gang in hiding, and one lone, crippled desperado to come down to the footlights in the speaking ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... deck, and the shock, falling even as I did upon the body under me, stunned me for several moments. My captain lay motionless. Then, when a sudden rush of cool water poured over us, I came to my senses and started to my feet. In another moment I had passed a line around the desperado, and was dragging him under the lee of the windlass, where I finally made him fast ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... ghostly deliberation, and the old man, all the desperado gone out of him, repeated it in a husky voice. Whereupon Detricand led him into the garden, saw him safe out on the road and watched him disappear. Then rubbing his fingers, as though to rid them of pollution, with an exclamation of disgust he went ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... no way distinguishable from those of other horse-thieves and murderers. Accordingly the backwoodsmen soon grew to regard toryism as merely another crime; and the courts sometimes executed equally summary justice on tory, desperado, and stock-thief, holding each as having forfeited ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... and opened the way for that ranchero and adobe civilization which, down to the coming of the American, in about 1840, made in this region the most picturesque life that our continent has ever seen. Following this is a period of desperado adventure and revolution, of pioneer State-building; and then the advent of the restless, the cranky, the invalid, the fanatic, from every other State in the Union. The first experimenters in making homes seem to have fancied that they had come to a ready-made ...
— Our Italy • Charles Dudley Warner
... her, troubled her, and rendered her weak. She was but a year younger than he, and her life had been almost as simple exteriorly, but at center she was of far finer development. She had always been introspective, and she had grown self-analytic. She knew that the touch of this young desperado's hand had changed her relation toward the world. As he talked she listened without ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... could do no harm. I accepted their kindness; they gave me my first start in business, which brought me here. It was not much of a deceit," she continued, with a slight tremble of her pretty lip, "to prefer to pass as the widow of a dead desperado than to be known as the divorced wife of a living convict. It has hurt no one, and it has saved me ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... and his feet had lost the third right toe, the fourth left toe, and the end of one hallux. His back, also, had sustained a severe injury, which had retarded his growth. This animal we called "The Desperado." ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... The black desperado emerged on tiptoe from Kenealy's cabin, just as Macbeth does from the murdered Duncan's chamber: only with a pair of boots in his hand instead of a pair of daggers; got into the moonlight, and finding himself uninterrupted, assumed the ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... a long sigh, but made no answer. His thoughts were doubtless serious enough, as he recollected that heavy stone which Jeff had not dared drop while descending from the tree; also the ugly look of the desperado's face. ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne
... and everything, and never embarks in any enterprise unless he has weighed the consequences and can carry it through to a successful termination!" replied the desperado, with an assumption of stern dignity that was in harmony with his stalwart form and reckless air. "But, come," he continued, sinking his tone of bravado, and speaking in the same easy, polite manner which Charley ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... satisfaction of helping a veteran poacher and sheep-stealer to escape through some of the meshes of the law. "You're a lucky {p.199} scoundrel," Scott whispered to his client, when the verdict was pronounced. "I'm just o' your mind," quoth the desperado, "and I'll send ye a maukin[111] the morn, man." I am not sure whether it was at these assizes or the next in the same town, that he had less success in the case of a certain notorious housebreaker. The man, however, was well aware that no skill could have baffled the clear evidence against ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... Vi.—or to give his full name, Vicesimus—Turner, a brother of the Judge, a man of desperate character, come into the bar-room, throw back his Spanish cloak, draw forth a navy revolver, and level it at me. Seeing the movement, he had thrown himself between me and the desperado and carried me off. These good offices on the part of Mr. Broderick filled me with a profound sense of gratitude. For years afterwards I thought and felt as if there was nothing I could do that would be a sufficient return for his kindness. On his account I took much greater interest ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... you want of me?" growled the desperado, uncomfortably, for he was satisfied that the weapon was loaded, and Tom looked as ...
— The Young Miner - or Tom Nelson in California • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... strongly opposed to the truce, and confident in his opinions at this crisis, was not a desperado. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... the desperado's arm just in the nick of time, thus preventing a terrible crime. But the end was not yet. There were five more bullets in the cylinder of the weapon, as the ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in New Mexico • Frank Gee Patchin
... he exclaimed, "I don't want to be potted out here by any wild huntsmen, or Northern desperado, or red Indian." ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young
... the young desperado, 'and I think he has had just a lang enough lease o't, when he's for betraying honest folk, that come to spend siller at ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... in his mind, he had come near pulling it all down again, like an ungrateful clock, in order to introduce a chapter in which Richard Skill (who was always being decoyed somewhere) should be decoyed on board that lonely hulk by Lord Bellew and the American desperado Gin Sling. It was fortunate he had not done so, he reflected, since the hulk was now required ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... cracking cribs and cops and doing time; Or else when he was flush of funds he'd carelessly explain He'd biffed some bloated bourgeois on the border of the Seine. So gentle and polite he was, just like a man of peace, And not a desperado and the terror of ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... date fixed for the execution of this very remarkable desperado, Captain Michael Malet-Marsac, Adjutant of the Gungapur Volunteer Corps, received two letters dated from Gungapur Jail, one covering the other. The covering ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... this coterie gathered at the home of Jasper Staggs. Old Jasper, in his earlier days, had been a town marshal, and it was his boast that he had arrested Steve Day, the desperado who had choked the sheriff and defied the law. This great feat was remembered by the public, and old Jasper nursed it as a social pension. But it did not bring in revenue sufficient to sustain life, so he made a pretense of collecting ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... powerful motive for his act, if he is to have the sympathy—though not the approval—of the audience after yielding to temptation.[29] This, of course, does not refer to deeds of violence which are really not only excusable but actually right, in the circumstances—like the killing of an attacking desperado in self-defense. ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... and formidable strength, and such ferocity and daring, that few cared to come into contact with him, lest by some chance they should be involved in a quarrel which could only have a disastrous termination. Public report fixed more than one deep crime upon this canine desperado; but still, somehow, he escaped the power of the law. Bruin felt flattered at his attention, and inquired what had ...
— The Adventures of a Bear - And a Great Bear too • Alfred Elwes
... his danger. His rapid glance took in all the precautions by which the intruder proclaimed his lawless purpose—the closed door, the bell rope cut off. There, between those four secret walls, must pass the interview between himself and the desperado. He was unarmed, but he was not daunted. It was but man to man. Losely had for him his vast physical strength, his penury, despair, and vindictive purpose. Darrell had in his favour the intellect which gives presence of mind; the energy of nerve, ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a streaky, grey sea coming and going on their left hand. Every mile they put between themselves and Chichester Mr. Hoopdriver felt a little less conscience-stricken, and a little more of the gallant desperado. Here he was riding on a splendid machine with a Slap-up girl beside him. What would they think of it in the Emporium if any of them were to see him? He imagined in detail the astonishment of Miss Isaacs and of Miss Howe. "Why! It's Mr. Hoopdriver," ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... consideration for the public. Exercise was ever his temporary specific for these incurables. Flinging off his coat, he cast away the cynic style engendering or engendered by them. He and Weyburn were for a bout. Sir John Randeller and Mr. Morsfield were at it, like Bull in training and desperado foiled. A French 'maitre d'armes,' famed in 'escrime,' standing near Captain Chiallo, looked amused in the eyes, behind a mask of professional correctness. He had come on an excursion for the display of his art. Sir John's very sturdy defence was pierced. Weyburn saluted the Frenchman as an ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... viciously brutal invention,—of bread and water and dark cells and the rest of the barbarities which society hit upon with such singular perversity as a means of humanising its derelicts. The prison record of Smith, the "revengeful desperado" who spent half a year in solitary confinement, is probably of as mild a punishment as was ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... The long impunity enjoyed by this desperado has made him daring to fatuity. Why, I was within a hair's breadth of capturing him ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... that they will blow her up," Will said; "but probably, as they have not done so already, her captain and most of her officers are killed, for it would require a desperado to ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... lynched and cut down and waiting for another yank, you certainly—are—mild! You're the tamest thing that ever happened. A lady could handle yuh with safety and ease. You're a children's playmate. For a deep-dyed desperado that's wanted for manslaughter in Texas, perjury in South Dakota, and bigamy in Utah, you're the last feeble whisper of a summer breeze. You cuff my ears proper? Oh, my! and oh, ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... in chase of at this moment, our own ship included. She is called le Feu-Follet, which is not Wing-and-Wing, but Will-o'-the-Wisp, or Jack-o'-Lantern, in English; and which you, in Italian, would call il Fuoco Fatuo. Her commander is Raoul Yvard than whom there is not a greater desperado sailing out of France; thought it is admitted that the fellow has ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... need to think," the desperado added, "that you can come here and make a gun-play on our deputy. We get along all right with him and I reckon we ain't going to stand for any cow-thieves from Lincoln ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... murder to his account and who had the citizens of the town so terrorized that they were afraid to interpose any objections to his conduct. As soon as he learned that, Paul was in a rage and remarked that the citizens might submit to such intrusion, but he would not. The desperado, who had gone out of the room for a few moments, returned and was met by the angry navigator, who caught him by the neck, threw him bodily out of the room and kicked him down stairs. That cuffing did the fellow some good for it had the effect of encouraging ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... "The Stolen Treasure," which, with a high-flown name, and a most melodramatic and commonplace ending, shows yet great power in the delineation and grouping of characters. The young school-girls are as real as those of Charlotte Bronte; and although the typical maidenly desperado is present,—lying and cheating with such hopeless obviousness that it seems as if they must all have had to look very hard the other way to avoid finding her out,—yet there is certainly much promise and power in the narrative. Let us hope that the modesty of the title of this volume really ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... the rock, with a black infinity above and below; and before my eyes, now grown familiar with the peculiar darkness, stood Lord Ernest Belville, waiting for Raffles to emerge with full hands and unsuspecting heart! Taken so horribly unawares, even Raffles must fall an easy prey to a desperado in resource and courage scarcely second to himself, but one whom he had fatally underrated from the beginning. Not that I paused to think how the thing had happened; my one concern was for what was to ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... doubted my honor," continued Mosely with a grand air, "though you are my friend, I should have been compelled to take your life. I never take any back talk. I chaw up any one who insults me. I'm a regular out-and-out desperado, I ...
— Ben's Nugget - A Boy's Search For Fortune • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... having wavered and muddled, thought of this and but done that, of her stupid failure to have pounced, when she had first meant to, in season. She abused the author of their wrongs—recognising thus too Monteith's right to loathe him—for the desperado he assuredly had proved, but with a vulgarity of analysis and an incapacity for the higher criticism, as her listener felt it to be, which made him determine resentfully, almost grimly, that she shouldn't have the benefit of a grain of his vision or his version of what ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... of the road over Heavy Tree Hill in Sonora County. Near him lay two other bodies, one afterwards identified as John Stubbs, a resident of the Hill, and probably a traveling companion of Wade's, and the other a noted desperado and highwayman, still masked, as at the moment of the attack. Wade and his companion had probably sold their lives dearly, and against odds, for another mask was found on the ground, indicating that the attack was not single-handed, and as ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... have done any good to keep him in jail, and I thought I had a two-way scheme that would either show him up, as you say, or get me an excellent messenger. I intrusted Rathburn with a package to carry to the mines office. He's a gunman, a desperado, probably a killer, and I thought it would appeal to him to be put in a place of trust. If he fell down—then I figured you'd be able to get him like ...
— The Coyote - A Western Story • James Roberts
... tyranny over his feelings. His companions, Max Graub and Axel Regor, were separated from him, and from each other, at different sides of the table, and Paul Zouche the poet, was almost immediately opposite to him. He was glad to see that he was next but one to Lotys—the man between them being a desperado-looking fellow with a fierce moustache, and exceedingly gentle eyes,—who, as he afterwards discovered, was one of the greatest violinists in the world,—the favourite of kings and Courts,—and yet for all that, a prominent member of the Revolutionary Committee. The ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... voice the moment he entered the cabin, and realized that some devilment was afoot. Every town along this frontier has his record, and I've met him maybe a dozen times in the past three years. He is known as 'Black Bart'; is a gambler by profession, a desperado by reputation, and a cur by nature. Just now I suspect him of being even deeper in the mire ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... his supporters halted under protection of a pile of lumber and held consultations. In the station was an unterrified desperado who was an excellent shot and carried an abundance of ammunition. For thirty yards on either side of the besieged was a stretch of bare, open ground. It was a sure thing that the man who attempted ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... wasn't it?" sang out a deriding voice that set the crowd jeering anew. "You'll git promoted, you will! See it in all the evenin' papers—oh, yus! ''Orrible hand-to-hand struggle with a desperado. Brave constable has 'arf a quid's worth out of an infuriated ruffian!' My hat! won't your missis be proud when you take her to see ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... such an organization at its inception, by taking the lives of its members. But moving stealthily and unknown, the little organization grew. Whenever a good man and true was found, he became a link of the chain. At last it tried its power over a notorious desperado named Ives, by calling a public trial of the miners. It was a citizens' trial, but the Vigilantes were the leading spirits. Ives confronted his accusers boldly, relying on the promised aid of his confederates. They lay in wait to offer it, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... had been surprised to see her picture in the "studio" at the House by the Lock, I was doubly surprised to see it in a locket worn by a young desperado on the other side of the world. Impulsively I withdrew my hand which held the ornament, with the feeling that the man had no right to it—that I could not return it to ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson
... head thrown back, her teeth shining white as milk. And then, as she spoke to the lank desperado before her, there were little ripples of amusement in her face; her hands gestured as though in mockery. But all this won no reflection in the cadaverous mask of the burglar; his shifty, green-colored eyes were as hard as stone, and as pitiless. He changed his ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre
... had been broken on this flank, Kid Wolf ran across to reenforce the other sides of the circle. At one point the outlaws had already broken through the circle of wagons. Kid Wolf sent three screaming slugs toward them, and they fell back in disorder, leaving one desperado stretched out ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... sitting here," said the judge, "in this old pulpit, holding court, and we were trying a big, wicked-looking Spanish desperado for killing the husband of a bright, pretty Mexican woman. It was a lazy summer day, and an awfully long one, and the witnesses were tedious. None of us took any interest in the trial except that nervous, uneasy devil of a Mexican woman because you ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... military and patriotic spirit which Abdul Aziz had incensed by his subserviency to Russia. A few days later the deposed Sultan was murdered. Hussein Avni and another rival of Midhat were assassinated by a desperado as they sat at the council; Murad V., who had been raised to the throne, proved imbecile; and Midhat, the destined regenerator of the Ottoman Empire as many outside Turkey believed, grasped all but ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... the road grew heavier. The horses had to slow down to a walk and the wheels sank deep into the sand, which now lay in long ridges, like waves, where the last high wind had drifted it. Two hours brought the party to Pedro's Cup, named for a Mexican desperado who had once held the sheriff at bay there. The Cup was a great amphitheater, cut out in the hills, its floor smooth and packed hard, dotted with ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... prays. I ain't a prayin' man myself. But when a man kneels down in the bushes an' talks humble an' respectful to his God, an' then rises up an' jumps at the enemy, it's time for that enemy to run. I'd rather be attacked by the worst bully and desperado that ever lived than by a prayin' man. You see, I want to live, an' what chance have I got ag'in a man that's not only not afraid to die, but that's willin' to die, an' rather glad to die, knowin' that he's goin' straight ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler
... may then be supposed into what a dismay it threw Colonel Belford when one fine day he received a letter from Captain Obadiah, in which our West Indian desperado informed his brother that he proposed quitting those torrid latitudes in which he had lived for so long a time, and that he intended thenceforth to make his home ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle
... acceptance of what he had opposed bitterly two years, sat down foolishly, and listened to the pompous utterance of pompous phrases in praise of dead heroes and a living poet. Thought and speech failed together. If only some desperado would break in upon him and try to kill him! if the house would take fire, or a riot begin in the street! The old man finished his reading, congratulated the poet, blessed the pair in the old-fashioned style, informed his wife of the date of the wedding, and marched off to bed. After pulling ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... more, as did his bearing. His face was dark, his eye was dark and penetrating and passionate; his mouth was reckless and weak, his build was graceful, and his voice was low and even—the voice of a gentleman; he was the refined type of the Western gentleman-desperado, as Crittenden had imagined it from fiction and hearsay. As the soldier turned away, the old Sergeant saved him the question ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... and desperado that he was, his consummate aplomb nobody could deny, except Daniel, now capering and swaggering and twirling ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... set by one brave man had its influence on the crowd. A score or more volunteered, despite the objections of their wives, and it was not long before Anderson Crow was leading his motley band of sleuths down the lane to the foot-log over which the desperado had gone an ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... by remaining on deck? And having thus far carried our somewhat foolhardy adventure prosperously through, it was scarcely worth while to endanger its ultimate success by courting risks in which the remarks or questions of a drunken desperado might ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... companion's manner that he had not been particularly pleased at meeting this alleged desperado in broad daylight, but he courteously refrained from any such insinuation, and as supper was just then announced, the young men adjourned to the dining car, and the experiences of Mr. Rutherford ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... a bad man. He was in every sense of the word a desperado, and so was his partner; just the men most wanted by the head agent at the Reservation to ...
— Shadows of Shasta • Joaquin Miller
... catching hold of the revolver that hung round the burglar's wrist, hit him on the head with it. Immediately after the other two constables came to the help of their colleague, and the struggling desperado ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... shocked and stricken him, cleaving, in his love for his daughter, a goodly tree and withering many flowers. Still the marriage was but Adiante's gulf: he might be called father-in-law of her spangled ruffian; son-in-law, the desperado-rascal would never be called by him. But the result of the marriage dragged him bodily into the gulf: he became one of four, numbering the beast twice among them. The subtlety of his hatred so reckoned it; for he could ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... matters.' But among many things that amused me almost to the point of treating the form thus disrespectfully, the most amusing was the thought of the ruthless outlaw who should feel compelled to treat it respectfully. I like to think of the foreign desperado, seeking to slip into America with official papers under official protection, and sitting down to write with a beautiful gravity, 'I am an anarchist. I hate you all and wish to destroy you.' Or, 'I intend to subvert by force the government of the United ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... had been an apothecary. He carried the photograph of his betrothed in a pocket-book, and remarked that it did not do her justice. The cut of his head stood out from among the passengers with an air of startling strangeness. The first natural instinct was to take him for a desperado; but although the features, to our Western eyes, had a barbaric and unhomely cast, the eye both reassured and touched. It was large and very dark and soft, with an expression of dumb endurance, as if it had often looked ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... war was held, to decide whether it were best for a hundred and eighty men to pursue five hundred Indians and Canadians, through a region where every mile presented the most favorable opportunities for concealment in ambush. Gerty was a desperado who was to be feared as well as hated. Contrary to the judgment of both Colonels Todd and Boone, it was decided to pursue the Indians. There was no difficulty in following the trail of so large a band, many of whom ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... this suit you? I'll go down to my stateroom and stop there until we land in Italy; and, if you like, just to be on the safe side with such a desperado as I am, you can put a guard outside my door. But first, you'll send a sheaf of marconigrams for me in both directions. You're welcome to read them, of course, before they go. Then when we get to Naples, my friend, Mr. Herriott, will meet the steamer. He is second secretary at the United ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... and confused while James eyed the pattern of the gun. Then he heard the man's contemptuous laugh and saw him pull the trigger. The hammer refused to move. It was so rusted that the weapon was quite useless. For a moment the desperado's eyes sought the pale face of his would-be slayer. A devilish smile lurked in their depths. Then he held out the pistol for the other to take, while his whole manner underwent ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... comrade in that fashion was abhorrent even to the slack conscience of this desperado. So he grudgingly hefted the burden of the senseless figure and plodded under its ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... may be upon the person, an aggression is upon rights, possessions, etc. An invasion of a nation's territories is an act of aggression; an intrusion upon a neighboring estate is a trespass. Onslaught signifies intensely violent assault, as by an army or a desperado, tho it is sometimes used ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... these desperado traits and he fully expected Ulysses Junior to make him the father of a convict. Suddenly now despair became hope. Let Mrs. Budlong capitalize her spats; he would promote Ulie's. The affair Detwiller had turned out badly, but Mr. Budlong would not yield to one defeat. He watched ...
— Mrs. Budlong's Chrismas Presents • Rupert Hughes
... this political episode were personal. Hamilton had again thwarted the ambitions and incurred the deadly enmity of an embittered political desperado. A challenge followed and was accepted. On a summer morning, July 11, 1804, at Weehawken across the Hudson, the rivals faced each other for the last time. Hamilton threw away his fire: Burr aimed with murderous intent, ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... not hold more loyal devotion than his for Dictator Jaffier, to hear Monkhouse tell it; and how Celestino Rey had reached his ripe years, with such hatred in the world, was by no means the least of Equatorian novelties.... Here was a desperado in the sere, shaking for the need of drink, when he first appeared to Bedient. On the final forenoon of the latter's stay at the Inn, he sat with Monkhouse in the big carriage doorway on the street-level. The old man was elaborating a winsome plan to ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... he roared. "Ladies and gentlemen don't be frightened. This young man is no desperado, but he has been fighting them off down in front on the engine during the late ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt
... your laws. Not a single provision but lands you in some absurdity. That man with yellow gloves and a golden tongue commits many a murder; he sheds no blood, but he drains his victim's veins as surely; a desperado forces open a door with a crowbar, dark deeds both of them! You yourself will do every one of those things that I suggest to you to-day, bar the bloodshed. Do you believe that there is any absolute standard in this world? Despise mankind and find out the meshes that you can slip ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... sun gleamed on the barrel of Andy Lanning's rifle, and these men rode back in silence, feeling that they had witnessed one of those prodigies which were becoming fewer and fewer around Martindale—the birth of a desperado. ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... two foreigners sprang at him. One, swinging the porter off his feet, seized the newcomer's right arm, and, helped by his comrade, endeavored to force him back into the vehicle. The effort failed, however, so the second desperado drew a knife and plunged it deliberately into the unfortunate man's neck. It was a fearsome stroke, intended both to silence and to kill, and, with a gurgling cry, its victim collapsed in the grip ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... "Forever," and shout it at him! She was desperate enough to try her chances at shooting him if she but had the pistols, and was sure they were loaded—a desperate chance indeed against the best shot on the Pacific coast, and a desperado at that. ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill
... law than both of them. Esther's being a lady had, she thought, nothing whatever to do with her stealing a necklace, if she happened to like necklaces. She considered herself a lady, but she could also see herself, under temptation, doing a desperado's deeds. Not stealing a necklace: that was tawdry larceny. But she could see herself trapping Esther in a still place and cutting her dusky hair off so that she'd betray no more men. For she began to suspect that Alston Choate, too, was caught ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... present. Tom was dead: I flourished, a comfortable cumberer of the earth; Jaffery was doing something idiotically desperate somewhere or the other—he was a war-correspondent by trade (as regular an employment as that of the maker of hot-cross buns), and a desperado by predilection—I had not heard from him for a year; and now Adrian—if indeed the Adrian Boldero of the review was he—had written an ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... serious. What if I have to spend a night here? Gee! I won't like that much, I guess. Hello! What's that over yonder? Seems to me it might be some sort of a shack, made of palmetto leaves. Wonder who lives there? Ugh! What if it turns out to be that desperado ...
— The Outdoor Chums on the Gulf • Captain Quincy Allen
... did not really believe that Andy O'Malley would attempt any reprisal against him personally. Of course, the Western desperado might feel himself abused by Tom, especially in the matter of Tom's ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Locomotive - or, Two Miles a Minute on the Rails • Victor Appleton
... would doubtless find him a suitable wife with a dowry. When his military service was over he was going to be a waiter. When he volunteered this bit of information Emmy gave a cry of surprise. This dashing, swaggering desperado of ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... This noted desperado, although not more than twenty-six or seven years old, had the horrible fame of a score of murders. His appearance mated well with his frightful history and reputation. His intensely black eyes, blacker even than ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... this is also one of life's crossing-places. Here I beheld one man, already famous or infamous, a centre of pistol-shots: and another who, if not yet known to rumour, will fill a column of the Sunday paper when he comes to hang—a burly, thick-set, powerful Chinese desperado, six long bristles upon either lip; redolent of whiskey, playing cards, and pistols; swaggering in the bar with the lowest assumption of the lowest European manners; rapping out blackguard English oaths in his canorous oriental voice; and combining ...
— The Silverado Squatters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... for Cataline, and most unfortunate for Rome, that when the building fell, its fragments had choked three parts of the depth of that subterranean vault; so that it was but from a height of three or four feet at the utmost, that the fierce desperado ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... in this thrilled and ghastly perspective, and in immediate association with three creatures in whose company it is no fame to die: a little crying boy, a greasy unkempt sniveller, and a confessed desperado. Her base and fugitive son, to know the infamy of his cowardice and die of his shame, should have seen his mother writhing in her seat upon the throne his wickedness established ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend |
