"Misstep" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Landless was no novice at such work. When a boy, he had often rounded the face of frowning white cliffs with the sea breaking in thunder a hundred feet below. Then a bird's nest had been the prize of high daring, death the penalty of dizziness or a misstep. Now, although not two yards below him was the solid earth, a misstep would send him crashing down to a more fearful doom—but the prize! A light was in his eyes as he crept nearer and nearer to the shed built against ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... spoken with such authority that Sheriff Larkin hesitated in his intention of landing the bloodhounds. Besides, having learned that one of these girls was a daughter of a member of the powerful lumber company, he feared to make a misstep. ...
— The Girls of Central High in Camp - The Old Professor's Secret • Gertrude W. Morrison
... misstep was one of precipitation. General Jackson, after a three years' war upon the Bank, was alarmed at the outcry of its friends, and sincerely desired to make peace with it. We know, from the avowals of the men ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... o'clock Mr. George Whitefield visited our Ministerium in the school, bidding us an affectionate farewell, and requesting us to intercede for him before the throne of grace." Dr. Graebner remarks: "A misstep as serious as this, admitting an errorist like Whitefield to the pulpit of the local pastor and synodical president, such as was done at this synodical meeting, had, at least, not been made before the time of Wrangel." (383 ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 1: Early History of American Lutheranism and The Tennessee Synod • Friedrich Bente
... sight; for the black waters of the great river seemed to make the darkness more dense than in the camp above. Deck's lessons in reasonable caution came to his mind; and he had quite as much need of them as on the field of battle. A misstep might precipitate him into the dark waters of ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic
... not bear to think of the life she had once desired—a peaceful one in the shadow of the Green Mountains with Beriah at her side, and orders for expensive oil paintings coming in by each mail from New York. Her one fatal misstep had ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... at once, nobody could ever tell afterward how it happened, Bertha made a misstep, and would have fallen beneath the railing and in among the machinery had not Violet darted forward, seized her by her clothing, and drawn her quickly out of harm's way. In doing so, however, she herself ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... by he looked around, and she smilingly nodded her head. He began picking his way along the ledge, carefully feeling his way, for a misstep or a treacherous support was liable to precipitate him to the fathomless depths below with the ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... closer. The water was up to her hips, and no river in the Rockies has a swifter current than the Gunnison. The bottom too is covered with smooth slippery stones and bowlders, so that a misstep might send her plunging down. Deprived of the use of her landing pole, she could make less resistance to the tug of the stream, and the four or five pounds of dynamic energy at the end of her line would ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... ourselves and our luggage, that the mosquitos would make up for lost time with impunity. The river, before reaching Manas, was so swift and deep as to necessitate the use of regular government carts. A team of three horses, on making a misstep, were shifted away from the ford into deep water and carried far down the stream. A caravan of Chinese traveling-vans, loaded with goods from India, were crossing at the time, on their way to the outlying ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... jests and laughter. You have said that you are a stranger in your own country, and I believe it. The very first day you arrived you began by wounding the vanity of a priest who is regarded by the people as a saint, and as a sage among his fellows. God grant that such a misstep may not have already determined your future! Because the Dominicans and Augustinians look with disdain on the guingon habit, the rope girdle, and the immodest foot-wear, because a learned doctor in Santo Tomas ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... an advance, making it very cautious, owing to the extremely rough nature of the country, and all their caution was needed, as they had to cross several ravines, and the ground was so broken that a misstep at any time might have proved serious. In this manner they made several miles and the general trend of the ground was a rapid ascent. Toward dawn they came to a brook flowing very fast, and they found its waters almost as cold as ice. Will judged it to be a glacial stream issuing from the great ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler
... last change in their course, was at the front. Frank now quietly moved beyond him, Winchester in hand, and ready for whatever might come. Confident they were close upon the men they sought, he was glad of the misstep that had warned them ...
— Klondike Nuggets - and How Two Boys Secured Them • E. S. Ellis
... perfectly that he would play in good fortune if the loss in horseflesh did not cost him most of the gains of the undertaking. Even the sturdy mustangs were not bred for traversing the trails of Clearwater. There were steep hills where a single misstep meant death, there were narrow trails and dangerous fords, and here and there were inoffensive-looking pools where the body of a horse may sink out of sight in less time than it takes to tell it. These were not the immense-chested moose ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... well, and I did not lose my head or my nerve, as we cautiously made our way along the narrow path on the side of the steep gorge, with a foaming torrent rushing along at its foot, nor yet when we forded the rocky and rapid Yellowstone. A misstep or a stumble on the part of my steed, and probably the first bubble of my confidence would have been shivered at once; but this did not happen, and in due time we reached the group of tents that formed the ...
— Camping with President Roosevelt • John Burroughs
... the cart and half turned and tramped around in the snow. He'd dropped the bag out, probably, missed it and looked for it on foot, setting his lantern down. He'd gone back quite a bit along the road, and, coming back with it, the light in his eyes, he had made a misstep, and the shaft—the old Granite Hill shaft, you know—it's close to the road. We found him in the sump at the bottom. There had been too much rain, but it is a deep shaft anyway. He kept his hold on the bag, and he kept his senses long enough ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... that it was the missing Muller, and it was altogether likely that in the storm he had made a misstep, and had fallen into the ravine ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler
... head," supplemented Bruce. "Look not so eagerly toward the west, Umballa. Your troopers will remain at the edge of the clearing. They have been informed that a single misstep on their part and their ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... true that I swore aloud; but what I meant by it was more like praying. Over me was the blue winter sky and the gold sun; under me the treacherous spread of the lake that was no lake, that one misstep might send me through, to God knew what hideous depth of unfrozen water, or bare, bone-shattering stone; behind me were Macartney and Macartney's men; and close up to me, nearer every second, my Paulette, my dream girl ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... of the fog the prisoner of El Diablo crept warily on. Deep ravines laced his path and yawned close about the trail. A misstep would hurl him to the bottom of the rock-lined gorge which was swallowed up in the mists at his feet. Suddenly he stopped and threw himself to full length on the ground. Far above him the solid whiteness of the fog wall was broken by irregular flashes of blue. To his ears came ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... him hesitate, and, knowing that he would obey, I dashed forward into the tunnel. When nearly to its end I made a misstep on the uneven ground and precipitated myself against the wall. A sharp pain shot through my left shoulder, but at the time I was scarcely conscious of it as I picked myself up and leaped forward. ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... off with stones. The situation was becoming gradually more perilous; but, having passed several dangerous spots, I dared not think of descending; for, so steep was the entire ascent, one would inevitably fall to the glacier in case a single misstep were made. Knowing, therefore, the tried danger beneath, I became all the more anxious concerning the developments to be made above, and began to be conscious of a vague foreboding of what actually befell; ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... after the 19th of October, 1846, the forlorn band moved slowly on their course through those terrible mountains. Sometimes climbing steeps which the foot of white man had never before scaled, sometimes descending yawning caons, where a single misstep would have plunged them into the abyss hundreds of feet below. The winter fairly commenced in October. The snow was piled up by the winds into drifts in some places forty feet deep, through which they had to burrow or dig their way. A sudden rise in ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... into her face, and she turned away. The boy was embarrassed. He had taken a misstep. She turned impatiently and gave him a glance from ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... Antoine followed after the pack-horse, and Frank came next. Roderick pricked up his ears, looked over into the gorge, and snorted loudly. He moved very slowly and carefully, and well he might: for a single misstep on his part would have sent both him and his rider to destruction. The path was so narrow that, although Roderick walked on the extreme outer edge, Frank's feet now and then brushed against the rock on the opposite side. Our hero felt his sombrero rise on ...
— Frank Among The Rancheros • Harry Castlemon
... clinging, and balancing on the glassy edges of ice, and hopping and leaping from cake to cake. Cracks, crevices, and jagged holes opened ten, fifteen, and twenty feet sheer down all about us. A single misstep would send ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... drop of the precious water did she spill. Not a misstep did she make. Yet so great was the spell upon her that she was not aware she had climbed the steep slope until the dog yelped his welcome. Then with all the flood of her emotion surging and resurging she knelt to allay the ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... all they had. One night he entered the palace of Darham, prince of the province of Segestan, and, working diligently, soon gathered together an immense amount of valuables, with which he was making off, when, in crossing a very dark room, his foot struck upon a hard substance, and the misstep nearly threw him down. Stooping, he picked up that upon which he had trodden. He believed it, from feeling, to be a precious stone. He carried it to his mouth, touched it with his tongue,—it was salt! And thus, by his own action, he had tasted salt ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... risks, if there is no other way of attaining objects. But risks in and of themselves are a nuisance. If there is no more excellent way, of course you must clamber along steep, rugged stairways of bridle-paths, where a single misstep will send you plunging upon a cruel and bloody death; but so far as choice goes, one would much more wisely ride over a civilized road, where he can have his whole mind for the mountain, and not be continually hampered with fears and watchfulness ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... the stairs made him think they were not so nearly perpendicular as was the fact. While the thought was in his mind, he made a misstep and, unable to check himself, went bumping all the ...
— The Launch Boys' Adventures in Northern Waters • Edward S. Ellis
... road ran along the fertile valley, and again passing through a sharp defile in the mountains, and finally winding its way along a narrow ledge of rock, where the slightest turn to left or right, a single misstep of the sure-footed animals, or an awkward move of their driver, would have hurled them into an abyss hundreds of feet below, where instant and horrible death ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... way and fallen into the yawning depths below. Between these terrible traps the trail was often not over a few feet wide. It was no pleasant thing to contemplate the results of a probable slip or a misstep. The whole country bore the aspect of baffled rage—as if imbued with a demoniac spirit, it had received a crushing stroke from the Almighty hand that blasted ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... around the mountain, and in places they had to use the greatest care lest a misstep should carry them over a precipice with a drop of hundreds of feet. It was a perilous descent, inasmuch as the path was covered with snow. Moreover, it was necessary that as little noise as possible should be made while they were making their way ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... gracefully as if there were great springs in his legs, and his great curled horns are carried as easily as if they were nothing at all. Down rock slopes, so steep that a single misstep would mean a fall hundreds of feet, he bounds as swiftly and easily as Lightfoot the Deer bounds through the woods, leaping from one little jutting point of rock to another and landing securely as if ...
— The Burgess Animal Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... saw that he had made a misstep, and again inspired Thiuli with hope. While they were yet conversing, a black slave came from the seraglio to tell the physician, that the drink had ...
— The Oriental Story Book - A Collection of Tales • Wilhelm Hauff
... precipices, and jostling other rocks, which joined in the race, till they all struck the bottom with a deep rumbling sound, shivered like so many bombshells into a thousand pieces, and telling us what would be our fate it we made a single misstep. We followed our Indian in single file, keeping close together, that the stones set free by those in the rear might not dash those below from their feet; feeling our way with the greatest caution, clinging with our hands to snow, sand, rock, tufts of grass, or any thing that would hold for ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... on the roof of a building one day when one made a misstep and fell to the ground. The other ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... just as well get to an understandin'," said the Cap'n, not yet placated. "I ain't used to a dog underfoot, I don't like a dog, and I won't associate with a dog. Next thing I know I'll be makin' a misstep onto him, and he'll have a ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... charge of these papers, and had placed them on a high shelf in the closet. As Caffie could not find them, and wanted them, Florentin brought a small ladder, and, mounting it, found them. He was about to descend the ladder, when he made a misstep, and in trying to save himself, one of the buttons of his trousers was ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... during this period, as any cause which either destroys the life of the child in the womb or brings on morbid or premature contractions in that organ may induce miscarriage. Coughing severely, or vomiting, a blow or fall, or a misstep leading to an effort to prevent falling, may, and does frequently, result in miscarriage; and this having once occurred, it is, without proper care, exceedingly liable to be the case again at the same period of a subsequent pregnancy. The same result may follow any vivid moral ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... the top after a tedious and slippery climb, there was a long view of icy billows, as if the sea had suddenly congealed amid a wild tempestuous storm. Deep chasms obstructed the way on all sides, and a misstep or slip would send one down the blue steps where no friendly rope could rescue, and only the rushing water could be heard. To view the solid phalanxes of icy floes, as they fill the mountain fastnesses and imperceptibly march through the ravines and ...
— Oregon, Washington and Alaska; Sights and Scenes for the Tourist • E. L. Lomax
... is far more difficult—she succeeded. Twice a week she received the bourgeoisie of Provins at her house in the Upper town. This intelligent young woman of twenty had not as yet made a single blunder or misstep on the slippery path she had taken. She gratified everybody's self-love, and petted their hobbies; serious with the serious, a girl with girls, instinctively a mother with mothers, gay with young wives and disposed to help them, gracious to all,—in short, a pearl, a treasure, the pride of ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... they went, mocked at by owls and whippoorwills, crossing streams over log bridges, wading through others when the cold water splashed at a misstep up in his face. At last the blackness turned to grey, in which he could make out the fingers of his hand. Dawn was near. Why, thought the Englishman, did they delay striking so long? If they meant to kill him, he hoped it might be done quickly. The phantom figure which ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... the picture is in the act of springing upon a timid hare. Although he can measure twenty paces in a jump, I think for once he has made a misstep, and the dear little creature with one more bound will be safe. One very remarkable fact about these animals is this: if there are several together, and one starts over the snow in pursuit of booty, all the others will follow in exactly the same tracks, so that it will look ...
— Chatterbox Stories of Natural History • Anonymous
... Strangely enough, considering her evident sadness, she was whistling softly to herself, over and over, some dreary little minor air that sounded like a Bohemian dirge. She glanced up quickly when I made a misstep and my dishes jingled. All considered, the tray was out of the picture: the sea, the misty starlight, the girl, with her beauty—even the sad little whistle that stopped now and then to go bravely on again, as though it fought against the odds of a trembling ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... cautious passage came to a pause as her fingers touched the ladder, but she realized that a misstep would send her over that precipice of hay into the bay below, which now seemed a gulf of unfathomable depth. Inch by inch, with greater prudence than she had ever exercised, she moved onward in the gloom, now become almost ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... but Armorer was in a raging hurry and urged his guide over the ground. Once they were delayed by a bundle of stuff in front of a door; and after Shuey had laboriously rolled the great roll away, he made a misstep and tumbled over, rolling it back, to a tittering accompaniment from the sewing-girls in the room. But he picked himself up in perfect good temper and kicked the roll ten yards. "Girls is silly things," said the philosopher Shuey, "but being born that ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet
... their friends and neighbors. But there is no permanency to this sort of peace—and thousands of mothers of this class are annually brought to their senses and recalled to earth by discovering that their own daughters have made the fatal misstep and have passed under the brand of the pariah. The awakening of such parents comes too late, generally, to do much good. Not always, but in a majority of cases. Many, many times after I have related ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various
... saying as he came in, "that the misstep of a horse should have made a helpless cripple of me, when I might have led this ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... his suit your chief shall hear Perhaps may win the prize; Tell him the way is hedged with fear,— One misstep and he dies. Nor will I pledge him safe retreat From out yon guarded tower; My watchful warders all to cheat May ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... make music in your heart, if your heart is tuned to its music, even while you are pushing your way through thorny tanglewood and undergrowth? Do you know how, as you go down the deep mountain ravines, with the wild rushing torrent far below, where a single misstep would mean so much, how the breeze playing through the leaves makes sweetest melody, if ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon
... he took a misstep and flew headlong a few feet above the metal surface. Koa, gliding along behind him, turned him upright again. He saw that the giant Hawaiian was grinning. Rip grinned back. It was the second time ...
— Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet • Blake Savage
... thicket he came again to a more open space among the trees, free from underbrush, but strewn at intervals with great bowlders. He picked his way cautiously, mindful of crevices where a broken leg or worse might be the penalty of a misstep in the darkness. The humor seized him to sit on a great rock which dropped down twenty feet to the creek bed, and listen to the quieting music of its night song. His eyes, grown somewhat accustomed to the darkness, had been blinded again by ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... groaned through his gritted teeth, some malignant god made him misstep, stumble. He fell between the hard furrows, bruising his face and hands. After a moment he rose, but rose to sink back again with keen pain shooting through an ankle. He had turned it. For an instant he sat motionless, taking ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... ("La falsita non dico mai mai, ma la verita non a ogniuno.")[1] Considering his vast responsibilities as a statesman and the terrible dangers which beset him as a theologian; that in the first of these capacities the least misstep might wreck the great cause which he supported, and that in the second such a misstep might easily bring him to the torture chamber and the stake, normally healthful minds will doubtless agree that the criticism upon these words is more Pharisaic ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... steadily losing ground with her class on account of her constant association with the juniors, and the slightest misstep on her part would jeopardize her place on the team. She had a genuine love for the game, and since she couldn't play on the junior team, she concluded it would be just as well not to lose her place with the sophomores. In her heart she cared nothing for her class. She had tried to be their ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower
... she knew, but a relation in which whatever she had supposed to be perpendicular was oblique, and whatever she had supposed to be oblique was horizontal, and nothing as she had been accustomed to find it. It made her head swim. It was literally true that she was afraid to move lest she should make a misstep through an error ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... whom he loved was to him as some distant star, that might be worshipped in silence, but not approached; but now, by a series of circumstances that looked like providential interference in his behalf, immense barriers had been removed. Thinking over these matters, he doubly realized the misstep he had taken, and the heart of the lone prisoner was sad in the ...
— The Heart's Secret - The Fortunes of a Soldier, A Story of Love and the Low Latitudes • Maturin Murray
... and of the courage necessary to face them. But who would not rather face a firing-line of infantry in full daylight than to venture alone in such a dark and stormy night as was this upon such a perilous and threatening region as the Pedregal, in which a misstep in the darkness would surely lead to wounds and perhaps to death. Its crossing, under such conditions, might well be deemed impossible, had not Captain Lee succeeded, borne up by his strong sense of duty, ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... intermingled, and a flock of goats skipping about, or ruminating in the warm sunshine. A knot of kids—the reckless little creatures—were sporting along the edge of a precipice in a manner almost painful to witness. The pleasure of leaping from point to point, where a single misstep would have dropped them hundreds of feet, seemed to be in proportion to the danger. The sight of some women, who were after the goats, reminded the boatmen of an accident which occurred here only a few days before: a lad playing about the steep ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... positive you are right. If you are watching a person, and know he has something concealed, arrest him and search his person; otherwise, no matter how strong your suspicions, do not act upon them, as a single misstep of this sort may lose the case, and is certain to put the parties on their guard, and in a few minutes to overthrow the labor ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... my cheek, I turned toward the portiere of the library, and as chance would have it, making a misstep when my head was swimming, I went plunging forward into the folds of this curtain. Because of this I found myself sitting flat upon the hardwood floor, gibbering like an idiot at the dim light which showed the bookcases ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... that you cannot see an inch into it, there is a flat log spanning the creek about six inches below the surface, and that if you feel about with your foot you can find it. Then, of course, you would make your way across by walking on the unseen log, yet knowing all the time that if you made a misstep you would plunge into the stream. You would do it by the feel of the foot. It is just the same in following an unseen trail in the snow—it lies hard-packed beneath the surface, just as the log lay unseen ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... our horses' necks and passed on to the north, the horses nose to nose, and my stirrup leather brushing the giant's knee at every jump of El Mahdi. The huge Cardinal galloped in the moonlight like some splendid machine of bronze, never a misstep, never a false estimate, never the difference of a finger's length in the long, even jumps. It might have been the one-eyed Agib riding his mighty horse of brass, except that no son of a decadent Sultan ever ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... women's diseases, a large part of their sterility, of miscarriages and infant deaths, a large proportion of the paralysis, insanity, and blindness in the world, are due to the sins of a husband or parent. Thus the penalty for a single misstep may be very grim; and the worst of it is that it must often be shared by the innocent. [Footnote: See Prince Morrow, Social Diseases and Marriage. W. L. Howard, Plain Facts ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... and her face flushed with the excitement. The wisps of her glorious hair were floating in the wind as she stepped along the bank, steadily, while I stood at her side without touching her, but with a hand ready in case of a slip or a misstep. Frenchy followed us, carrying a big landing-net and a gaff. His face bore a wide grin and he was jumping ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... him. He was no Washington to lead his people to a loftier plane. In fact, Peter began to suspect that he was no leader at all. He saw now that his initial success with the Sons and Daughters of Benevolence had been effected merely by the aura of his college training. After his first misstep he had never rehabilitated himself. He perhaps had a dash of the artistic in him, and the power to mold ideas often confuses itself subjectively with the power to mold human beings. In reality he did not even understand ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... him by a misstep into the mud, but he quickly regained the ill-paved sidewalk and continued his course with unbroken cheerfulness. The night was dark, the few and widely scattered street lamps burned dimly, and the city loomed through ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... been thrown by a misstep of his camel and rolled to his death in the midst of the flood! Then what followed would never have happened. That is the thought that comes to me in hours of weakness. But I have told you that I pull myself out of it quickly. No, no, ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... unfortunately an impracticable one, and being there, to turn back was inadmissible. So I took myself in hand and started. For the first few steps I was far too much given up to considering possibilities. I thought how a single misstep would end. I could see my footing slip, feel the consciousness that I was gone, the dull thuds from point to point as what remained of me bounded beyond the visible edge down, down. . . And after that what! How long before the ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... way along, he at length found himself close to a marsh, or what he knew would soon become a marsh, for night had set in some hours before, and he fell by a sudden misstep into a thick, clinging mire. In spite of all his efforts, in spite of his desperate struggles, he felt himself sinking gradually in the swampy ooze, and in a few minutes he was ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... queries when Dalton joined her and led her around to the front, debouching so as to avoid the few scattered groups still outside. He did not offer his arm, but kept close at her side, ready to aid instantly should she make a misstep amid the unfamiliar surroundings. Once he steadied her as she slipped from the single plank that made the walk around the cottage, but instantly withdrew his sustaining hand. Not until they were walking along the street, with its electric lights at each intersection, ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... sight-seer in those days, and a persevering one. No discomfort or risk discouraged him. Once, with a single daring companion, he crossed the burning floor of the mighty crater of Kilauea, racing across the burning lava, leaping wide and bottomless crevices where a misstep would have meant death. His open-air life on the river and in the mining-camps had nerved and hardened him for adventure. He was thirty years old and in his physical prime. His mental growth had been slower, but it was sure, and it would seem always to ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... the negro, at least, it was a welcome moment, for, with his feet tied under the horse, his hands tied behind his back, and a rope with a slip-knot round his neck, he had not found the ride a pleasant one. A misstep of his horse would surely have precipitated his hanging, and he knew well that such an accident would have given much satisfaction to his captors. So he uttered a fervent "Teng Gawd!" as he was hustled into the jail gate and heard it close ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... whose daily work compels them under penalty to pay close and undeviating attention to their surroundings. This is true of sailors, hunters, plainsmen, cowboys, and tugboat captains. It was especially true of the old-fashioned river-driver, for a misstep, a miscalculation, a moment's forgetfulness of the sullen forces shifting and changing about him could mean for him maiming or destruction. So, finally, to one of an imaginative bent, these eyes, like the "cork boots," grew to seem part ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... were not—very serious," she replied. It was fascination to torment him this way, yet it hurt her, too. She was playing on the verge of a precipice, not afraid of a misstep, but glorying in the prospect of a leap into the abyss. Something deep and strange in her bade her make him show her how much he loved her. If she drove him to desperation she ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... he yet lacked that which the ordeal of a battle would give him at home, and more than all, in Rachel's eyes. He heard nothing from or of her, but he consoled himself with the hope that the same means by which she had been so promptly informed of his misstep, would convey to her an intimation of how well he was deserving her. When he gained his laurels he would himself lay them at her feet. Until then he could only hope and strive, cherishing all the while the love for her that daily ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... shall never feel anything but sorry for him. You can not live with a man as I did, for ten years, and not regret his misstep." ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath
... that Cannon made a misstep when backing the Natchez out, at Natchez, and fell, breaking his collar bone. Of course Ed Snodgrass gave the news to ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... exertion I had ever known, I did not feel the slightest bad result, and was as fresh as ever. That there is an element of danger in this trip cannot be doubted. At times the little trail, on which two mules could not possibly have passed each other, skirts a precipice where the least misstep would hurl the traveler to destruction; and every turn of the zigzag path is so sharp that first the head and then the tail of the mule inevitably projects above the abyss, and wig-wags to the mule below. Moreover, though ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard
... his way along the treacherous trail, I after him. It was ticklish work. A misstep, and there would be nothing to ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... cedars far to the right. I turned with all the speed left in me, for I felt the chase nearing an end. Tracks of hound and lion once more showed in the dust. The slope was steep and stones I sent rolling cracked down below. Soon I had a cliff above me and had to go slow and cautiously. A misstep or slide would have ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... that, as usual, I had somehow made a misstep, and sought to conceal my mortification as best I might, by persuading myself and my friend that I had only regarded the matter as a joke all through. ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... pitched mountain side, leaping logs and stones, crashing through brush, scrambling or slithering stiff-legged down rock slides. It was a wild race, a race that would have been utterly foolhardy with any other horses than these mountain bred cow ponies. A single misstep would have sent horse and rider rolling for yards, unless sooner brought up ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... long row, cripples, the blind, the young, the aged, it was a company of mendicants which eccentric painters would have given five years of life to have seen. Except for consumptive coughs, the misstep of a wooden leg of which the clumsy ferule slipped on a cobblestone, and the querulous whimper of a child, half-starved and imperfectly swaddled in a tattered shawl, on a flaccid bosom, the mob were silent in an expectation as intense as the lookers-on. The wind brought the whistle of the ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... both. Faster and faster we flew, like a swallow on the wing, Fatima's dainty feet as surely placed among the rocks and holes of the rough road as if she had been pacing in Rotten Row. Well she knew that a misstep of hers now might mean death to all three of us, and well she knew that her ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... have been called brave boys, for the bridge was very high above the water, and a timid person would have been very likely to have been frightened when he looked down at his feet, and saw how easy it would be for him to make a misstep and go ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... is. Yes, the members of my church would forgive Miss Adams for her sin—and cut her dead. They would daily crucify her and her innocent child by their cold scorn or utter ignoring of them. They would not allow their daughters to associate with this blameless girl, because of her mother's misstep. ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... gazed round him and up and down, in dazed wonder. He had seen many others fall. He had seen just where and just why they missed their footing. And he had been confident that with him no such misstep was possible. He could not believe; a little while, and luck would turn, and up he would go again—higher than before. Many a lawyer—to look no farther than his own profession—had through recklessness or pride or inadvertence got ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... would present moving, conveniently illuminated, up the stair. The floor above was totally unknown to him; at any turning he might be surprised, overcome, rendered useless. He had a supreme purpose to perform. He had already, perhaps fatally, erred, and there must be no further misstep. ...
— Wild Oranges • Joseph Hergesheimer
... cliffs was quite a different matter, however, and was as good sport as I have ever had. The rocks and open meadow slopes were so precipitous that there was very real danger every moment, for one misstep would send a man rolling hundreds of feet to the bottom where he ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... have been the connection of the hypnotist with this strange case, he was far too clever to betray himself by any such misstep as seeming to avoid inquiry. We found him easily at his studio apartment, nor did we have any difficulty in gaining admittance. He knew that he was watched and that frankness was his ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve
... to his sense of the responsibilities of his position, felt he had made a misstep and ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells
... twice she stopped, and blew the whistle and hallooed, and each time the weird silence closed in again like an impenetrable veil. Sometimes she became impatient of her slow progress, but she knew too well the dangers of a misstep to risk the chance of success by any lack of caution. Even in her anxiety and distress of mind, she marked the intelligence with which Sunbeam picked his way, testing the firmness of each spot on which he trod, as if he had ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... recovering himself by an effort and darting forward to assist in separating the angry and reckless boys. "Haven't you any sense left? A misstep on the part of one would be the death of both of you. Don't you know that the academy is four stories high, and that the tower runs up one story higher? Let go, Rodney. Give ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon
... he made his exit by the same entrance by which all had come in. He proceeded with great caution, for none knew better than he the danger of a single misstep. He succeeded, after considerable time, in reaching a portion of the valley so shrouded in gloom that he was able to advance without ...
— The Huge Hunter - Or, the Steam Man of the Prairies • Edward S. Ellis
... drinks trumpet-blower Rassmann.' Midnight had already passed by, Under tables lay some snoring, But with steady step and upright Started Rassmann from the tavern. On the Rhine with mocking humour He poured forth a roguish tune yet, Then a misstep! Poor, poor Rassmann! Straight he fell into the river, And the Rhine's tremendous whirlpool Thundered foaming and engulfed him, Him the bravest trumpet-blower. Ha! that was a noble blowing! Rassmann, ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel
... to be seen whether the young Sultan will follow in the footsteps of his father and preserve to Johore the distinction of being, with the one exception of Siam, the only independent native kingdom in southern Asia. One misstep and he will become but a dependency of the great British Empire, ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... Romans with great fear and left Italy in the fifth year to make a campaign against Greece, not long afterward met his death in Argos. A woman, as the story runs, being eager to catch a sight of him from the roof as he passed by, made a misstep and falling upon him killed him. The same year Fabricius and Pappus became censors; and among others whose names they erased from the lists of the knights and the senators was Rufinus, though he had served as dictator and had twice ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) • Cassius Dio
... larger than they had seemed from the sub. Twice, as he climbed over them, Dave's foot slipped and each time his heart was in his mouth. One stumbling misstep and all might be over for him. But he had the clear, cool head of a clean boy who had lived right, and an appreciation of the joy of living, which would take him far and keep him safe through many an adventure. So, safely, they reached the ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell
... work of the police force increased Dave found his attitude toward moral principles in need of frequent re-adjustment. By no means a Puritan, he had, nevertheless, two sterling qualities which so far had saved him from any very serious misstep. He practised absolute honesty in all his relationships. His father, drunken although he was in his later years, had never quite lost his sense of commercial uprightness, and Dave had inherited the quality in full degree. And Reenie Hardy had come into his life just when he needed ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... again we have been surprised at the charity of our people. They are always willing to forgive, and be it man or woman who takes a misstep in our town—which is the counterpart of hundreds of American towns—if the offender shows that he wishes to walk straight, a thousand hands are stretched out to help him and guide him. It is not true that a man or woman who makes a mistake is ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... thankful that he had not attempted to make the journey unguided; nor had they gone a mile before he knew that he could never have accomplished it alone. Often he found himself traversing narrow trails on the brink of black space where a single misstep would have brought his career to a sudden termination. Again he passed through gloomy tunnels of dense foliage, slid down precipitous banks, only to plunge into rushing, bowlder-strewn torrents at the ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe
... Ten years from now there will stand on the scaffold, or behind the prison door, or in the lonely room in which the suicide writes his farewell to wife or parents, men who will say that the first misstep of their life that put them on the wrong road was the ticket they bought in ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... marvel of that endless period of watching was the purpose of the bandit Rojas. He had now no weapon. Gale's glass made this fact plain. There was death behind him, death below him, death before him, and though he could not have known it, death above him. He never faltered—never made a misstep upon the narrow, flinty trail. When he reached the lower end of the level ledge Gale's poignant doubt became a certainty. Rojas had seen Mercedes. It was incredible, yet Gale believed it. Then, his heart clamped as in an icy vise, Gale threw forward the Remington, and sinking on ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... steady and sober as if she'd been sixty years old. Parson Page said once that Milly Baker had more dignity than any woman, young or old, that he'd ever seen. It seems right queer to talk about dignity in a pore gyirl who'd made the misstep she'd made, but I reckon it was jest that that made us all come to treat her as if she was as good as anybody. People can set their own price on 'emselves, I've noticed; and if they keep it set, folks'll come up to it. Milly didn't seem to think ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... there will be no masculine will to exaggerate the former or obstruct the latter, as notably happened under George III. and William IV. Her personal bearing is also in her favor. Her popularity, temporarily obscured a few years ago, is becoming as great as ever. It has never been weakened by any misstep in politics, and so long as that can be said will be exposed to no ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... Whenever such an amendment is introduced at Washington it will be found that every Mormon influence—political, mercantile, and railroad—will be arrayed against it, and its passage is unlikely unless the church shall make some misstep which will again direct public attention to it in ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... talking in a sort of mill patois concerning matters which she did not understand. But nobody, not even Gwendolyn, spoke to her, and a sudden, overpowering dismay seized her stout heart and made her head reel. Then she made a misstep and her foot slipped through the space between two stairs. This brought the hurrying procession to a standstill, and recalled attention to ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... receiver. He had not reckoned on the possibility of Kitty seeing that damfool advertisement. Two and two made four; and four and four made eight; so on indefinitely. That is to say, Kitty already had a glimmer of the startling truth. The initial misstep on his part had been made upon her pronouncement of the name Stefani Gregor. He hadn't been able to control his surprise. And yesterday, having frankly admitted that he knew Gregor, all that was needed to complete the circle was that advertisement. ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... several unpleasant, not to say sensational, occurrences in this town of late. I don't suppose you're to blame for everything that has happened. I have insisted that you could not be blamed for the unfortunate misstep of Brother Hewett, who was tempted to take a little more hard cider than was really good for him. Your detractors have insisted that the deacon was led into this action through his exuberance over the arrival of your friends. Some of them have ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish
... round and over topics embarrassing to any guest requires the utmost tact and delicacy on the part of a host and hostess; for in keeping one guest from being wounded or embarrassed, the offender himself must not be made to feel conscious of his misstep. Indeed he may be, and usually is, quite unconscious of the effect his words are having on those whom he does not know well. Any subject which is being handled dangerously must be juggled out of sight, and the determination ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... unerringly when they were bearing the Viaticum, and it was plain that he felt the responsibility thus resting upon his speed and sureness of foot. Then it was that he would go like the wind, through utter darkness, through storm and flood and over an icy earth, without a pause or a misstep. Many a time, after such a struggle as this, has Toby turned his head, as if trying to see why Father Orin was slow in doing his part when the rain, freezing as it fell, had frozen the priest's poor overcoat to the saddle, and his ragged leggins were heavy and clumsy with icicles. ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... awkwardness—Nell was on difficult ground. She feared lest she might make a misstep which would reveal her identity. The Duchess grew impatient. Finally, Nell mustered courage and made a bold play for it, as ever true ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... wisdom at once—he could not afford to make a misstep on the very day of his return. He emptied the pan, followed Clorinda into the kitchen, making a sign of farewell to Vic which the old maid did not observe. Once in Clorinda's own dominion, the darkey so improved the impression ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... This latter group is to me particularly trying. They revel in descriptions of desirous damsels with burning eyes who crave companionship, but when an artfully devised encounter throws one of these passionate persons across the path of the man behind the pen, does he falter or swerve or make a misstep? Never. Right there is where the blood of the Galahads tells. Supremely he rises above temptation! Gracefully he ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock
... work, as Charley realized. A single misstep might result in a broken leg, and even worse injury, and Charley held his breath in expectation that some such catastrophe would surely happen before they ...
— Left on the Labrador - A Tale of Adventure Down North • Dillon Wallace
... the other boy, to send him forward, before we accepted the necessity. Half asleep, he got up, courteously declined my effort to help him by me as he crossed the boat, stepped round on the gunwale behind me as I sat, and then, either in a lurch or in some misstep, caught his foot in the tiller as his father held it firm, and pitched down directly behind Battista himself, and, as I thought, into the sea. I sprang to leeward to throw something after him, and found him in the sea indeed, but hanging by ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... to say it, for I am the man who bitterly sees its truth. Do not make the misstep that I did. A man might well be willing to live on bread and water, and walk the world afoot, for the privilege of giving all his thoughts to the grandest themes, and all his service to the highest objects. As a lawyer, my life has been spent in a prolonged quarrel ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... the forlorn lady recollected that her uncle, who had some spiritual supervision over the Roman convents, though he was sure to be more outraged by her misstep than any one else, had (besides the motive of shielding a family name from disgrace) perhaps some remaining affection for his favorite niece. At any rate, if she were to die, she thought it would be a satisfaction ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... it flat so that his horses could be led over. The depth was bottomless to the eye, but from far below rose the cavernous growl of rushing water, and Hazel held her breath as each animal stepped gingerly over the narrow bridge. One misstep— ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... essays to the 'London Magazine.' I had read some of them, and was interested in the man. I met him several times in the corridors or on the stairways, and one day I was going up-stairs, carrying a hod of coals, as he was coming down. Looking up at him, I made a misstep, and came near dropping a portion of my burden. 'My good man,' said he, with a queer smile, 'if you would learn to carry your coals as well as you carry your age you would do well.' I don't remember what ...
— The Vizier of the Two-Horned Alexander • Frank R. Stockton
... holding the two eagles tied and balanced across the saddle, allowed Keno to pick his own way along the trail. The sagacious animal seemed to know every foot of the path; even in the gloom of night he made no misstep. Sherwood and Tom followed close, the latter ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Geological Survey • Robert Shaler
... realized that he needed daylight for the perilous ride. To take it slowly would be child's play for him but would leave him an easy target from above. To ride it fast was to invite a header for his horse and himself; one misstep would send the horse and rider bolting into space. How far it was to the river through this space Laramie felt little curiosity in figuring; but it could hardly have been less than ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... of legislation and in the matter of administration. The enactment of such a law would be quite within the power of Congress without constitutional amendment, and it has such possibilities of usefulness that we might well make the experiment, and if we are disappointed the misstep can be easily retraced by a repeal of the ...
— State of the Union Addresses of William H. Taft • William H. Taft
... been subjected, and from loss of the blood which flowed from his wounds; yet he was slowly mastering the foaming brutes, who themselves were torn and bleeding and exhausted. Weaker and weaker became the struggles of them all, when a sudden misstep sent Bulan stumbling headforemost against the stem of a tree, where, stunned, he sank unconscious, at the ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... stood on a board not more than a foot wide. They had nothing to hold to. Sixty feet below them was a mass of rough piles. A misstep ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... moved but she waved a limp forbiddal, prattling on: "This doesn't mean he's dead, you know. Oh, not at all! It means just the contrary! Why, I saw him alive last night, in a dream, and I can't believe anything else, and I won't! No, no, not yet!" At that word she made a misstep and as she started sharply to recover it the things she carried fell breaking and jingling at ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... solid stone steps. Near the summit, these steps become so precipitous that the traveller is apt to feel a little dizzy, especially in descending, for the chair coolies race down the steep stairway in a way that suggests alarming possibilities in the event of a misstep or a broken rope. But the men are sure-footed and mishaps seldom occur. The path is bordered by a low wall and lined with noble old trees. Ancient temples, quaint hamlets, numerous tea-houses and a few nunneries ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... at the possibility of a clumsy misstep on my part obliterating the impression of ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... of a crater on the island of Japat, somewhere in the mysterious South Seas. The volcano was not a large one and the crater, though somewhat threatening at times, was correspondingly minute, which explains—in apology—to some extent, his unfortunate misstep. ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... auspicious and distingue, the nuptials of Kiku and Taro passed off without one misstep or incident of ill omen. In the dressing-room and in the hall of ceremony Kiku's self-possessed demeanor was admired by all. After drinking the sacramental wine she lifted her silken hood, not too swiftly or nervously, and smiled blushingly on her lord. The marriage ceremony ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... is of Paramount Importance to Girls and Women—Reasons Why a Misstep in a Girl Has More Serious Consequences than a Misstep in a Boy—The Place Love Occupies in ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson
... opportunity presented itself I did not fail to ridicule it to the utmost. Still, in order to do my whole duty in the matter, I hastened to impress old Bill with the importance of his becoming acquainted with the antecedents of his lady-love, and thus saving himself from the possibility of a misstep. But this counsel did no farther good than to bring a clouded brow to my dear old friend, and so I did not persist in it. Indeed, we communed together but little more in any way; for very shortly after he ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... valley was strewn with rock fragments! Her valley! The valley of the photographs! She laughed aloud, and urged her horse down the steep descent, heedless of the fact that upon the precarious, loose rock footing of the slope, a misstep would mean almost ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... homeward matters were better; nay, while running into the harbour of Antwerp he had jested almost in his old reckless manner. But when trying to descend the rope-ladder from the high ship into the skiff in which sailors had rowed from the land, he made a misstep with his stiff leg and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Williamson five days of incredible toil before he reached the valley towns. The troops showed the utmost patience, clearing a path for the pack-train along the sheer mountain sides and through the dense, untrodden forests in the valleys. The trail often wound along cliffs where a single misstep of a pack-animal resulted in its being dashed to pieces. But the work, though fatiguing, was healthy; it was noticed that during the whole expedition not a man was laid up for any length of ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... this eternity that seemed so indubitably hers, there was time and to spare for safe-footing and stable equilibrium—for certitude, in short. No more in her spiritual life than in carrying the hundredweights of grain was there a possibility of a misstep or an overbalancing. The feeling produced in me was uncanny. Here was a human soul that, save for the most glimmering of contacts, was beyond the humanness of me. And the more I learned of Margaret Henan in the weeks ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London
... bottom of the phaeton and leave Billy to his own custody. His other habit of drawing up at kitchen gates was not confirmed, and the fact that he stumbled on his way to the doctor who pronounced him blameless was reasonably attributed to a loose stone at the foot of the hill; the misstep resulted in a barked shin, but a little wheel-grease, in a horse of Billy's complexion, easily removed the ...
— Buying a Horse • William Dean Howells
... A misstep backward, a tumble and a bumped head brought this sport to an end, just as Shannondale was reached, and in her attempts to soothe the little girl, Edith failed to see that the shade was lifted for a single moment, while, standing ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... the roughest and the most perilous they had ever essayed. The ponies were obliged to pick their way over rocks, around sharp, narrow corners, where the slightest misstep would send horse and rider crashing to the rocks hundreds of feet below. But to the credit of the Pony Rider Boys it may be said that not one of them lost his ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Grand Canyon - The Mystery of Bright Angel Gulch • Frank Gee Patchin
... pilgrims, upon their shoulders. Then began a triumphal march, which at every step of the ascent threatened to become a funeral march. The bearers all had bare feet, feet twice as long as the steps were broad, so that they practically went upward on their toes. A single misstep would have caused disaster—nothing less than an avalanche of coolies, chairs, and pilgrims. But my secretary guarded me, the missionary guarded my wife, and we went ...
— A Tour of the Missions - Observations and Conclusions • Augustus Hopkins Strong
... goes out walking at midnight, does she?" continued the agent. Sahwah felt that she had made a misstep somewhere, and was harming Veronica's cause instead of helping it, but the eyes of the agent seemed to be drawing all her knowledge from her like a magnet ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... it—the hope of a mitigation of her punishment, and the fear of being sent immediately back to Germany; for De Graun has her well watched; at the slightest misstep he will ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... ran a deeper trench or drain to carry the water away, and this was covered over with a rough board called a duck-board. Underneath this duck-board ran a continual stream of water. A man would go along the trench in a hurry, make a misstep on one end of the duck-board and down he would go in mud and freezing water to the waist. In these cold, wet garments he must stay all night. The tension ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill |
