"Picket" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... from the beautiful work of nature and intended to go on, but again he halted. He found himself at the picket fence, which divided the garden from the street, and in the movement of the street he saw something which occupied ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... his mounted force, had just before captured a picket of twenty-five men a mile and a half away from Hillsboro. General Polk's militia were also in the same vicinity, and soon General Greene, having received reinforcements, recrossed the Dan and assumed a position on the Reedy Fork, ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore
... faces, loose clothing of sheepskin with the wool outside, with their long coarse hair flying in the wind, and their uncouth shouts in a barbarous tongue, are much like savages. They sing wild chants as they picket their sheep in long double lines at night, and with their savage mastiffs sleep unsheltered under the frosty skies under the lee of their piled-up saddlebags. On three nights I camped beside their ...
— Among the Tibetans • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs Bishop)
... troublesome," explained the ferryman, "so as there's a picket up yonder I thought I'd send my son up ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins
... his reserve force in the shape of a picket line, located some distance out from the herd and covering a circle something more than a mile in diameter. This was done so that in case of an attack they would have an opportunity to drive off their ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... on Fire" flashed along the river, and a picket-boat from a flagship, with other boats, approached as near as they could to the burning ship. Was there anybody on board? It seemed not—so far, at least, as ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... in a picket-guard, soon after which that division commenced its march to Amboy. Some sharp skirmishing took place between this party and Morgan's regiment, but the hope of gaining any important advantage was entirely disappointed, and the retreat to Amboy was effected ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... semicircular in shape, rising high and black to his left, running low and green to his right. Not one hundred feet to the left were the first signs of the rocky promontory, small, jagged boulders standing like a picket line before the grout mass beyond. Along the rocky side of the wall, sonic distance away, he saw an overhanging shelf of dark gray stone, protruding over the natural floor beneath. An inky darkness ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... "Men for picket!" cried a sergeant, and Kavanagh, who had been warned for the duty, stepped forward and fell in with the others, and presently they were marched off and posted on one of ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... well over the barracks and learned the worst, Brace sharing my surprise that so little plundering had been going on; and whilst we were standing once more in the court with the men drawn up, a picket at the gate, and one of the horses laden with provisions and ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... The American picket lines had been posted a quarter of a mile beyond the church, near which no other guards had been placed. Not long after midnight a surgeon, one of the two men left on duty in the church, happened to look out through a broken window towards the shed, and in the shadow, ...
— Anting-Anting Stories - And other Strange Tales of the Filipinos • Sargent Kayme
... marching on In a wider field than ours; Those bright battalions still fulfil The scheme of the heavenly powers; And high brave thoughts float down to us, The echoes of that far fight, Like the flash of a distant picket's gun Through the shades of the ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... time, and for the same purpose, Juan Alfonso Palamino had landed with fifty men, yet keeping his boats always in readiness to reimbark, in case of the return of Gonzalo. Aldana likewise placed an advanced picket of twelve horsemen, of those who had deserted from the insurgents, on the road towards Arequipa, to bring him timely notice of any thing that might occur in that quarter, with orders to return with all speed in case of the enemy making a countermarch, or of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... port side. It is to this hut that reference has already been made; it is marvellous that any occupant of it should have survived a minute, so riddled and shattered is it. Officers of Iris, which was in trouble ahead of Vindictive, describe Captain Carpenter as "handling her like a picket-boat." ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... The actual discoverer of the Burra Mines, Thomas Picket, a labourer, was burned to death in a state of intoxication ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... perfectly tame. It would walk into the hall and dining-room, when the door was open, and was once observed to step up, gracefully, and take bread from the table. It perambulated the garden walks. It would, when the back-gate was shut, jump over a six feet picket fence, with the ease and lightness ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... an unmixed motive when I see it," she replied, shortly. "But I've been in practice too long to take sudden fancies. There is no profession like ours, Doctor, for putting the sympathies under double picket guard." ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... to wash away no stain Upon your wasted lea; I raise no banners, save the ones The forest wave to me: Upon the mountain side, where Spring Her farthest picket sets, My reveille awakes ...
— East and West - Poems • Bret Harte
... native servants to prepare and serve his meals for him. He was under no discipline whatever, and he could be his own master at all times. He generally had his sons or brothers with him in the same laager, and to a Boer there was always much joy in this. He could go on picket duty and have a brush with the enemy whenever he felt inclined to do so, or he could remain in his laager and never have a glimpse of the enemy. Every two months he was entitled to a ten days' leave of ...
— With the Boer Forces • Howard C. Hillegas
... natural way of expressing his gratitude. Ahniny looked round to see if anybody was near; she saw nobody, so of course it would do no good to "holler." She saw nobody; but a stout young fellow, leading a yellow dog, muzzled, saw her through a crack in a picket fence, not a great way off the road. Many a year he had been "hangin' 'raoun'" Alminy, and never did he see any encouraging look, or hear any "Behave, naow!" or "Come, naow, a'n't ye 'shamed?" or other forbidding phrase of acquiescence, such as ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... something of the approaching troops. They were much like those that had gone before, but much more numerous, at least a regiment, and as they filled the village way, an officer cried "Halt!" and gave new orders. Evidently they were about to bivouac for the night. A soldier approached the picket fence to use it for firewood, but an officer rebuked him. Other fuel, chiefly fence rails, was found, and a score or more of fires were lighted on the highway and in the adjoining pasture. Rolf found himself in ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... of it been left to the novelist's pen that romantic glamour has obscured the permanent contribution made by many a lonely post to the development of the surrounding region. The western fort was more than a block-house or a picket. Being the home of a handful of soldiers did not give it its real importance: it was an institution and should be studied as such. Old Fort Snelling is a type of the many remote military stations which ...
— Old Fort Snelling - 1819-1858 • Marcus L. Hansen
... his cab with his companion. His sharp eyes glanced over the heavily shaded garden and the little house in its midst. A little light shone from two windows of the first story. The men's eyes looked toward them, then the detective and Amster walked toward a high picket fence which closed the garden on the side nearest its neighbours. They shook the various pickets without much caution, for the wind made noise enough to kill any other sound. Amster called to Muller, he had found a loose picket, and his strong young arms had ...
— The Case of The Pocket Diary Found in the Snow • Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner
... a limited number of officers. Work was found for the rank and file in drill and outpost duty sufficient to prevent idle habits. The commissariat was closely watched, and fresh rations more frequently issued, which much improved the health of the army. The system of picket-duty was more thoroughly developed, and so vigilantly carried out as to impress its importance upon, as well as teach its details ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... have just been out taking the picket at 11.30 P.M. In the stables the long row of heads in the half-darkness, the creaking of the ship, the shivering of the hull from the vibration of the engines, the sing of a sentry on the spar deck to some passer-by. Then to the forward deck: the sky half covered with scudding ...
— In Flanders Fields and Other Poems - With an Essay in Character, by Sir Andrew Macphail • John McCrae
... white-washed rail fence that separated the pasture from the lane that led to the house. This he went over easily by taking it at a running jump. Then he followed the lane until he came to the house, the yard of which was separated from the lane by a picket fence; but as good luck would have it the gate was open, so Billy walked in and went around to the kitchen door for he heard voices in the parlor, which is an unusual thing in the country as they generally entertain their company in ...
— Billy Whiskers - The Autobiography of a Goat • Frances Trego Montgomery
... up at the barrier, checked there by a picket of the National Guard posted before the ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... never a large town. The thrifty merchants of this Scottish trading center built well, and their dwellings abound in architectural interest, but really great houses are rare. On the 700 block of Prince Street, behind a picket fence, guarded by a tall magnolia and several gnarled box trees stands what is called in England a "Georgian cottage," which in Alexandria ...
— Seaport in Virginia - George Washington's Alexandria • Gay Montague Moore
... you lead the saddle-horses back to the willows and picket them. The rest to the stables and bring out the working beasts. The plows are by the corral, and the first team that comes up is to be harnessed to each in turn. Then start in, and turn over a full-depth furrow a ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... just the kind of man I want. Here, put down your name. Your bounty is so much; your pay will be so much.' The recruit takes the pen in his hand, but stops suddenly in the act of writing his name, and says: 'How far shall I be required to march daily? What kind of a tent shall I have? Must I do picket duty beyond regular hours? To what kind of a climate am I to be sent?' How long do you suppose the officer would keep patience with such a man? How many of these questions would he pretend to answer, even if he could? He would simply say to the man: 'we make no terms with you, sir, beyond ...
— Amusement: A Force in Christian Training • Rev. Marvin R. Vincent.
... we tried it!" I had thrashed all that out in my head before, while I was tying up Macartney with Charliet's clothesline. "We'd be stopped by his picket at the Halfway, if ever we got to the Halfway, for the Caraquet road's likely drifted solid and you don't make time digging out smothering horses. No; we'll fight Macartney where we are! And the way to do it is ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... found Louise Trunnion in the kitchen of her father's house. She was washing dishes by the light of a kerosene lamp. There she stood behind the screen door in the little shedlike kitchen at the back of the house. George Willard stopped by a picket fence and tried to control the shaking of his body. Only a narrow potato patch separated him from the adventure. Five minutes passed before he felt sure enough of himself to call to her. "Louise! Oh, Louise!" he called. The cry stuck in his ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson
... it up. No, sir, he sleep yet. I go make that he get up. It come in one's? How is it, you are in bed yet? Yesterday at evening, I was to bed so late that I may not rising me soon that morning. Well! what you have done after the supper? We have sung, danced, laugh and played. What game? To the picket. Whom I am sorry do not have know it! Who have prevailed upon? I had gained ten lewis. Till at what o'clock its had play one? Un till two o'clock after mid night. At what o'clock are you go to bed. Half pass three. I am no astonished if you get up so late. What o'clock ...
— English as she is spoke - or, A jest in sober earnest • Jose da Fonseca
... Dias said. "You had better begin; Jose and I will picket the mules and hobble the llamas. If they were to make off, we should have a lot ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... favor—that drainage and gas- pipes come easier to such a shape, and that ground can be better economized. Nevertheless, I prefer a street that is forced to twist itself about. I enjoy the narrowness of Temple Bar and the misshapen curvature of Picket Street. The disreputable dinginess of Hollowell Street is dear to me, and I love to thread my way up the Olympic into Covent Garden. Fifth Avenue in New York is as grand as paint and glass can make it; but I would not live in a palace in Fifth Avenue ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... heavy hand suddenly smites EDWIN in the back, almost snapping his head off, and there stands spectrally between them Mr. BUMSTEAD, who has but recently found his way out of the back-yard in Gospeler's Gulch, by removing at least two yards of picket fence from the wrong place, and wears upon his head a gingham sun-bonnet, which, in his hurried departure through the hall of the Gospeler's house, he has mistaken for his own hat. Sustaining himself against the fierce evening breeze by holding firmly to ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 14, July 2, 1870 • Various
... departure. He had some time since decided upon his course, and as soon as he was a short distance away from the clump of trees, he set out at a brisk walk, and made no effort at concealment. He did not care, now, if he were halted by a British picket or sentinel. ...
— The Dare Boys of 1776 • Stephen Angus Cox
... old camp-lodges could be written, what a story it would tell. Not only did they initiate such men as Alexander Hamilton and John Marshall, the immortal Chief Justice, but they made the spirit of Masonry felt in "times that try men's souls"[157]—a spirit passing through picket-lines, eluding sentinels, and softening the horrors ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton
... meager and limited proportions. The result was that, through the captain's arrangements, the king, on arriving at Melun, saw himself at the head of both the musketeers and Swiss guards, as well as a picket of the French guards. It might almost have been called a small army. M. Colbert looked at the troops with great delight: he even wished they had been ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... manner of our march: A mile or so ahead of us went a picket of eight or ten men mounted on the swiftest beasts, doubtless to give warning of any danger. Next, three or four hundred yards away, followed a body of about fifty Kendah, travelling in a double ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... a flying battery that had been quickly sent to retard the enemy's centre and give Carr's division time to deploy. Osterhaus met the cavalry returning, and threw his detachment against the advancing line. The picket posted at Elkhorn tavern, where Carr was to deploy, was attacked and driven back, and Carr's division had to go into line under fire. Osterhaus found himself opposed to the corps of McCulloch and McIntosh, and was about being overwhelmed when Davis' division moved to his support. Pea ...
— From Fort Henry to Corinth • Manning Ferguson Force
... the long line of iron picket fence surrounding Grimsby Hill, he saw Mrs. Carter's motor enter the gate. It seemed to be a good omen. He hurried to the gate, peered in, then passed on. He couldn't go and swagger past that exclusive-looking gate-house and intrude on that sweep of rhododendron-lined ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... given. Schenck would make the simultaneous movement when Benham was known to be in march, and McCook's and my own brigade would at least make demonstrations from our several positions. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. v. pp. 255, 261-265.] From my picket post at Montgomery's Ferry I had sent scouts up the Fayette road, and by the 9th had discovered such symptoms of weakness in the enemy that I thought the time had come to make an effort to dislodge the battery and get command of the crest of Cotton Mountain ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... Meade's corps (the Fifth), Howard's corps (the Eleventh), and Slocum's corps (the Twelfth), the whole being under the command of General Slocum, left camp for Kelly's Ford, each accompanied by three batteries. A detachment was thrown over, in boats, on the evening of the 28th, which dispersed the picket guard; and by the next morning the entire force was across the river and on their way to the Rapidan, the Fifth Corps taking the direction of Elley's Ford and the Eleventh and Twelfth Corps that of ...
— Chancellorsville and Gettysburg - Campaigns of the Civil War - VI • Abner Doubleday
... commodious. It has a wide verandah, glazed windows, and other appurtenances of a civilized mansion. Upon the lawn in front are palm-trees standing erect here and there, like sentinels. The Consular Office, a small building by itself, is inclosed by the same picket which fences in ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... demolition by the modern iconoclast—have they no teachings? How many phases in the art of the builder and engineer, from the high-peaked Norman cottage to the ponderous, drowsy Mansard roof—from Champlain's picket fort to the modern citadel of Quebec—from our primitive legislative meeting-house to our stately Parliament Buildings on the ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... shelter of the ravelin, to pick up the wounded, and bear them within the walls for surgical help. They were so near he could see their faces, could hear them speak; yet he durst not make any sign to them when he lay within range of the French picket's fire. ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. III • Elizabeth Gaskell
... attack in force on the Union camp, whose five divisions numbered a total of about thirty-three thousand. The Union generals had made no provision against such an attack. No intrenchments had been thrown up, no plan or understanding arranged. A few preliminary picket skirmishes had, indeed, put the Union front on the alert, but the commanders of brigades and regiments were not prepared for the impetuous rush with which the three successive Confederate lines began the main battle. On their part, the ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... of a picket, were hastening to the sentry's support, their progress marked by a lantern held by a stout ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... and he found himself in front of a gate, on the high post of which was perched a diminutive, bare-legged girl in a soiled, damp frock, superintending the drying of three pair of mud-covered shoes arranged in a row on the picket fence, while she issued orders to the two sisters sitting in the middle of the gravel walk busily ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown
... Norwegian by the arm and led him in through a gate in a whitewashed picket fence. Beyond the fence was a fairly prosperous looking house, on the piazza of which lounged ...
— The Girl Aviators' Motor Butterfly • Margaret Burnham
... from his long ride, he stretched himself for a short rest. He dozed. Something touched his foot. It was the riata with which he had picketed the pony. He meant to travel again that night. He would sleep a little while. The horse, circling the picket, would be sure ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... miles of picket fences there was nothing to keep the animals from wandering up into the highlands where the colonists did not dare to venture. In spite of the handicaps all classes of domestic animals increased in numbers ...
— Agriculture in Virginia, 1607-1699 • Lyman Carrier
... at daybreak, news arrived at Murfreesboro that the rebel general, Forest, was about to make an attack on the place, which news was verified by General Forest capturing the picket guard and dashing into the town soon after the news arrived, with a mounted force of 1,500 men. A part of this force charged upon the camp of the Seventh Pennsylvania, then reformed, and charged upon the Ninth Michigan ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... an eye to profit, had already built a picket fence around his starry visitor and was charging admission. He also flatly refused to permit the chipping off of specimens or even the touching of the object. His attitude was severely criticized, but he stubbornly clung to the theory that possession ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... locked the heavy front door of the jail behind him when a half dozen horsemen, followed by a crowd of men on foot, came round a bend in the road and drew near the jail. They halted in front of the picket fence that surrounded the building, while several of the committee of arrangements rode on a few rods farther to the sheriff's house. One of them dismounted and rapped on the door with ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... is a servant house at the rear of a white family's residence. A gate through an old-fashioned picket fence led into a spacious yard where dense shade from tall pecan trees was particularly inviting after a long ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... Chicago convention. I well remember how that evening our pickets shouted the good news to the pickets of the enemy. What good news? News that a convention representing nearly one-half of the people of the North had concluded that the war was a failure? No such news was shouted from our-picket line. The good news that they shouted was that Sherman ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard
... a courier picket every sixteen miles. At one of them we got the information, "Gun-boats drove back," at which there was great rejoicing, and the captain, recovering his spirits, became quite jocose, and volunteered to give me letters of introduction to a "particular friend ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... households, and inflict never-healing wounds upon thousands of happy hearts. For every man who falls in battle some one mourns. For every man who dies in hospital-wards, and of whom no note is made, some one mourns. For the humblest soldier shot on picket, and of whose humble exit from the stage of life little is thought, some one mourns. Nor this alone. For every soldier disabled; for every one who loses an arm or a leg, or who is wounded or languishes in protracted suffering; for every one who has 'only camp-fever,' ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... on the 13th, Lord Gough was before the village of Bussool, and finding a very strong picket of the enemy on a mound close to that place, his lordship, after some fighting, dislodged it. Ascending the mound, the general and his staff beheld the Khalsa army ranged along the furrowed hills in all the majestic array of war. The British officers gazed with ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... thought every one of us would be killed, but no one was shot except the one just mentioned. Out-posts were always stationed two hundred yards or more from camp every night, or in front of our trenches, to prevent a night attack. If the enemy started through our picket lines they were fired on by the pickets, who would then rapidly fall back to our lines of trenches. This out-post duty is very important and very dangerous, especially when the sneaking Filipinos ...
— A Soldier in the Philippines • Needom N. Freeman
... purpose a poison obtained from the tuba root, known to scientists as Cocculus indicus. When a Dyak village is in need of food the entire community, men, women and children, repairs to a stream in which fish are known to be plentiful. Across the stream a sort of picket fence is erected by planting bamboos close together. In the center of this fence is a narrow opening leading into an enclosure like a corral, the walls of which are made in the same fashion. When this part of the preparations has been completed a party of natives proceeds up-stream ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... comfortable so that they may not struggle to be free, or by huge gifts to education, to philanthropy, to religion. In labor we see men rising in brute fury against both employer and society. They deny the basic necessities of life to their fellow citizens; they bring the bludgeon of the picket down upon the head of the scab; by means of the closed shop they refuse the right to work to their brother craftsmen; they level the incapable men up and the capable men down by insisting upon uniformity of production and wage. Thus they replace ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... till August 26th, occupying the inner picket line at night, and training by day. On that date the Brigade moved to er Rabah, a large palm grove, a mile or so north of Katia, which it closely resembled. After reveille at 3.45 a.m., and breakfast at 4.30, the Battalion moved off at six, reaching er Rabah ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... up her picket rope, and stood waiting with disturbed face. As the rider drew near she called, ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... we cooked breakfast, a strong picket of wolves watched all around the camp, feasting their greedy eyes from a distance on my elk-meat. When we started from camp, a hundred or more of them followed us, often coming quite close to the back pony, and biting ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... the darkness they went, hitting the channel squarely, and steaming in under the frowning walls of the Morro through gloom and death-like silence. But the Spaniards were not asleep. A small picket-boat came gliding out under the collier's stern and fired several shots at the suspicious craft. One of these carried away the rudder and spoiled one important item of the plans. The dingy, which was trusted to for escape, disappeared, perhaps hit by one of these shots. ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... preternatural powers. She hurried back to the house, and searched every room in a bewildered sort of fashion, finding nothing. As she came out again, her eye caught sight of a kitchen chair in the corner of the yard. They had climbed the picket fence, then. Yes; Atlantic, while availing himself of its unassuming aid, had left a clue in a fragment of his trousers. She opened the gate, and ran breathlessly along the streets to that Garden of Eden where joy had always hitherto awaited ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... soldiers were sent out from Fort Ridgely in 1862 to bury those in the country around who had been massacred by the Indians. I was acting as picket out of Fort Ridgely and was first to hear the firing sixteen miles distant at Birch Coolie. It was the Indians attacking the burial party. I notified those at the fort and a party was sent out for relief. As they neared Birch Coolie they found they were outnumbered ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... no other way could the settlers have combined for defence, while yet retaining their individual ownership of the land. The Watauga forts or palisaded villages were of the usual kind, the cabins and blockhouses connected by a heavy loop-holed picket. They were admirably adapted for defence with the rifle. As there was no moat, there was a certain danger from an attack with fire unless water was stored within; and it was of course necessary to guard carefully against surprise. But ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... through flies, that he committed suicide. You know animals will do that. I've read of horses and dogs drowning themselves. This horse had been clipped and his tail was docked, and he was turned out to graze. The flies stung him till he was nearly crazy. He ran up to a picket fence, and sprang up on the sharp spikes. There he hung, making no effort to get down. Some men saw him, and they said it was a ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... ordinary peril he crossed the river on a couple of logs, lashed together, some distance above the spot where the picket had seen Mademoiselle. It was a moonlight night, and he might easily have been picked off by a bullet, if a wary sentry had been alert and malicious. But the truth was that many of these pickets on both sides were in no wise unfriendly to each other, and more than once exchanged tobacco ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... him! The small blonde head and the delirious little fluffy hat above it shimmered a nod to him. Then his mouth fell unconsciously open, and his eyes grew glassy with the intensity of meaning he put into the silent response he sent across the picket fence and through the interstices of the intervening group. Pressing with his elbow upon the package of cigarettes in his pocket, he murmured, inaudibly, "My Little Sweetheart, always for you!"—a repetition of his vow that, come what might, he would forever remain a loyal smoker of that symbolic ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... not idle. There was an excellent chance to send a force out of the Palace Gate near the Hotel Dieu, by which the assailants had passed, and to attack them in the rear. For this duty Colonel Caldwell was told off and he took with him Nairne and his picket of about thirty men. The force plodded through the deep snow in the tracks of the enemy who, about daybreak, were astonished to find themselves shut in by British forces at each end of the Sault au Matelot. A hand to hand fight followed. The Americans ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... select a proper place for the murder. This was chosen in a long stretch of forest, and two men were despatched to the village of Sutranja, farther on the road, to see that no one was coming in the opposite direction, while another picket remained behind to prevent interruption from the rear. By the time they reached the appointed place, the Bhurtots (stranglers) and Shamsias (holders) had all on some pretext or other got close to the side of the persons whom they ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... discovered a field of late corn in the neighborhood, and used to boil a few ears every day, while it lasted, for the boys detailed on the night-picket. The corn-cobs were always scrupulously preserved and mounted on the parapets of the pits. Whenever a Rebel shot carried away one of these barbette guns, there was swearing in that particular trench. Strong, who was very sensitive to this kind of disaster, ...
— Quite So • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... there drove up two carriages and a large automobile, and out of the automobile climbed a well-dressed woman who took a bundle of the pamphlets from the girl picket and began passing them about among the people. Two policemen who stood in front of the crowd took off their helmets and accompanied her. The crowd cheered. Frank came hurrying across the street to where Sam stood in front ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... ashore in the Dardanelles, the crew being captured by Turks; two British picket boats, under a heavy fire, then torpedo and destroy the stranded vessel to prevent her ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... didn't like this change, that Mr. Hopewell had kinder inoculated me with other guess views on these matters, so he began to throw up bankments and to picket in the ground, all round ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... doubtless supplies were being collected, and negotiations proceeding with the enemy, the British outpost line lay in full view of, and only "one shout's distance," as the Pathans expressively call it, from the enemy. And outside the line of infantry outposts lay a cavalry picket of ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband
... of the road running north and south there had once been an open field of some thirty or forty acres, where the wagoners were wont to camp and the drovers to picket their stock in the halcyon days of the old hostelry. It had been the muster-ground of the militia too, and there were men yet alive, at the time of which we write, whose fathers had mustered with the county forces on that ground. When it was "turned out," however, and the ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... with weird gonfalons of gray moss, slit here and there by the edge of a star. Many a time we crawled stealthily through tangled vines and shrubs to the skirt of a wood, and across a fallen log sighted the Yankee picket whose bayonet point glimmered now and then far off in the moonlight. We spent a great many hours around the ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... visualizing in rough speech the desolate picture; the wailing mourners on the bleak hillside, with the November clouds hanging low and trailing their wet streamers. A "jolt-wagon" had carried the coffin in lieu of a hearse. Saddled mules stood tethered against the picket fence. The dogs that had followed their masters started a rabbit close by the open grave, and split the silence with their yelps as the first clod fell. He recalled, too, the bitter voice with which his mother had spoken to ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... the ice man for a space, Then might I cool this red-hot cocoanut, Corral the jim-jam bugs that madly race Around the eaves that from my forehead jut— Or will a carpenter please come instead And build a picket ...
— The Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum • Wallace Irwin
... of white paint. The elms dwindled away and an occasional maple dotted the common with shade. The driver guided the patient gray to the left and, near the centre of the common, drew up in front of a little white house, which, like the picket fence in front of it, the flagstaff on the common, and so many other things in Eden Village, seemed to be patiently awaiting ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... the old man, "I ought to have twice as much. There's Abe Tucker gets fifteen dollars because he caught cold on picket duty, and I ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby
... to the mouth of the Big Miami, opposite which we were to settle. Here was some cleared land, and one or two log cabins, but they had been deserted on account of the Indians. My father rebuilt the cabins, and inclosed them with a strong picket. It was early in the spring when we arrived at the mouth of the Big Miami, and we were soon engaged in preparing a field to plant corn. I think it was not more than ten days after our arrival, when my father told us in ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... that a Confederate picket had been occupying the village, and the creek memorized by the skirmish was an outpost merely. Two of the man Otto's party had been slain in the woods, where also lay as ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... had advanced to within a scant hundred yards of him could he make out the figure which raised it. And then, after one sharp glance, with a quick intake of breath, he rose and went a trifle hastily out across his own lawn toward the iron picket fence that bordered the roadside. He went almost hurriedly to intercept the boy who came marching over the brow of the ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... up the top, two French soldiers on picket duty came by and, lured by the unfailing bait of cigarettes, stopped to talk to us. Taking it for granted that we knew where we were, they did not mention our being between the lines, but told us of a great fight which had last Sunday taken ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... day they had seen and heard several lions. It was therefore deemed advisable to picket the horses close to the tent, ...
— Hunting the Lions • R.M. Ballantyne
... few moments he came upon two horses standing asleep, tethered by long ropes to picket-pins. One of these he released and led back to his own. Then he remounted and rode on. Again he circled wide of his destination, and this time struck into the woods that lined the river. His way now lay down the black aisles of tree trunks which he pursued until he came to a spot ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... this feat, and to complete his glories of Long Island and Breed's Hill, at Philadelphia! A friend, to be sure, crossed in the night to say the enemy's army was being ferried over, but he fell upon a picket of Germans: they could not understand him: their commander was boozing or asleep. In the morning, when the spy was brought to some one who could comprehend the American language, the whole Continental force had crossed the East River, and the empire ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... primest part of the buffalo-pasture. As we wind along the base of the steep Republican Bluffs, and the edges of those green amphitheatres made by their alternate approach and retrocession, our whistle scares a picket-line of giant bulls, guarding a divide across the stream, and with tails in air, heads at the down charge, they scour away at a lumbering cow-gallop, to tell the main herd of a progress more resistless than ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... picket his night horse near the wagon, usually choosing the quietest animal in his string for that purpose, because to saddle and mount a "mean" horse at night is not pleasant. When utterly tired, it was hard to have to get up for one's trick at night herd. Nevertheless, on ordinary nights the two ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... been in vain, so Bob left a picket of five men under Old Dick to keep the narrow path, bidding them fell a tree or two so that their branches might lie towards and hinder an attack from the enemy, before hurrying back with fourteen men to the ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... it?" said Stuart, in matter-of-fact tones, as he turned again to the house. "Good idea. Tell him to fire lower next time. And, I say," he went on, as he bowed curtly to the assembled company on the veranda, "since you have got a picket out, you had better double it. And, Clay, see that no one leaves here without permission—no one. That's more important, even, ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... says he, holding up his finger. "I will take my revenge how and when I please. We are enough of the same family to understand each other, perhaps; and the reason why I have not had you arrested on your arrival, why I had not a picket of soldiers in the first clump of evergreens, to await and prevent your coming—I, who knew all, before whom that pettifogger, Romaine, has been conspiring in broad daylight to supplant me—is simply this: that I had not made up my mind how I ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... enjoyingly. It was lonely and monotonous work, riding back and forth through the darkness, keeping a sharp lookout for wolves or Indians, driving straggling cattle back to the herd, in brief, doing the picket duty of the plains. ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... sergeant of Rodney's company came to make out his report, he found that there were six men missing out of seventy-three. One out of twelve was not a severe loss for an hour's fight (when Picket's five thousand made their useless charge at Gettysburg they lost seven men out of every nine), but it was enough to show Rodney that there was a dread reality in war. He told Dick Graham that as long as he lived he would never forget the expression that came ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... deserted by all but the dead and dying, with now and then a passing picket or fatigue-party. As the night advanced, and the cold became piercing, even these seemed to have finally retired from the ghastly scene. Towards morning the moon rose high, and, piercing the clouds, at times lit ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... in the middle distance was a track and cradle similar to the one shown in the first picture. The machine in the cabinet buzzed, and clicked, and made a noise like that of a small boy rattling a stick along a picket fence. A draught from some open window blowing against the linen screen caused the flat, deserted plain to undulate like the waves of the sea. The horizon bobbed up and down, showing first a great expanse of sky, and then the foreground ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... the head was a flag-staff thirty-five feet high which bore an American flag worn out by exposure, and near by was the usual hewn post inscribed with Indian characters representing his war-like exploits, etc. Enclosing all was a strong circular picket fence twelve feet high. His body remained here until July, 1839, when it was carried off by a certain Dr. Turner, then living at Lexington, Van Buren county, Iowa. Captain Horn says the bones were carried to Alton, Ills., to be mounted with wire. Mr. Barrows says they were taken to Warsaw, Ills. ...
— Autobiography of Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak, or Black Hawk • Black Hawk
... not the most numerous, certainly the most effective, regular army which the United States were able to send into the field during the War. Crossing the border on the 20th of September, 1813, he surprised a small picket of British at Odelltown, a Loyalist settlement afterwards celebrated for a battle in the Rebellion of 1837. He soon found himself met with what seemed to him great difficulties, for the army was plunged into an extensive swampy wood, the ...
— An Account Of The Battle Of Chateauguay - Being A Lecture Delivered At Ormstown, March 8th, 1889 • William D. Lighthall
... A picket enclosure, mounted with cannon, protected the humble buildings erected for the use of the first settlers on what is now the Custom-house Square. The little stream—not much more than a rivulet except in spring—which for many years rippled between green, mossy ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... greatest abhorrence, and on which he never failed to animadvert. The man afterwards appeared much ashamed and concerned for what he had done. But the colonel ordered him to be brought early the next morning to his own quarters, where he had prepared a picket, on which he appointed him a private sort of penance; and while he was put upon it, he discoursed with him seriously and tenderly upon the evils and aggravations of his fault, admonished him of the divine displeasure ...
— The Life of Col. James Gardiner - Who Was Slain at the Battle of Prestonpans, September 21, 1745 • P. Doddridge
... order, shouted down the rocky flanks of the ravine. There is instant response in the neigh of excited horses, the clatter of iron-shod hoofs. Through the dim light the men go rushing, saddles and bridles in hand, each to where he has driven his own picket pin. Promptly the steeds are girthed and bitted. Promptly the men come running back to the bivouac, seizing and slinging carbines, then leading into line. A brief word of command, another of caution, and then the whole troop ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... luck, I suppose he could be made to take a hand with you, sir—two-handed picket or ekkarty, you being seedy and keeping indoors—just to pass the time. For all we know, he may be one of them hot ones ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... the Union lines just as the sun was going down. Captain Hatch, who had accompanied us, waved his flag as we halted near a grove of trees, and a young officer rode over to us from the nearest picket-station. We despatched him to General Foster for a pair of horses, and in half an hour entered the General's tent. He pressed us to remain to dinner, proposing to kill the fatted calf,—"for these my sons were dead and are alive again, were lost ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... pictures of the war is that of attack in the night related by a sergeant of the Worcester Regiment, who was wounded in the fierce battle of the Aisne. He was on picket duty when the attack opened. "It was a little after midnight," he said "when the men ahead suddenly fell back to report strange sounds and movements along the front. The report had just been made when we heard a rustling in the bushes near us. We challenged ...
— Tommy Atkins at War - As Told in His Own Letters • James Alexander Kilpatrick |
