"Trigger" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... cocks the rifle and aims at a target a foot high on the other side of the room, and when his aim is satisfactory, pulls the trigger. When this is done an electrical connection is made which shoots forward the rod which is on the standard, so that its point punches a hole in a miniature target like a visiting card, which is placed in front of it, which hole is mathematically on the same relative place on the card target ...
— A report on the feasibility and advisability of some policy to inaugurate a system of rifle practice throughout the public schools of the country • George W. Wingate
... he saw the avenues under the old trees where his aunt used to take him walking in old days; he saw himself a little child, happy and wondering; he remembered the castles he used to build with strips of plane-tree bark... The trigger was pulled. Jean beat the air with his arms and fell forward face to the ground. The men finished him with their bayonets; then the woman danced on the corpse ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France
... He pulled the trigger of his automatic again and again as he rushed forward. By some strange trick of fate the figure reeled for a second and one of its arms dropped swinging to its side. The bullet had entered a joint. Had it in some way deranged the mechanism, causing the Automaton to turn ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... courtesy to the piping pickets; ducking in perfect time, as though it had been brazed on a rod. Being half capable of thinking for itself, it fired a volley by the simple process of pitching its rifle into its shoulder and pulling the trigger. The bullets may have accounted for some of the watchers on the hill side, but they certainly did not affect the mass of enemy in front, while the noise of the rifles drowned any orders that ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... game away. Besides, there is everything in the feeling with which one approaches an animal. If one comes timidly, doubtfully, the animal knows it; and if one comes swift, silent, resolute, with his power gripped tight, and the hammer back, and a forefinger resting lightly on the trigger guard, the animal knows it too, you may depend. Anyway, they always act as if they knew, and you may safely follow the rule that, whatever your feeling is, whether fear or doubt or confidence, the large and dangerous animals will sense it ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... opportunity and suggested a new form of trigger for the unwieldy crossbows. He saw that as at present discharged it must require some strength, perhaps the united effort of several men, to pull away the bolt or catch. Such an effort must disconcert the aim; these crossbows were worked upon a carriage, ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... English writers call those large muskets calivers; the harquebuss was a lighter piece, that could be fired without a rest. The matchlock was fired by a match fixed by a kind of tongs in the serpentine or cock, which, by pulling the trigger, was brought down with great quickness upon the priming in the pan, over which there was a sliding cover, which was drawn back by the hand just at the time of firing. There was a great deal of nicety and care required to fit the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... behind. Their arms of fire wreak'd out their ire, their shields emboss'd with gold, And the thrusting of their venom'd points upon the foemen told; O deep and large was every gash that mark'd their manly vigour, And irresistible the flash that lighten'd round their trigger; And woe, when play'd the dark blue blade, the thick back'd sharp Ferrara, Though plied its might by stripling hand, it cut into the marrow. Clan Colla,[122] let them have their due, thy true and gallant following, Strength, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... the fern, while Alton felt the barrel of a rifle under him. He rolled on his side, and clawed for it, almost sightless, with one hand, and laughed harshly as he raised himself a trifle. There was a flash and a concussion, the trigger-guard sank into his nerveless finger, and a smashing amidst the undergrowth was followed by footsteps that were presently lost in ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... equal to what cocking a gun, and directing it at its object, would be with us. To launch the spear, or to touch the trigger, ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... in all his criminal record had so much as pulled trigger in self-defence, was ready now to shoot to kill with the most cold-blooded intent—given one of three targets; while Popinot's creatures, if they worried him, he meant to exterminate with as little compunction as though ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... custom here. Atoi was a very powerful man of about thirty, and those who attacked him had a most difficult task; twice he broke from them; and I then watched the countenance of his brother, which was perfectly cool and collected, though the firelock was in readiness, and the finger on the trigger, which might despatch him instantly. All parties sat perfectly quiet during the desperate struggle; one of the barrels of Atoi's piece went off, and the contents flew amongst us, without, however, doing ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle
... is stripping for battle, for in comes all his light canvas, and up goes his mainsail. The man who commands that ship is a right valiant cavalier, and will put up a good fight; therefore, let no man put match to culverin or finger to trigger until I give the word. Now, let the waits play up 'The ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... shape for a long shot. Jack has written that he seemed to be looking for hostile "Injuns" some distance away and to be waiting for another stir in the bushes. Suddenly he pulled his trigger. ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... the wintry North Atlantic a torpedo sped across her bows and she knew her chance had come. Instantly her alarm signals, quietly given, brought all hands to action stations, some in deck-houses, others in hen-coops, but each with his finger on the trigger or his hand on a ready spare shell. Presently the submarine broke surface and fired a shot across the Q ship's bow. On this the well-trained crew ran about in panic, while the captain screeched at them and waved his arms about ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... class of people referred to somewhat ironically as "the reading public," Boswell is read, but Johnson never. And so sternly true is the fact that many critics, set on a hair-trigger, aver that were it not for Boswell no one would now know that a writer by the name of Johnson ever lived. Yet the fact is, Boswell ruined the literary reputation of Johnson by intimating that Johnson wrote Johnsonese; but ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... means infrequent in Dynamics, where the truth is widely different from that which seems to be the case. An illustration will perhaps make the matter clearer. When a rifle is fired, it is the finger of the rifleman that pulls the trigger; but are we, then, to say that the energy by which the bullet has been driven off has been supplied by the rifleman? Certainly not; the energy is, of course, due to the gunpowder, and all the rifleman did was to provide the means by which the energy stored up in the powder could be ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... and thrust the muzzle into the tiger's mouth, just as the elephant swerved round with sudden fright and pain. At the same moment the weight of the tiger on the howdah caused the girths to give way; and Charlie, Tim and the tiger fell together on the ground. Charlie had pulled his trigger, just as he felt himself going; and at the same moment he heard the crack ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty
... With eyes full of terror and a certain vague curiosity they glanced rapidly from the pistol to the fateful ace, which slowly descended, quivering in the air. At the moment it touched the table Vulich pulled the trigger... a ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... two armed men, both deeply disguised in great black beards, and in good clothes, stepped into this empty little camp. Bending low, looking right, looking left, guns in hand and hand on trigger, they stopped in the centre of the little camp, and looked cautiously up, down, and all around. Seeing no one, hearing nothing, they looked in each others' eyes, straightened up, and, standing their guns against a tree, breathed more freely in the gray twilight. ...
— Shadows of Shasta • Joaquin Miller
... his catapult so that he could release the trigger from the flying machine. Mark said he was ready; the professor reached for the cord which ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... at his warning, and drew the trigger; but though there was a sharp report on either side of me, my piece did not speak, and suddenly recollecting that I had forgotten to cock it, I ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... enthusiasm than the cry deserves, it was then: to assume a rollicking air, to laugh with cool carelessness when there is nothing between you and death but the more or less strong pressure of a highwayman's finger on the trigger of a musket, is no easy task; but all this I accomplished, and once more got through the village with a whole skin indeed, but with the unalterable resolution to blow my brains out rather than again try ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... snapped the lift went upwards slowly. Two overhanging electric lamps illuminated the little elevator. They were dangerous to him. With the steel barrel of his pistol he smashed the bulbs and crouched down in the darkness, his finger on the trigger, ready for any emergency. ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... ignore, though it contained a considerable element of improbability. It was conceivable that Greifenstein should have been the first to die. In that case Rieseneck, who must have felt that he had ruined Greif by his revelations, might have burned his brother's letter, before pulling the trigger. It would have seemed more natural in that case that he should have also destroyed his own, but it might be that he had warned Rex for a good reason. Without such a warning, and if he had been a less devoted friend of Greif's, Rex might perhaps have ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... pressed trigger, a light sighing eased itself from the slim barrel. Something flicked through the leaves; and, almost on the instant, the phenomenon of the little phosphorescent spot repeated itself, though in a different place ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... as we advanced to charge Johnson's poltroons, one of the party, a resolute fellow, presented his gun to my breast and drew the trigger. Happily, in the very instant of its firing, lieutenant Jossilin knocked it up with his sword; and the ball grazing my shoulder, bursted through the side of ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... damned," said Jim Cummings, almost exultingly, as he drew his revolver from his belt. "Two can play at that game," and drawing a hasty bead on Chip, he pulled the trigger. ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... by-play took some time, but at last they were ready—one man armed with a pair of binoculars and the other with the American naval rifle—the Lee straight-pull, which fires the thinnest pin of a cartridge I have seen and has but a two-pound trigger pull. Even then nothing was done for perhaps another ten minutes, and in some cases for half an hour; it varied according to individual requirements. Then when the quarry was located by the man with the binoculars, and the ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... my mind in a twinkling, and just as I drew out my revolver the captain caught sight of me. He quickly shifted the rifle in his hands and tugged at the hammer. He knew nothing of the necessity of taking aim, or of the use of the trigger. It would only be by the merest chance if he hit me. I had half drawn the trigger, and was just correcting my aim, when a long flash of flame from the rifle startled me, and unconsciously I fired wild. ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass
... instant action, though the action was infinitely slow. Five minutes passed before he was able to get his rifle to his shoulder, and a second five minutes passed ere he dared, lying on his back and aiming straight upward, to pull the trigger. It was a clean miss. No bird fell, but no bird flew. They ruffled and rustled stupidly and drowsily. His shoulder pained him. A second shot was spoiled by the involuntary wince he made as he pulled trigger. Somewhere, in the last three days, though he had no recollection how, he must ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... jack-knife into the very centre of his wooden mantelpiece, then I begin to give myself virtuous airs. I have always held, too, that pistol practice should be distinctly an open-air pastime; and when Holmes, in one of his queer humors, would sit in an arm-chair with his hair-trigger and a hundred Boxer cartridges, and proceed to adorn the opposite wall with a patriotic V. R. done in bullet-pocks, I felt strongly that neither the atmosphere nor the appearance of our room was ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... Aiming at the foremost I fired twice at the advancing assailants. There were shouts and screams of pain in answer, and the line hesitated. I gave them the remaining cartridge, and, seizing the smaller weapon from Luella, fired as rapidly as I could pull the trigger. ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... pack, brittle and bent like a bow; Featureless, formless, forsaken, scented by wolves in their flight, Left for the wind to make music through ribs that are glittering white; Gnawing the black crust of failure, searching the pit of despair, Crooking the toe in the trigger, trying to patter a prayer; Going outside with an escort, raving with lips all afoam; Writing a cheque for a million, drivelling feebly of home; Lost like a louse in the burning ... or else in tented town Seeking a drunkard's solace, sinking and sinking down; Steeped in the ...
— Songs of a Sourdough • Robert W. Service
... is the screw-together. He screws on the heel plate, the guard that protects the trigger, puts in the trigger plate, lets in the pipes to hold the ramrod, puts on the nozzle cap, and ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... lacked water, so much so that I was reduced to washing in the seltzer water which the sister had had sent to me. I take my siphon, I mark the painter who cries fire, I press the trigger, the discharge hits him full in his face; then I place myself in front of him, I receive the stream in my beard, I rub my nose with the lather, I dry my face. We are ready, we go downstairs. The field ...
— Sac-Au-Dos - 1907 • Joris Karl Huysmans
... your soul, Mah'sr John, ye needn't be 'fraid o' my techin' 'em off. I wouldn't no more put a finger on 'em dan I'd pull de trigger ov a ...
— What Might Have Been Expected • Frank R. Stockton
... set his camera down to demonstrate. "Now just stand behind me," he concluded, "and pull the trigger when I ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... tongue, Bob Acres. It's my belief ye're no better than a coward," said Captain Costigan, quoting Sir Lucius O'Trigger, which character he had performed with credit, both off and on the stage, and after some more parley between the couple they separated in not ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... brothers sought and grasped each other, penitently. "Yes," interposed the Judge with delicate tact, "ye see the Right and Left Bower almost quarreled to see which should be the first to fire for ye. I disremember which did"—"I never touched the trigger," said the Left Bower, hastily. With a hurried backward kick, the Judge resumed, "It went ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... severe fine, but what do I care as long as I have their money to pay it with? The killing of that fool boy worries me more than a dozen fines. It was uncalled for, too, but he would butt in, and you fellows were all itching for the chance to finger a trigger. Now the understanding is that you all ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... but there could be no doubt, from its loudness, that it was near, and even in the house. It was no less manifest that the sound arose from the discharge of a pistol. Some hand must have drawn the trigger. I recollected the disappearance of the candle from the room below. Instantly a supposition darted into my mind which made my hair rise and my ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... Animals at work, even as in the contrivance of killing a Fox or Wolf with a Gun, the moving of a string, is the death of the Animal; for the Beast, by moving the flesh that is laid to entrap him, pulls the string which moves the trigger, and that lets go the Cock which on the steel strikes certain sparks of fire which kindle the powder in the pann, and that presently flies into the barrel, where the powder catching fire rarifies and drives out the bullet which kills ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... have made all these mistakes in recollecting my mother's account of the matter, although she was more accurate than I am, being precise upon points of genealogy, like all the aristocratical Scotch. She had a long list of ancestors, like Sir Lucius O'Trigger's, most of whom are to be found in the old Scotch Chronicles, Spalding, &c. in arms and doing mischief. I remember well passing Loch Leven, as well as the Queen's Ferry: we were on our way to ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... tell ye," answered the Trapper, "fer my eye was at the sights and my finger on the trigger, and the feelin' of natur' was strong within me to crop one of yer ears then and there, Shanty Jim, but somethin', mayhap the sperit of the Lord, staid my finger, and ye went with yer thievin' in yer hand to yer camp ...
— Holiday Tales - Christmas in the Adirondacks • W. H. H. Murray
... which were wasting away. Their disintegration is identical with our own. They have their decay, their ruptures, their tumors, their madnesses. A piece of furniture gnawed by worms, a gun with a broken trigger, a warped drawer, or the soul of a violin suddenly out of tune, such are the ...
— Romance of the Rabbit • Francis Jammes
... to take the revolver out of Ed's belt, and press it into Ed's hand, curling his fingers around the grip and over the trigger, and then he wanted to shake Ed awake, slap his ...
— The Last Place on Earth • James Judson Harmon
... scoundrel, and a coward[787]: a scoundrel, for charging a blunderbuss against religion and morality; a coward, because he had not resolution to fire it off himself, but left half a crown to a beggarly Scotchman, to draw the trigger after his death[788]!' Garrick, who I can attest from my own knowledge, had his mind seasoned with pious reverence, and sincerely disapproved of the infidel writings of several, whom, in the course of his almost universal gay intercourse with men of eminence, he treated with external ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... merry, laughing blue eyes, jovial voice and handsome face, for he was a man who could be all things to all men; and the blue eyes sometimes went black, and the smooth, shapely hand that was for ever stroking the long flowing beard, liked too well to feel a trigger in the crook of its forefinger. So I laughingly declined his offer—even when, as an extra inducement, he pointed out to me a very handsome young Marshall Island girl, who would do the station honours for me ...
— The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton - 1902 • Louis Becke
... defend my right of giving or refusing the other shilling. And, after all, if I cannot defend that right, I can retire cheerfully with my family into the boundless woods of America, which are sure to afford freedom and subsistence to any man who can bait a hook or pull a trigger." The picture of Dr. Franklin, the philosopher, at the age of sixty-one, "cheerfully" sustaining his family in the wilderness by the winnings of his rod and his rifle stirs one's sense of humor; but the paragraph indicates that he was in strict ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... seen 'Curly' grab at the drawer, and I have aversions to witnessing gun plays from the front end. The tenderfoot riz up in his chair, and snatchin' a stack of reds in his off mit, dashed 'em into 'Curly's' face just as he pulled trigger. It spoiled his aim, and the boy was on to him like a mountain lion, follerin' over the table, along the line of ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... quite still. I could not exactly see what was best to be done, for the man's hand was steady, and I scarcely saw how I could escape if indeed he pressed the trigger. ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... to Dicky, and Dicky went into our room and fetched the large toy pistol that is a foot long, and that has the trigger broken, and I took it because I am the eldest; and I don't think either of us thought it was the cat now. But Alice and H. O. did. Dicky got the poker out of Noel's room, and told Dora it was to settle the cat with when ...
— The Story of the Treasure Seekers • E. Nesbit
... of impatience. He fingered the trigger of his weapon, and then slowly raised it on ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the case, though that was bad enough. It was losing my infernal hair-trigger of a temper that's been cutting in like a knife. I had the boy where he ought to get well if they followed my precautions a thousand times repeated. This morning his heart was a whole lot stronger; it only needed time. Tonight his mother let him sit up—in ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond
... struck Mr Knight a tremendous blow on the head with his mallet, which felled him to the earth, stunned and lifeless. He next rushed upon Frazer, who had fairly covered him with the muzzle of his piece, and would inevitably have shot him, but just as he pulled the trigger, the man whom I had seen creeping round behind him, sprang upon him, and deranged his aim; two or three of the others, who had stood looking on, taking no part in the affair, now interposed, and by their assistance Frazer was overpowered and secured. Whether they murdered him or not, as Luerson ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... me, Henry: we really haven't time for all that sort of flapdoodle now. [He starts to his feet as if she had pulled a trigger and straightened him by the release of a powerful spring, and goes past her with set teeth to the little table]. Oh, take care: you nearly hit me in the chin with the top of ...
— How He Lied to Her Husband • George Bernard Shaw
... the forest. The lordly animal paused for a few seconds and looked around. Dane was fully alert now. With his gun resting across a fallen log, he trained his eye along the smooth dark barrel. Then as the moose stepped forward and its right side was presented to view, he pulled the trigger. The loud report resounded through the silent forest reaches, and sent the ducks scurrying wildly out of the water. With a snort of pain and surprise the moose threw back its great head, lifted its fore feet from the ground, reeled for an instant, and crashed over on its side, ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody
... health-seeking vacations when they had better places nearer home, mentioning Sullivan's Island where the hospitable Fort Moultrie officers "were good hands at drawing a cork." Of course, he meant a trigger. ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... along the edge of the boat as if to relieve it from the cramped position he had complained of. Archdale saw that the muzzle was pointed directly at him and that the hand which held it in apparent carelessness was working almost imperceptibly towards the trigger. That would not be touched quite yet, however, a shot now would alarm the garrison and be inexcusable. The accident would happen in the excitement of landing. Archdale's left hand that he with as great indifference as Edmonson's laid upon the boat's ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various
... need to go; Proudfit's coming right back; he's only gone for his horse. There's plenty of time to hear the little I've got to say. John March, I'm ashamed of this reputation you've got for being quick on the trigger. O, you're much admired for it—by both sexes! Ye gods! John, isn't it pitiful to see a fellow like you not able to keep a kindly contempt for the opinion of fools! My dear boy—my dear boy! you'll never be worth powder enough ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... of astonishing a tiger was practised with success. A loaded musket was firmly fixed in a horizontal position, about the height of his head, to a couple of stakes driven into the ground, and the piece being cocked, a string from the trigger, first leading a little towards the butt, and then turning through a small ring forwards, was attached to a shoulder of mutton, stuck on the muzzle of the musket, the act of dragging off which, drew the trigger, and the ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... were each eager to take the quarrel into their own hands. A scene of uproar and hubbub ensued that defies description. M'Lellan would have brought his rifle into play and settled all old and new grudges by a pull of the trigger, had he not been restrained by Mr. Hunt. That gentleman acted as moderator, endeavoring to prevent a general melee; in the midst of the brawl, however, an expression was made use of by Lisa derogatory to his own honor. In an instant the tranquil spirit ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... neither man moved a muscle. Silence—a premonitory silence—fell over them as they stood, each with a steady finger dragging uncertainly upon the trigger of his weapon. An owl hooted in the cottonwood nearby; other noises of the night reached their ears. Unaware of this crisis Mustard ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer
... without honor, filled himself full of brandy, cocked a forty-five-calibre revolver, put the muzzle in his mouth, pulled the trigger, blew off the back of his head, and was "accidentally shot while cleaning ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... attenuated for computation, is here able to effect such a change in a pinch of dust that it becomes a free avenue instead of a barricade. Through that avenue a powerful blow from a local store of energy makes itself heard and felt. No device of the trigger class is comparable with this in delicacy. An instant after a signal has taken its way through the coherer a small hammer strikes the tiny tube, jarring its particles asunder, so that they resume their normal state of high resistance. We may ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... curious way in which he handled it George was alarmed. It was an automatic, and if the Chief once pulled the trigger there would be trouble for some one. George held up a warning hand, and the Chief ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Adventures on Strange Islands • Roger Thompson Finlay
... seal—all harsh and unmelodious, save the tones of this sweet little singer. Nothing but starvation or scientific research could justify the slaughter of one of these innocents. I believe I shut my eyes when I pulled the trigger of my gun, and I know my heart gave a regretful thump when I heard the thud of its poor, bleeding body upon the ground. When we started for Franklin Point the next day, Lieutenant Schwatka concluded to follow ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... gentlemen would prefer abandoning the cares and dangers of the ocean for a life of ease and gayety," said the captain. "The hand that has long dallied with a marlinspike may be easily made to feel a trigger, as gracefully as a lady touches the keys of her piano. In short, there is and there is not a great resemblance between the life of a sailor and that of a soldier. There are no gales of wind, nor short allowances, ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... remnant of College-day dreams (Its wadding is made of forensics and themes); Ah, visions of fame! what a flash in the pan As the trigger was pulled ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... I beat up a stroke that threatened to cleave my skull, I heard a voice calling on them to hold, and the lady in scarlet forced her horse between us. As the brute's shoulder pressed me back into the angle of my embrasure she held out her pistol at arm's length, her finger on the trigger, and pointed it at close quarters full ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... a revolver. He picked it up. It was loaded. Idly he tried the trigger. It worked. He looked at Zaidos. How he hated him! They seemed all alone on that field of dead and dying. The tide had swept away and left ...
— Shelled by an Unseen Foe • James Fiske
... lines upon it were not the lines made by time: a stronger enemy than time had left his mark there. Dissipation was written in the ruddy complexion, the bloated flesh, and the bloodshot eye. The continual movement of the hand feeling along the whitewashed plank, or fingering, unconsciously, the trigger of the loaded rifle, testified, in a dumb way, to the derangement of the nervous system which had been surrendered to that most debasing of all passion, drink. He had sought the invigorating mountains, the safety of isolation, to do for him that which ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... instant he thought he had gone too far. The big ruffian opposite choked over his biscuit, the while rage purpled his face. He caught up the revolver, and his fingers itched at the trigger. ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... awkward antagonists even for the best regular troops. They were probably amongst the boldest sportsmen in the world, and they formed the most picturesque and, romantic section of the rebels. Their only weapon was an old-fashioned percussion gun, with long barrel and a brass trigger seven to eight inches in length. Many of them fired not from the shoulder, but from the hip. They never missed. They could only fire one charge in an attack, owing to the time required to load. They were trained to stalk the tiger, to ...
— Korea's Fight for Freedom • F.A. McKenzie
... a very shy bird, so he had to creep and maneuver to get within gunshot unseen, unheard. He stole from tree to tree, and muffled his footsteps in the long grass so adroitly that, just as he was going to pull the trigger, he stepped light as a feather on a venomous ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... course. Pouring this into the gun he put the muzzle to his mouth, and spat the ball into it, struck the butt on the pommel of the saddle to send it down, as well as to drive the powder into the pan, and taking his chance of the gun priming itself, he aimed as before, and pulled the trigger. The explosion followed, and a second buffalo lay dead upon the plain, with a glove beside it to ...
— Away in the Wilderness • R.M. Ballantyne
... the moonlight went out, but they stood scarcely three feet apart, and one of them knew that any move he made would be followed by the pressure of the other's finger on the trigger. He, however, did not move at all, and while the birches roared about them they stood silently face to face, the man of birth and pedigree with a past behind him and blood already upon his head, and the raw lad from the bush, his equal before ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... but to put in execution the plans that have for some time been agitating my brain. Here is the map for our campaign; here are the routes and the plan of attack. We shall at last stand before these Austrians in battle array; and as they dared say of my father, that his gun was ever cocked but the trigger never pulled, we will show them that we are ready to discharge, and thrust down the double eagle from its proud pinnacle. The combat is determined and unalterable; let us be silent and prudent, no one must discover our plans; we will surprise the Austrians. ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... to git him. I kept the trail hot from Tucson to Vegas an' back to Santone. An' now, doggone it, when my finger was on the trigger an' the coyote as good as dead, you cut in an' shoot the daylights out of him. By gum, ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... hat was merely a bit of Latin extravagance. They soon found out, however, that it had the significance of a signal. For, as the fellow dropped into cover, the grass became alive with human forms. Coyote Pete's finger, which had been trembling upon the trigger, ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... the family of the ifs, a peace-maker. My Lady Delacour, I was going to observe that my principal has met with an unfortunate accident, in the shape of a whitlow on the fore-finger of her right hand, which incapacitates her from drawing a trigger; but I am at your service, ladies, either of you, that can't put up with a disappointment with good humour.' I never, during the whole course of my existence, was more disposed to bear a disappointment with good humour, to prove ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... you that under the table I was chained tight down to the chair I sat in? Did he tell you that my hand was fastened to a drinking-horn, and my elbow to the table, and two fellows sitting opposite me with pistols quietly covering me, ready to draw the trigger if I should utter a cry? Did he tell you that I would have uttered that cry and died at that table but for one thing, I had promised her ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... I pulled the trigger, and the bull leader of the herd fell on his haunches. The bullet had found the vulnerable spot under the fore shoulder, where one should always shoot a musk-ox. To aim at the head ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary
... making up the ammunition like that of a rifle, with projectile and charge in a big brass-cased cartridge, so that the gun can be loaded up by one movement, and the cartridge contains its own means of ignition, and is fired by pulling off a trigger. The lighter quick-firers are further mounted on pivots, so that they can be easily moved through an arc of a circle by one man, who keeps his eyes on a moving target and his finger on the trigger ready to fire. The ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... hand down to the lock of the gun, and drew back the trigger. Cautiously as it was done, he could not prevent a slight clicking sound, which, perhaps, struck the ear of the Solitary, for he turned his head and moved in the chair. The Indian slunk to the edge of the window, so as to conceal his person from any one within the room, ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... the trigger, and I sat down—discreetly, and with no unnecessary noise. He was not in a hurry, but rooted about sedately amongst the undergrowth, now and again throwing up his muzzle and sniffing the air in a way that made me not ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... waving in the wind just in front of the rifle, beyond my reach. The mahout leaned forward and gently bent it down. Now, all was clear. The tiger's eyes were like green glass. The elephant for a moment stood like stone. I touched the trigger. ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... us, for many of their machines are in the air moving around at different altitudes ready to attack us. One of them is coming to welcome me. I turn quickly to see if Allard, the observer, is wide awake. His machine gun is pointed at the enemy, his fingers are on the trigger. ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... occasion the villain spoke the line, pulled the trigger, and Jim fell. But the gun did not go off. Instantly Jim raised himself on his elbow and ...
— Continuous Vaudeville • Will M. Cressy
... terrified face, he remained master of himself, nevertheless, and his brain remained clear amid the breakdown of his nerves. The little black hole of the revolver was pointing at six inches from his eyes. The finger was bent and obviously pressing on the trigger. It only ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... of the revolver began to rise under the pressure of Elsie's finger on the trigger. The man's hair rose even more rapidly. His nerve was broken. He turned along the corridor in front of her, not knowing the instant a bullet might crash into his head. The girl followed so closely that she almost touched his heels. The ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... begun in earnest, and B.-P., on a rock directing the movements of his force, was surrounded by the deafening roar of artillery. In nearly every cave on those hills savages lay with rifle to shoulder, finger on trigger, waiting to pick off the besiegers as they came bounding over the rocks towards them. The Cape Boys never wavered; up they dashed, panting and sweating, to the very mouths of the caves, fired their rifles into the darkness, charged in, to reissue in a few minutes, jabbering ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... to look at, didn't have an ounce of ambition or a pint of sense. The next minute you'd wake up to find the ounce a hundred pounds of condensed lightning and the pint a couple of gallons of trigger thinking. That's the kind of a surprise package "Rus" was. And, brother, look out!! If "Rus" ever had occasion to lay hands on you he didn't let go until he got good and ready. Try your durndest and you couldn't shake loose the grip he carried ...
— Interference and Other Football Stories • Harold M. Sherman
... hair. Thrusting a pointed stick into the eye-sockets, he contrived to extract a portion of the brain, afterward placing the skull in the hottest part of the fire, and thus separating the bones to obtain a wider aperture. The click of a trigger close to his ear recalled M. Garnier to his senses, and arresting the arm of his sergeant, who, excited to indignation, had brought his musket to his shoulder, he hurried from a scene calculated, beyond all others, to thrill the nerves ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... D'Esterre first changed his position, moving a pace towards the left hand, and then stepped towards O'Connell. His object was to induce him to fire, more or less, at random. He lifted his pistol, as if about to fire. O'Connell instantly presented, pulled the trigger, and ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... the required pull, and instantly a most surprising event came to pass. That jerk at the rope must have set a hair-trigger going, for there followed a sudden rattling noise, the loop was instantly tightened around his ankle, and in a trice Johnny was hanging head down, as helpless as ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas
... Nunez; And is it thus a faithful wife you treat? I wonder in what quarter now the moon is: I praise your vast forbearance not to beat Me also, since the time so opportune is— Oh, valiant man! with sword drawn and cocked trigger, Now, tell me, don't you cut ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... of the situation, Druse now brought the butt of his rifle against his cheek by cautiously pushing the barrel forward through the bushes, cocked the piece, and glancing through the sights covered a vital spot of the horseman's breast. A touch upon the trigger and all would have been well with Carter Druse. At that instant the horseman turned his head and looked in the direction of his concealed foeman—seemed to look into his very face, into his eyes, into ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... was cut. The channel was not very deep, only enough to receive a tenpenny nail with the head projecting half-way above the sides. A notch was cut across the barrel, through this channel, at the trigger end, and a trigger made of heavy iron wire, bent to the shape shown in Fig. 51, was hinged to the gun by a bolt which passed clear through the stock and through both eyes of the trigger. By using two nuts on the bolt, and tightening one against the other, they were prevented from working loose and ...
— The Scientific American Boy - The Camp at Willow Clump Island • A. Russell Bond
... glittering eyes. He well knew the improbability of hitting a vulnerable spot in a swimming alligator; his marksmanship was scarcely equal to the certainty of finding one of those wicked, armor-lidded eyes. It was with a hard gulp of fear in his throat that he pressed the trigger for a second shot. ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... The rifle leaped to his shoulder, the centre of the bear's breast was covered, and the trigger pulled. ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... pointed it ostentatiously at the rock, away from the native canoes, and held up his hand yet again for silence. "We'll give 'em a taste of what we can do, boys," he said, "just to show 'em, not to hurt 'em." At that he drew the trigger twice. His first two chambers were loaded on purpose with duck-shot cartridges. Twice the big gun roared; twice the fire flashed red from its smoking mouth. As the smoke cleared away, the natives, dumb with surprise, and perfectly ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... And then Romain could not repress an involuntary start, albeit he saw what he had half expected to see. The fleshy right hand of Hartley Parrish grasped convulsively an automatic pistol. His clutching index finger was crooked about the trigger and the barrel was pressed into the yielding pile of the carpet. His other hand with clawing fingers was flung out away from the body on the other side. One leg was stretched out to its fullest extent and the foot just touched the hem of the ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine
... Mule knew that as he passed across the summit Casavel would sometimes lie amid the rocks, and cover him with that same gun for a hundred yards or so, slowly following his movements with the steady barrel so that the mail-carrier's life hung, as it were, on the touch of a trigger for minutes together. Pedro Casavel seemed to shift his hiding place, as if he were seeking to perfect certain details of light and range and elevation. Perhaps it was only a grim enjoyment which he gathered ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... a gallant young chamois hunter who had taught him to handle a trigger and load a muzzle, made the very name of Bavaria a terror ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee
... Koren, who evidently had been convinced from the beginning that his opponent would fire in the air, Laevsky thought that, thank God, everything would be over directly, and all that he had to do was to press the trigger rather hard. ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... it is more difficult. There had not been much sympathy between them in recent years, yet he recalled his early boyhood on the farm, and it went against him to aim his piece at her. But after all it was his duty, and with an inaudible sigh he pulled the trigger. It was done. No one could have noticed his reluctance. It was quite likely that some of the soldiers that afternoon felt as much compunction as that. But as Sam went over all this long list of tests and passed them successfully, he felt, almost unconsciously, that he ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby
... the Indian carried his canteen; that he was moving again. Howard lifted his gun, holding it in both hands. He was afraid that even now his quarry would escape him, that Kish Taka would run and that he could not follow. His fingers found the trigger and pressed it as he sought to hold the wavering muzzle steady. There was a loud report that seemed to tear his brain to broken shreds, his arms dropped lax at his sides, the revolver fell, its muzzle burying itself in the sand. His knees sagged and he went down, ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... phrase of Sterne. Not one has a ruling passion, such as we read of in Pope. Who would not have expected them to be insipid likenesses of each other? No such thing. Harpagon is not more unlike to Jourdain, Joseph Surface is not more unlike to Sir Lucius O'Trigger, than every one of Miss Austen's young divines to all his reverend -brethren. And almost all this is done by touches so delicate that they elude analysis, that they defy the powers of description, and that we know them to exist only ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... on guard for something more than two hours when she was startled by three shots from somewhere lower down the mountain. Harriet pointed her rifle into the air and promptly pulled the trigger twice. Two heavy reports from her rifle caused an instant commotion in the camp of the Meadow-Brook Girls. The girls untangled themselves from their blankets and sprang up very much frightened. Their nerves were on edge after all they had experienced, and these shots, fired ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls in the Hills - The Missing Pilot of the White Mountains • Janet Aldridge
... the studied carelessness of her gesture that released the trigger of his indignation and made it leap out beyond control. There was in his mind the vision of those blood-baths of the Somme, where men had drowned in the putrescence and been flattened by shells like flies against ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... birds tearing a cloth with their beaks and feet, shrieking, tugging, and fighting, as if each wanted it for himself. 'Well,' said the Hunter, 'this is wonderful! It is just as the old woman said'; and he took his gun on his shoulder, pulled the trigger, and shot into the midst of them, so that their feathers flew about. Then the flock took flight with much screaming, but one fell dead, and the cloak fluttered down. Then the Hunter did as the old woman had told him: he cut open the bird, found its heart, swallowed ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang
... The four sportsmen pulled trigger almost simultaneously. The baronet and the colonel had each selected the same spot, the eye, as the object of their aim, and both had been equally successful, the shell in each case passing upward through the eyeball into the brain, exploding there and causing instant death. The professor's ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... question whether he can find us, though," said Murray. "By-the-bye, I do not think that the buoy was fired. If we can find the trigger we will let it off, and that will quickly ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... charged me I would imagine a million things. Once when a Mexican tigre, a jaguar, charged me I—But that is not this story. Boschen has the temperament for a great fisherman. He is phlegmatic. All day—and day after day—he sits there, on trigger, so to speak, waiting for the strike that will come. He is so constituted that it does not matter to him how soon or how late the strike comes. To me the wait, the suspense, grew to be maddening. Yet I stuck it out, and in this I claim a victory, ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... fire-place, got up and without saying a word, strode away. Wash Sanders was soon gone, after halting at the door to say that he might not be able to eat enough to keep a setting hen alive, but that he reckoned he could pull a trigger with any man that ever came over the pike. And now the Major, old Gid and the Englishman ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... was forbidden to get up or to touch his luggage. A soldier stood in the corridor of the carriage before the door of each of our compartments which were kept open, revolver in hand and finger on the trigger. The Russian Charge d'Affaires, the women and children and everyone were subjected to ...
— Fighting France • Stephane Lauzanne
... taken and tied, one of the men declared to me that he would have shot me dead just as sure as he lived, if I had moved one step after they commanded us to stop. He had his gun levelled at my breast, already cocked, and his finger on the trigger. The way they came to find us out was from the circumstance of Jack's taking the man's hat in connection with the advertisement. The man whose hat was taken was drunk; and the next morning when he came to ...
— Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, Written by Himself • Henry Bibb
... hear nothing except the noise he made, and as the fit of rage passed away his caution returned. He was putting himself at a disadvantage, because his lurking enemy could hear him and would no doubt try another shot if he came near enough. Stopping behind a fir trunk, with his finger on the trigger of the Browning pistol, he listened. At first no sound came out of the dark, but he presently heard a rustle some distance off. There was another man in the wood beside the fellow who had fired at him, but so long as he kept still and the ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... is more than I bargained for," exclaimed Uncle Denis; "now stand by for a different kind of sound. Don't be alarmed, it's only the barrel of my pistol going to try what sort of noise it can make." He pulled the trigger, when there was a flash and then there came a succession of crashing, thundering sounds echoed from every angle in those enormous vaults. Backwards and forwards tore the sounds, rolling and reverberating from wall to wall with terrific crashes. Half a dozen pieces of artillery fired in the ...
— With Axe and Rifle • W.H.G. Kingston
... good-humouredly, and therefore is so fortunate as to get more than his share of them, accordingly he goes by the name of Target, as every one takes a shot at him. Duke is so bad a shot, he has twice nearly pinked the marksman, so he is called Trigger. He always lays the blame of his want of skill on that unfortunate appendage of the gun, as it is either too hard or too quick on the finger. Then there is young Bulger, and as everybody pronounces it as if it had two 'g's' in it, he corrects them and says, 'g' soft, my ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... signal from the leader of the Boxers, about fifty rifles were fired point-blank at the wall. Fred raised his rifle, pressed the trigger, and the Boxer leader threw up his arms and fell on his face. Fred's shot was taken by the other defenders as the signal to fire, and ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... Nautilus's men presented me with a streamlined rifle whose butt was boilerplate steel, hollow inside, and of fairly large dimensions. This served as a tank for the compressed air, which a trigger-operated valve could release into the metal chamber. In a groove where the butt was heaviest, a cartridge clip held some twenty electric bullets that, by means of a spring, automatically took their places in the barrel of the ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... him to throw up his hands and surrender, when he made a slight movement that aroused Bim. This faithful sentinel sprang up with a loud bark. In the dim light Sheriff Riley had not noticed the dog, and he was so much upset by this unexpected challenge that his finger closed on the hair-trigger of his revolver. Fortunately his aim was so wild that no harm was done by the shot that followed. It was all the signal that the Sheriff's followers needed, and they immediately carried out their part of the ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... pay for it," says Low, wherewith he up with a musket, squinted along the barrel, and pulled the trigger. ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... him a burly fellow whom I knew well, and who had cause to know me afterwards—Max Holf, brother to Johann the keeper, and body-servant to his Highness. They were up to us: the duke reined up. I saw Sapt's finger curl lovingly towards the trigger. I believe he would have given ten years of his life for a shot; and he could have picked off Black Michael as easily as I could a barn-door fowl in a farmyard. I laid my hand on his arm. He nodded reassuringly: he was always ready to sacrifice ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... trigger again, and another man who had been about to fire the lelah sprang up and ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... you handle the trigger; you know the lock is an easy one—I am going to have it altered." And he went forward to set the target firmer in the ground, as his shot ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... stepped up close to the car and with my left hand made a grab at him. It was a fruitless attempt. I found my wrist held in a grip of steel. I raised my right with the revolver. I was just a moment late in pulling the trigger, for he knocked up my hand and the bullet went wide. Before I had another chance, he twisted the weapon out of my grasp with a wrench that numbed my arm to the shoulder. How he managed to see in the dark was a mystery to me. He must have eyes like a ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster
... up by tender mother or sister, and lamented over,—how shall we feel romantic in the midst of a shower of bullets? Enough done, if our vanity or sense of duty hold us there in any spirit, so that we do the needed trigger-work, and not turn tail and disgrace ourselves. Even the veteran's satisfaction, since the laying aside of steel armor, is not much, to be sure, or is gathered after the battle. There is some savage ecstasy, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... What did that mean? It was a mystery to us, but the same idea struck us all, that he had been killed, and that the Prussians were blowing the trumpet to draw us into an ambush. We therefore returned to the cottage, keeping a careful look out, with our fingers on the trigger, and hiding under the branches, but his wife, in spite of our entreaties, rushed on, leaping like a tigress. She thought that she had to avenge her husband, and had fixed the bayonet to her rifle, and we lost sight ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... step and halted; he stooped and laid Garry's gun at the foot of a tree and went on again. Once he made out a movement behind a nearer tangle and saw the branches shake before a heavy body that was forcing slowly through them. His own rifle came up; his finger was on the trigger when he thought better of it. Old Tom, more than a half-score of years before, had switched him well, not so very far from that very spot, because he had not made certain first of the target at ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... The myth of their own heavier numbers kept them from panic. Ragged fellows with feet bare in the stirrups leaned over to slash at heads between the tasselled stalks. They squirmed like snakes from under kicking horses, and fainting, got a carbine to the shoulder at aim, and someway, pulled the trigger. Then they were taken in the rear. One-half of the Contra forces, mounted, had waited under the sapling growth of the nearest foothill. Now they sprang from cover, bloodthirsty whelps trailing the ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... am a sinner," exclaimed Sir Everard, springing to his feet, and knocking the butt of his rifle on the ground with a movement of impatience. "Sambo, you young scoundrel, it was all your fault,—you moved your shoulder as I pulled the trigger. Thank Heaven, however, the aim of the Indian appears to have been no better, although the sharp whistling of his ball proves his piece to have been well ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... an experience could trigger so strong a reaction. Yet Fenwick was aware that Baker's attitude toward Ellerbee and his device was not merely one aspect of Baker's character. His attitude in these ...
— The Great Gray Plague • Raymond F. Jones
... cried Grubb! "pitch into him!" and drawing his trigger he accidentally knocked off the bird, while Spriggs discharged the contents of his gun through ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... head slowly. "Crime doesn't out until it's committed," he said. "You'll remember how fast we got here after you pulled the trigger. But you're clean, Hammond. Just come to the inquest ...
— Stop Look and Dig • George O. Smith
... politic to be too quick on the trigger—they could just continue to hang around and be ready to pounce down on their intended prey after the fashion of a hungry eagle striking a fat duck that had been selected out of the flock ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... whether the stone from the cliff should fall on point A or point B—the same sort of process that guided the pen to make legible and effective writing instead of illegible and ineffective scrawls—the same kind of control that determines when and where a trigger shall be pulled so as to secure the anticipated slaughter of a bird. So far as energy is concerned, the explosion and the trigger-pulling are the same identical operations whether the aim be exact or random. It is intelligence which directs; it is ...
— Life and Matter - A Criticism of Professor Haeckel's 'Riddle of the Universe' • Oliver Lodge
... it not a needless jeopardy To meet them thus? The sentiments of these We do not know, and the first trigger pressed May ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... his own bungalow and began cleaning a rifle. He told the servant that he was going to shoot buck in the morning. Naturally he fumbled with the trigger, and shot himself through the head— accidentally. The apothecary sent in a report to my chief, and Jevins is buried somewhere out there. I'd have wired to you, Spurstow, if you could ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... his chest, Dartie had pulled the trigger several times. It was not loaded. Dropping it with an imprecation, he had muttered: "For shake o' the children," and sank into a chair. Winifred, having picked up the revolver, gave him some soda water. The liquor had a magical effect. Life had illused ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... elephants. I had entrusted to them my favourite rifles, and had instructed them in their use; each man paid particular regard to the rifle that he carried, and, as several were of the same pattern, they had marked them with small pieces of rag tied round the trigger guards. This esprit de corps was most beneficial to the preservation of the arms, which were kept in admirable order. Mahomet, the dragoman, rode my spare horse, and carried my short double-barrelled rifle, slung across his back, in the place of his pistols and gun, ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... had fired the first shot against Sumter and returned to his Virginia farm when his State seceded, was a type of these ruined, desperate men. On the day that Lee surrendered he placed the muzzle of his gun in his mouth, pulled the trigger with his foot, and blew his ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... his head. In an overpowering rage he whirled about, throwing his rifle to his shoulder. A man detached from the group was lowering his arm; and, holding the sights hard on the other's metal-buttoned, twill jacket, Howat pulled the trigger. There was only an answering ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... flinging their muskets away, bounded forward sword in hand with a terrific yell. The soldiers had not time to fix their bayonets in the smoking muzzles of their muskets before the claymores were among them and the battle was over.[103] On the left wing scarcely a trigger was pulled: the men broke and ran like sheep. The famous Scots Brigade, in fact, set the example of flight. Their officers behaved like brave soldiers. Balfour, abandoned by his men, defended himself for a time against overwhelming odds, till he was cut down by a young ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... strange," said Bastin, "but all of a sudden my arm and hand are quite well again. I suppose it must have been 'pins and needles' or something of that sort which made me throw away the pistol and pull the trigger when I didn't mean ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... days but the later, final development was completely new and shocking to him. Advertising had pressured more and more people to replace goods before they wore out with other goods that were, essentially, no improvement on their predecessors! Eventually just the word "NEW" was enough to trigger buying panics. ...
— The Junkmakers • Albert R. Teichner
... another downward, the mouth of the purse, which was bound with massive silver plate, opened and gave admittance to his hand. He made me remark, as if to break short the subject on which Bailie Jarvie had spoken, that a small steel pistol was concealed within the purse, the trigger of which was connected with the mounting, and made part of the machinery, so that the weapon would certainly be discharged, and in all probability its contents lodged in the person of any one, who, being unacquainted with ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... saw nothing more; he only knew that he raised his arm and pressed with all his strength upon the trigger. Soon he saw a little smoke before him; his opponent was still standing in the same position, and there was a small white cloud above his head. They had both fired. All was over! His second and the doctor felt him, unbuttoned his garments, and asked anxiously: "Are you ...
— Bel Ami • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... pistol and he looked towards Bellingham with an inexorable face. As the second-hand stole round, he raised his hand, and the finger twitched upon the trigger. ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... goes West to play the bad cowboy, is liable to find that he has been borrowing trouble. He finds out that an altercation is likely to bring him up facing the muzzle of a pistol in the hands of a man much more ready to pull the trigger off-hand than to waste time in preliminary talk. He soon learns the lesson of circumspection and, if he survives the process, his behavior is usually modified to fit his new surroundings. A tragic illustration of the results that may come ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... tallest of the Indians, dismissed his attendants, left the Indian trail, and struck out for the Forks by compass, with Gist as his companion. A misguided red man, hoping for glory from the white chief's scalp, prepared an ambush, and as Washington passed within a few paces, pulled the trigger on him. He did not know that the destiny of half the world hung upon his aim; but indeed the bullet was never molded that could draw blood from Washington. The red man missed; and the next moment Gist had him helpless, with a knife at ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... to do it, Billy. It's to save you torture, old fellow, just to save you useless suffering, Billy." He drew his pistol from his belt, took careful aim just behind the pony's ear, and, turning his head away, pulled the trigger. ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... quickly to the door and opened it and looked out on the night. There was no hall, the sitting-room is straight on the street. He took a great deep breath and came back again, and then he laughed, "Guess I'm a pretty fool," he said; "I've had them pointed direct at me with the finger on the trigger, too, and never turned a hair, but, by the Lord, to see your flower face close to that grim thing makes me kind of sick." It moved me deeply, Mamma; ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... risked the count's. There was one moment when my hand was on my trigger, and my soul very near the sin of justifiable homicide. But my tale is done. The count is now on the river, and will soon be on the salt seas, though not bound to Norway, as I had first intended. I could not inflict that frigid voyage ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton |
