"Rifle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... on the other side of the ranchhouse, called the 'Narrows.'" He laughed grimly. "But we don't use them crossins' much—they're dead lines; generally you'll find there's a Circle Cross man or so hangin' around them—with a rifle. So it don't pay to go monkeyin' around there unless you've ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer
... having seen our colonel, M. de Montrevert, firm and erect upon his horse, gazing quietly towards the enemy. That man appeared to me immense. He had no rifle to amuse himself with, and his breast was expanded to its full breadth above us. From time to time, he looked down, and exclaimed ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... should smile to ejaculate," said Bud, "we're as hollow an' cold as a rifle bar'l. I'll turn this leetle summer matinee over ter you, my friend, not wishin' you ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... may say good-by to your rifle, for it will never shoot another chamois or fox unless I lend it to you, which I shall always be happy to ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... finished the letter we walked a long way down the other shore toward the Fort. The wind was blowing right, and we could hear bits of what the band was playing and now and then peppery sounds from the rifle practice. It's not a very big fort, but it squats on the other side of Wecanicut, watching the bay, and real cannon stick out at loopholes in the wall. The ferry really only goes to Wecanicut on account of the Fort, because there's nothing else there but a few farm houses and some ugly summer ...
— Us and the Bottleman • Edith Ballinger Price
... where she was, he felt that he should be prepared for every possible emergency. But what to do he did not know. It would be of no use to hail the Dunkery and demand Shirley. He had done that over and over again before that vessel had proved herself an open enemy. He stood with brows contracted, rifle in hand, and his eyes fixed on the big steamer ahead. The two other vessels he did not now consider, for they were still some ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton
... any bullet find its billet in the body of any of the besieged. But one ball knocked a splinter from a rock and drove it against the knuckles of Binney's right hand, making it difficult for him to use his rifle. ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... solid steel, narrowing down to a point, and calculated, with a like blow, to prove even more fatal, as a weapon in conflict, than the more legitimate member to which it was appended. A thong of ox-hide, slung over his shoulder, supported easily a light rifle of the choicest bore; for there are few matters indeed upon which the wayfarer in the southern wilds exercises a nicer and more discriminating taste than in the selection of a companion, in a pursuit ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... something struck sharply against the stone column above Chase's head. At least three persons saw the little puff of smoke in the hills far to the right. Every one heard the distant crack of a rifle. The bullet had dropped at Chase's feet before the sound of the report came floating to their ears. No one spoke as he stooped and picked up the warm, deadly missile. Turning it over in his fingers, an ugly thing to look at, he said coolly, although ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... kicked the foremost murderer in the stomach, and as the man fell, sprang for a rifle which he kept in the room. The other two attacked him with their axes. He parried one blow, aimed at his head, and the blade buried itself in its hip. While the man was tugging to free the weapon St. Johns felled ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... "Just take my place, sir, by the door. I'm going to use my little hunting rifle now alongside of Gregory; and if a man does reach that boat I'm going to know the reason why. I'm not much given to boasting, but I can ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... trained behind the muzzle-loading rifle in all the wars America has fought has been individually a fighter and "a shot," formerly but little skilled in military training, who while obeying orders fought along lines of personal initiative. In the earlier wars of the nation this soldier was known as a "rifleman." ...
— Sergeant York And His People • Sam Cowan
... simpler method. The bomb is attached to a thread and lowered over the side. At the critical moment it is released simply by severing the thread. Such aeroplane bombs, however, constitute a menace to the machine and to the pilot. Should the bomb be struck by hostile rifle or shell fire while the machine is aloft, an explosion is probable; while should the aero plane make an abrupt descent the missiles ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... was wrenched violently, and shots were fired into the lock and at the panels; but the wood was seasoned and stanch, and nothing short of a rifle would drive a bullet through. The door creaked and strained under the pressure of the mutineers' shoulders. Had it not been reinforced by the solid sideboard and equally heavy table, it must have given way. As it was, no four men in Delgratz ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... banks were the famous "gopher holes." They were [ca]ves dug in the ground, into which a person, if he happened to hear a shell coming, might run for safety. Outside the city, the fortifications were most extensive; rifle-pits ran in every direction, flanked by strong forts, whose battered walls attested the fury of the iron hail that had been poured upon them. It was night before Frank was aware of it, so interested was he in every thing about him, and he returned on board his ...
— Frank on the Lower Mississippi • Harry Castlemon
... Malay corporal to the wall. The second policeman, a white man, alas! ran away. The third, a Malay, at the risk of his life, went close up to the tiger, shot him, and beat him over the head with the butt of his rifle, which made the beast let go the corporal and turn on him, but fortunately he had scarcely got hold of him when he fell dead. The corporal is just coming out of hospital, almost completely paralyzed, to be taken care of for the rest of his life, and the man who rescued him has got promotion ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... few days have glided away in a halo of beauty. But nobody has time or will to enjoy it. War, war! is the one idea. The children play only with toy cannons and soldiers; the oldest inhabitant goes by every day with his rifle to practice; the public squares are full of companies drilling, and are now the fashionable resorts. We have been told that it is best for women to learn how to shoot too, so as to protect themselves when the men have all gone to battle. Every ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... Rovinski discovered that he was pursued, and, frequently turning his head backward, he saw that the foremost sledge was gaining upon him; but, crouching as low as he could to avoid a rifle-shot, he kept ...
— The Great Stone of Sardis • Frank R. Stockton
... the form in which Austrian zwanzigers are commonly made up; and the brigands, fancying the coachman's sausage to be a roll of silver zwanzigers, seized on it with avidity, and bore it off in triumph. They were proceeding to rifle the baggage, when, hearing the horse-patrol approaching, they plunged into the thicket as suddenly as they had appeared. The morning chimes were sounding, as on the previous day, while this operation was going on. ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... availed themselves of the opportunity. The Colonel now devoted himself with redoubled ardour to preparations for the insurrection which he declared would burst forth before the next winter. He got together a rifle corps to the number of seventy, and drilled them twice a week with tireless enthusiasm, declaring that when the hour of trial should come, he and "his boys" would be found in their places, however the rest of the community might see fit to ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... trembling violently, tried to speak, but in vain. A horrid clanking noise sounded overhead, and with the desperation of terror he turned into the new cabin and, collecting his weapons, began with frantic haste to load them. Then he dropped his rifle and sprang forward with a loud cry as he heard the door close smartly and the key turn in ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... now you see I'm going to rifle it. Ah! what have we here? why, here's a whole sovereign, and eight shillings; that looks suspicious, doesn't it?" said ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... the door, catching up a rifle that had been leaning against the wall of the hut, for he knew he was in ...
— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish
... the Boer army were not to be had for the asking, as was anticipated, and many of the foreign officers were deeply disappointed in consequence. The Boers felt that the foreigners were unacquainted with the country, the burgher mode of warfare, and lacked adroitness with the rifle, and consequently refused to place lives and battles in the hands of incompetent men. There were a few foreigners in the service of the Boers at the beginning of the war, but their number was so small as to have been without significance. Several European officers ...
— With the Boer Forces • Howard C. Hillegas
... most general term for bringing an object to some point or within some space, however exactly or loosely; we may put a horse in a pasture, or put a bullet in a rifle or into an enemy. Place denotes more careful movement and more exact location; as, to place a crown on one's head, or a garrison in a city. To lay is to place in a horizontal position; to set is to place in an upright position; we lay a cloth, and ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... like a teetotum—his moustaches bristling, his hair on end, amazed at the din and fearful for the cause of it. It all commenced with a sudden shout, and then was emphasized by the explosion of a rifle. A dull thud followed as a bullet struck one of the huts and perforated it, and then a dozen weapons went off, the somewhat aged guardians of the camp losing their heads and blazing away without aim and ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... presented, representing the "Fall of the Giraffe" before the rifle of a sportsman, we take from the Illustrated London News. Hunting the giraffe has long been a favorite sport among the more adventurous of British sportsmen, its natural range being all the wooded parts of eastern, central, and southern Africa, though ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 455, September 20, 1884 • Various
... human events, even calamities, have two sides. The Agra being brought almost to a standstill, the pirate forged ahead against his will, and the combat took a new and terrible form. The elephant gun popped, and the rifle cracked, in the Agra's mizzen top, and the man at the pirate's helm jumped into the air and fell dead: both Theorists claimed him. Then the three carronades peppered him hotly; and he hurled an ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... the latter powerful across the shoulders. His belt was heavy with little leather pockets; a pair of prismatic field-glasses, suspended from a strap around his neck, swung across his chest; in the crook of his left arm he carried a light rifle. ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... had vanished, and John Louder, seizing a firebrand, searched the ground for the print of a cloven foot. He found it and, snatching up his rifle, ran home as rapidly as he could. It was late that night when he reached his house and, rapping ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick
... rifle, of course, and fight in the German ranks. Don't you know Germany is mobilising and will be at war with France in ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... within fifteen yards of the Boche trenches. One wet and dismal dawn, as the battalion stood to arms in the neighbourhood of this delectable spot, there came a sudden shout from the enemy, and an outburst of rapid rifle fire. Almost simultaneously two breathless and unkempt figures tumbled over our parapet into the firing-trench. ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... however, stayed in the field with his army and when it fell back he was among the brave men that covered the retreat. He seemed to be everywhere that he was needed, and often in the front line the Belgian soldiers would be cheered by the sight of their King loading and firing a rifle by their side, in the place of some ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... of course, amenable to the same treatment as compound fractures, which are a complicated variety of them. I will content myself with mentioning a single instance of this class of cases. In April last, a volunteer was discharging a rifle when it burst, and blew back the thumb with its metacarpal bone, so that it could be bent back as on a hinge at the trapezial joint, which had evidently been opened, while all the soft parts between the metacarpal bones of the thumb and forefinger were torn through. I need not insist before my ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... whole of the shore, and hung suspended over the stunted bushes which, on my first visit, had been under water. I have never either seen elsewhere, or heard any one mention, a similar phenomenon. This stuff, which could be had for nothing, was excellent for rifle-stoppers and for the stuffing of birds, so I took a great quantity of it with me. This time the ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... thousands of horses' hoofs, galloping—galloping to this last charge which must be irresistible. And sturdy, wearied hands, black with powder and stained with blood, grasp more firmly still the bayonet, the rifle or the carbine, and they wait—those exhausted, intrepid, valiant men! they wait for that thundering charge, with wide-open eyes fixed upon the crest of the hill—they wait for the charge—they are ready for death—but they are not ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... and although many may be killed, those they leave press forward again. In France the Americans "never gave up an inch." We Americans of to-day, looking back, may be proud not only of the part played by our blood in the World War, but likewise of the part it played in the days when, rifle in hand, we were hewing the peace trail ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... father collected his little property and provided himself with a wagon and four horses, some cows, a rifle, a shot-gun and an axe. His trusty dog became the companion of his journey. In his wagon he placed his bedding, his provisions and such cooking utensils as were indispensable. Everything being ready, his wife and the three children took their seats, Fernando, the ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... Editor, that this example of one occupying this high place in our country may have some influence in staying the spirit and deeds of violence now so rife, and that they who are so ready to resort to the rifle and revolver may learn to regard them only as the instruments of the coward ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... in our midst with "fat babies," "wax-work models," "wonders of the age," "the greatest giant in the world," "a living skeleton," "the smallest man alive," "menageries," "wild beast shows," "rifle galleries," and like things connected with these caravans; there will be families of children, none of whom, or at any rate but very few of them, are receiving an education and attending any school, and living together regardless of either sex or age, in one small van. In addition to ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... for the sky was mild, and above us the monstrous trees lifted their protecting canopy of stems. The hammocks were swung for the ladies, and each gentleman "preempted" the claim that suited him best, by depositing his blanket and rifle upon it. The entire party were in the best of spirits, and nature responded to our happiness in its kindest mood. Laughter sounded pleasantly at intervals from the busy groups, each working at some self-appointed industry. The hum of cheerful ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... skirl of Donald's pipes was plainly audible; and the various packages—the new rifle, the wooden case containing the wonderful dresses for Lady Macleod and her niece, and what not—were all ranged ready; to say nothing of some loaves of white bread that the steward was sending ashore at Hamish's request. And then the heaving boat came close to, her sail hauled down; and a rope was ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... in his hives. "I can scoop 'em up as if they were so many kernels of corn," he said. After supper as we all sat on the porch watching the sunset, he reverted to the brave days of fifty-five when deer and bear came down over the hills, when a rifle was almost as necessary as a hoe, and as he talked I revived in him the black-haired smiling young giant of my boyhood days, ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... well. One almost trivial circumstance has left a lasting impression on Colonel House's mind. Ambassador Gerard took him out one evening for a little relaxation. Both Mr. Gerard and Colonel House were fond of target shooting and the two men sought one of the numerous rifle galleries of Berlin. They visited gallery after gallery, but could not get into one. Great crowds lined up at every place, waiting their turns at the target; it seemed as though every able-bodied man in Berlin ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... meaning of all this," he said; "or who is it that rifle and ransom and make prisoners ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... servants, and defending the house in case it should be necessary. Hazlewood seconded him with great spirit, and even the strange animal they call Sampson stalked out of his den, and seized upon a fowling-piece which my father had laid aside to take what they call a rifle-gun, with which they shoot tigers, etc., in the East. The piece went off in the awkward hands of the poor parson, and very nearly shot one of the excisemen. At this unexpected and involuntary explosion of his weapon, the Dominie (such is his nickname) exclaimed, "Prodigious!" which is his usual ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... ask for my gun. My wife, who had been watching from within the wagon, saw that the time had come to fight and handed my rifle to me from under the cover. Before the savages had time to do anything further they saw the gun. They were near enough to make it certain that one shot would take deadly effect; but instead of shooting one Indian, I trained the gun so that I might quickly choose among the three. In an instant ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... man rose from his seat before the fire, and took down an ancient looking, muzzle loading rifle ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown
... trudging in the blinding heat of a Sahara through smoking covers, accompanied by a powerful steam fire-engine, he will probably discover that he has only succeeded in making a bag consisting of one singed "cheeper," the "shooting" is likely to prove more attractive to the amateur unfamiliar with the rifle, but accustomed to the tropical heat of a Central African Summer, than satisfactory to a professional marksman counting on dispatching from a breezy moorland fifty brace or so to his relatives and friends.—For terms, &c., ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 93, August 13, 1887 • Various
... around his neck, and killed him." A sorcerer had invested these protectors of the ancient Pharaohs with their powers, but another equally potent magician could elude their vigilance, paralyze their energies, if not for ever, at least for a sufficient length of time to ferret out the treasure and rifle the mummy. The cupidity of the fellahin, highly inflamed by the stories which they were accustomed to hear, gained the mastery over their terror, and emboldened them to risk their lives in these well-guarded tombs. ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... us encamped a half mile below the town, the county bridge. Our preparations were finished—even to the final purchase of odds and ends; with ammunition for shot-gun and rifle. We threw our sleeping-bags on the dry ground close to the river's edge, and, all our anxieties gone, we turned our faces to ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... were laid down at Franklin's old crossing for the Sixth Corps, and two more a mile below for the First Corps. Men in rifle-pits on the other side impeded the placing of the pontoons for a while, but detachments sent over in boats stormed their intrenchments, and drove them out. Brooks' division of the Sixth Corps and Wadsworth's division of the First Corps then crossed and threw up tete ...
— Chancellorsville and Gettysburg - Campaigns of the Civil War - VI • Abner Doubleday
... some music, if you 're willing, And Roger (hem! what a plague a cough is, Sir!) Shall march a little.—Start, you villain! Stand straight! 'Bout face! Salute your officer! Put up that paw! Dress! Take your rifle! (Some dogs have arms, you see!) Now hold your Cap while the gentlemen give a trifle, To aid a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... positions I can assure you. We are only going out to do a little outpost duty, to learn to hear the bullets flying without ducking, and to fire our rifles without shutting our eyes. I don't suppose there are five men in the three companies who have ever fired a rifle in their lives. ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... uneasy and careworn, and glanced about nervously; had their countenances not been unalterably yellow, they would certainly have been white. One fellow near the rear was trembling sadly, and carried his rifle in an unreasonable manner,—promising aimless discharges, and, perhaps, dodgings into the bushes. But this one was excusable, and I may have slandered him; for ague had shaken the life almost out of him so often that shaking was become natural, and little else could be expected of him; and, furthermore, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... day they watched the Swiss soldiers searching Mount Terrible; saw a red fox steal from the lower thickets and bolt between the legs of the beaters who swung their rifle-butts at the streak of ruddy fur; saw little mountain birds scatter into flight, so closely and minutely the soldiers searched; saw even a big auerhahn burst into thunderous flight from the ferns to a pine and from the pine out across the terrific depths of space ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... applies chiefly to things whose price is fixed by beauty. But handicraft gives us many works not pleasing to the eye, yet of the highest skill—a Jacquard loom, a Corliss engine, a Hoe printing press, a Winchester rifle, an Edison dynamo, a Bell telephone. Ruskin may scout the work of machinery, and up to a certain point may take us with him. Let us allow that works of art marked by the artist's own touch—the gates of Paradise by Ghiberti, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various
... old spectacle of the popinjay to be witnessed, in company with the Grand Duke of Weimar and his son. This kind of shooting was harmless enough, for the object aimed at was a wooden bird on a pole. The riflemen, led by the rifle-king (schutzen-konig), the public officials, and deputations of peasants marched past the platform where the Queen stood, like a pageant of the Middle Ages. All the princes, including King Leopold, fired, but none brought down the ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... head of a family, he may hold exempt from execution the following property: All wearing apparel of himself and family kept for actual use and suitable to their condition, and the trunks or other receptacles necessary to contain the same; one musket or rifle and shot-gun; all private libraries, family bibles, portraits, pictures, musical instruments, and paintings, not kept for the purpose of sale; a seat or pew occupied by the debtor or his family in any house of public worship; an interest in a public ...
— Legal Status Of Women In Iowa • Jennie Lansley Wilson
... I had heard such stories of the romantic beauties of the country; of the abundance of game of all kinds, and of the glorious independent life of the hunters who ranged its noble forests, and lived by the rifle; that I was as much agog to get there as boys who live in seaports are to launch themselves among the wonders ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... perpetrated upon them. So well had they concerted their plans, that the house was surrounded before any one knew of their being in the neighbourhood. We lay still and trembled, nor knew what was passing without. Rifle after rifle cracked, amidst the whooping of the Indians; no one came to release us from our confined place, and we were afraid to venture out by our hole, lest we should be perceived by the savages, and murdered; for we had been informed that, in a case like the present, they ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... were strolling along a little behind the rest, and she paused a moment to rifle a pot of heliotrope of ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... you, Sir Thomas Metcalfe?" cried the squire. "Do you commit such outrages as this—do you break into habitations like a robber, rifle them, and murder their inmates? Explain yourself, sir, or I will treat you as I would a common plunderer; shoot you through the head, or hang you to the first tree ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... lack the philosophical nature of the Oriental, and it was a sore trial to camp within rifle shot of Urga. But we did not dare leave our carts, loaded with precious specimens, to the care of servants and the curiosity of an ever increasing ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... night they return to their haunts on the little islands," the boy said. "Oh, if I only had a rifle!" ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... a moment do I imagine anything supernatural here. I think, however, there are unconscious forces at work, and those responsible for setting those forces in action would be criminals without a doubt, if they knew what they were doing. The man who fires a rifle at an animal, if he hits and kills it, is the destroyer, though he may operate from half a mile away. On the other hand, the agents may be unconscious of ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts
... Hambright was severely wounded by a large rifle ball passing through the fleshy part of the thigh. It was soon discovered by the soldiers near him that he was wounded and bleeding profusely. Samuel Moore, of York county, South Carolina, requested him to to be taken from his horse; he refused by saying, "he knew he was wounded but was not sick ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... as much as a boy in the district," he said, "who'd content himself with a drum when he might have the handling of a rifle." ...
— The Red Hand of Ulster • George A. Birmingham
... when we get to Bangor," remarked Phil. "You know LeBlanc and Anderson stripped me of rifle, knife and axe that time they left me tied to ...
— The Ranger Boys and the Border Smugglers • Claude A. Labelle
... appropriate, which many of them are not (for volcanoes do not eject iron), no planetary volcanoes could propel them with anything like the implied velocity—could no more withstand the tremendous force to be assumed, than could a card-board gun the force behind a rifle bullet. But that their mineral characters, various as they are, harmonize with the supposition that they were derived from the crust of a planet is manifest; and that the bursting of a planet might give to them, and to shooting stars, the needful velocities, is a reasonable conclusion. Along ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... re-loading his rifle. His foot slipped in the blood of the man who had been shot in the throat, and the military boot made a greasy red ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... around me, when a line of men, all armed and disguised, issued in single file from the bushes, and drew up in the road, at right angles to its course. There were six of these "Injins," as they are called, and, indeed, call themselves, each carrying a rifle, horn and pouch, and otherwise equipped for the field. The disguises were very simple, consisting of a sort of loose calico hunting-shirt and trowsers that completely concealed the person. The head was covered by a species of ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... Mr. Gladstone stands on level ground with his countrymen. If he is attacked or misrepresented, he can hit back again. The position of the Prince of Wales imposes upon him the impassivity of the target used in ordinary rifle practice. Whatever is said or written about him, he can make no reply, and the happy result which in the main follows upon this necessary attitude suggests that it might with advantage be ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... church's door, The men's wild faces flashed in the sun; The woman had guarded with rifle poised, While the cassocked ...
— Along the Shore • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... his old smooth-bore rifle higher under his arm and continued his journey. Sacobie had tramped many miles—all the way from ice-imprisoned Fox Harbor. His papoose was sick. His squaw was hungry. Sacobie's belt ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... duck, were plentiful on the eastern shore. Many of the bays and inlets were alive with hair seal. So many were seen in the extreme southern bay indentation of the entire group of islands that we called it Seal Cove. Several sea otter swam within rifle range on the west coast, and land otter we chased upon shore and killed. Birds' eggs, which the natives gather in considerable quantities, we picked up by the dozens on several of the ...
— Official report of the exploration of the Queen Charlotte Islands - for the government of British Columbia • Newton H. Chittenden
... exclusively of the various species of spruce or fir. The tamarack sometimes covers vast plains, and, with the long moss waving from its sombre branches, looks melancholy enough to be fancied a mourner over the ring of the axe felling noble pines, the crack of the rifle threatening extermination to the deer once so numerous, or the cautious tread of the fisherman under whose wasteful rapacity the trout are gradually disappearing. We have reason to be thankful that all are not yet gone—that some splendid specimens ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... marched to le Bizet, a little village a mile north of the town, and stayed there in billets for the night. During the evening we stood outside our billets, gazed at the continuous line of flares and listened to the rifle fire, imagining in our innocence that there must be a terrific battle with so ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... their development. The practicability of aggressive war in settled countries now is entirely dependent on the use of elaborate artillery on land and warships at sea. Were there only rifles in the world, were an ordinary rifle the largest kind of gun permitted, and were ships specifically made for war not so made, then it would be impossible to invade any country defended by a patriotic and spirited population with any hopes of success because of the enormous defensive capacity of entrenched riflemen not subjected ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... of the French army were within easy rifle shot; and his uniform, although less conspicuous in colour than that of the marines, by whose sides he had been fighting, would make him a sure mark if he so much as moved his arm. Yet how he longed to turn, if ever so slightly, so that the cruel slanting ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. III • Elizabeth Gaskell
... peasants of three villages, see that beautiful gold-knobbed ebony stick, which he will present to the vali, and this precious gold cross with a ruby at the heart for the Patriarch, and these gold fountain pens for his literary friends, and that fine Winchester rifle for the chief of the tribe Anezah. These he packs in the bottom of his trunk, and with them his precious dilapidated copy of Al-Mutanabbi, and—what MS. be this? What, a Book of Verse spawned in the cellar? ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... sort of thicket, upon the branches and thorny shrubs of which we left numerous fragments of our dress. We had walked several miles almost in silence, when Nathan suddenly made a pause, and let the but-end of his rifle fall heavily on the ground. I took the opportunity to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... report of a rifle. The man staggered, with a moan; but he was evidently only wounded, for, after a few seconds, he drew himself up and made off through ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... the dogs yet," said Neil, holding a hand against his heaving chest. "If they do they can't reach us through that slough." He leaned his rifle against the log and again thrusting an arm into the place where it had been concealed drew ...
— The Courage of Captain Plum • James Oliver Curwood
... and not especially bent on hurting any one; but think of the chances of running upon a knife, while nearly every man had one in his hand! And then, to cap the climax, the floor boss would come rushing up with a rifle ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... highest point of Troodos, hoping by walking carefully to see moufflon among some of the numerous ravines near the summit, which are seldom invaded by the flocks of goats and their attendants. I took a small rifle with me as a companion which is seldom absent in my walks, and although I should have rigidly respected the government prohibition in the case of ewes, or even of rams at a long shot that might have been uncertain and hazardous, ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... ready rifled, each pocket we rifle, With the pure flame of chivalry stirring our breasts; Life's risk for our mistress's praise is a trifle; And each purse as a trophy our homage attests. Then toss off your glasses to all girls of spirit, Ne'er with names, or with number, your memories vex; Our toast, boys, ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... cottage, keeping a careful lookout, 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. We lost sight of her at the moment that we heard the trumpet again, and a few moments later we heard ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... testimony. After the enemy's withdrawal, one unwounded and one seriously wounded German were left in our hands, the former having apparently become detached from his party, and being discovered later in front of our trench with a sheet of newspaper fluttering from his rifle. ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... This personage was a tall muscular man, past the middle age, but agile and vigorous in all his motions. He was habited in a buck-skin hunting-shirt, and wore leggins of the same material. Although he was armed with a long knife and heavy rifle, and the expression of his brow and chin indicated an unusual degree of firmness and determination, yet there was an openness and blandness in the expression of his features which won the confidence of the beholder, and instantly dispelled every apprehension of violence. All ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... steady, stranger." was the reply. "There is not a man on the Rio Grande border, where I came from, that can strike a center at twenty paces with a revolver as often as I. And with a rifle at one hundred yards I can most generally drop a deer with a ball between his eyes, if he is looking at me, or take a wild turkey's head without ...
— Wild Bill's Last Trail • Ned Buntline
... laughter and tumult and roaring of voices! And the river moves in its winding channel toward the gulf, Over the breast of De Soto, By the swamp grave of La Salle! The old days sleep, the lion of Tennessee sleeps With Daniel Boone and the hunters, The rifle men, the revelers, The laughers and dancers and choppers Who climbed the crests of the Alleghenies, And poured themselves into Tennessee, Ohio, Kentucky, Illinois, the bountiful West. But the river never sleeps, the river flows forever, Making land forever, reclaiming the wastes of the ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters
... several very severe fights, notably one on Canon Kopje, where two very able officers and many men had been killed. In such a small garrison this loss was a serious one, and the death-roll was growing apace, for, besides the frequent attacks, the rifle fire in the streets was becoming very unpleasant. Intelligence was also to hand of the Boers bringing up one of the Pretoria siege guns, capable of firing a 94-pound shell. This was to be dragged across the Transvaal at a snail's pace by ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... tigers for any thing. See, they are pulling in the cart now, and the shiny man is all ready with his gun. Will he shoot any of them, apprehension, for the sharp crack of a rifle startled her more than the ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... Dinah, and sometimes with Stas, she could participate in the excursions to the nearer localities of the desert and to Karun. Pan Tarkowski promised Stas that he would allow him some nights to go after wolves, and if he brought a good report from school he would get a genuine English short rifle and the necessary equipment for a hunter. As Stas was confident that he would succeed, he at once began to regard himself as the owner of a short rifle and promised himself to perform various astonishing ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... some of them were desired for their beautiful feather-covered skins, which make most valuable and beautiful caps and muffs, it was decided that Souwanas and Kennedy should take the missionary's breech-loading rifle, in addition to their own guns, and try ...
— Algonquin Indian Tales • Egerton R. Young
... was determined to believe was a balsam on his baby's nose. The birthmark to him resembled that tree. More than one had given currency if not credence to the belief that the reason why the bull's-eye was so hard to hit in one of our running deer rifle matches was that we had previously charmed it. If a woman sees a hare without cutting out and keeping a portion of the dress she is then wearing, her child will be ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... nightly he skewered British soldiers on it after the fashion of kidneys and bacon en brochette. For two months he had been saving his money toward a passage home to Ireland and the purchase of a rifle and two thousand rounds of ammunition—soft-nose bullets preferred—with the pious intention of starting with "th' bhoys" at the very beginning and going through with them to the bloody and ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... die he looked at his heirs and found them strong and sufficient and pleasing to the eye. Nowhere in the mountains were there two boys as tall, as straight, as deadly with rifle and revolver, as fierce, as relentless, as these two boys of his. He had sharpened their tempers, and he rejoiced in the sullen ferocity with which they looked at him now, unloving, cunning, biding their time and finding that it had almost ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand
... around us vainly seeking to get a position from which it could give us a death blow with a torpedo. All the while the under-water boat continued to rain, shot and shell upon us, and at times was so close that she was able to employ rifle ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... third, Bloomfield, waiting with gun in hand, was wounded at the first shot and killed at the second. The crowd retreated, but bullets rained upon the house, Charles all the while keeping watch in every direction from four different windows. Every now and then he thrust his rifle through one of the shattered windowpanes and fired, working with incredible rapidity. He succeeded in killing two more of his assailants and wounding two. At last he realized that the house was on fire, and knowing that the end had ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... brings, the greater is the spoil; For, when they perish by our warlike hands, We mean to set [157] our footmen on their steeds, And rifle all those ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part I. • Christopher Marlowe
... and the boy swung to the ground and started at a brisk walk toward the safari. He was a hundred yards away, perhaps, when one of the whites caught sight of him. The man gave a shout of alarm, instantly levelling his rifle upon the boy and firing. The bullet struck just in front of its mark, scattering turf and fallen leaves against the lad's legs. A second later the other white and the black soldiers of the rear guard were ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... passages. Soon it was only allowed in the dining-hall, where the accommodation was quite inadequate. One day two fellows were quietly walking down a path near the wire, when a sentry raised his rifle and threatened to shoot them if they did not at once go further from the wire! They refused to move, and told the sentry that they had a perfect right there. Whereupon the man at last lowered his rifle. On a complaint being made, ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight
... all sides, the music of the summoning horn suddenly ceased. Looking neither to the right nor to the left, the leader of the hunt rode on up the lane, sitting loose and careless in the saddle, his right hand steadying a short rifle across the saddle front. He rode thus until presently those at the Big House heard, softly rising on the morning air, the chant of an old church hymn: "On Jordan's strand ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... hostile in your rear; and faithfully reserve the spoil for an equal and common partition. It would not be reasonable," he added with a laugh, "that whilst we are toiling to the destruction of the drones, our more fortunate brethren should rifle and enjoy ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... again with the best horses, outfit, and men the Doyles could provide. And this time I did not ask any questions. But I rode horses—some of them too wild for me—and packed a rifle many a hundred miles, riding sometimes thirty and forty miles a day, and I climbed in and out of the deep canyons, desperately staying at the heels of one of those long-legged Texans. I learned the life of those ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... company—only thirty-three in all. Few amateurs travel at this inclement season. I knew only one other Englishman on board, an officer in the Rifle Brigade, returning to Canada from sick-leave. Among the Americans was Cyrus Field, the energetic promoter of the Atlantic Telegraph, then making (I think he said) his thirtieth transit within five ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... Energy,' which is to conclude, as we shall see presently, with the prophecy of its total extinction as far as the present world is concerned,—by clothing in a "properly scientific garb," our innocent impression that there is some difference between the blow of a rifle stock and a rifle ball; he prepares for the scientific toilet by telling us in italics that "the something which the rifle ball possesses in contradistinction to the rifle stock is clearly the power of overcoming resistance," since "it can penetrate through oak-wood or through ...
— The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century - Two Lectures delivered at the London Institution February - 4th and 11th, 1884 • John Ruskin
... take them away, of course. Mutiny of India's silent millions? Rubbish! Not because a mutiny would contradict the far-famed 'response of the Indian Empire,' but because India's silent millions haven't got a rifle amongst them. You needn't tell me they've given you forty reasons for getting on with that barracks. I know their reasons. All of 'em put together only mean that in a dull, dim Oxford-and-Cambridge way ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... his luggage consisted chiefly of an old fur cloak, in addition to the clothes he stood up in, besides his inseparable "six shooter" and a rifle—which latter he stated had been given to his grandfather by the celebrated Colonel Crockett of "coon" notoriety, and was "a powerful shootin' iron." The rest of the men folk took with them almost as little; ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... actually destroy you. They can kill you as unerringly as a bullet fired from a rifle. Keep this fact very definitely before you, and try to make your thoughts each day the means of adding to your life forces. There are many emotions that are harbored on occasions, which ...
— Vitality Supreme • Bernarr Macfadden
... climbing base, and the time had come for Johnny and the dogs to go down to the base camp for good. We should have liked to keep the boy, so good-natured and amiable he was and so keen for further climbing; but the dogs must be tended, and the main food for them was yet to seek on the foot-hills with the rifle. So on 9th May down they went, Tatum and the writer escorting them with the rope past the crevasses as far as the first glacier camp, and then toiling slowly up the glacier again, thankful that it was for the last time. That was one of the sultriest and most sweltering days either of us ever ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... yell." The captain of the Pattie band replied by taking his gun and shooting the arrow in two. Driven out of the camp the following day, the chief shot a horse as he rode past it and was himself instantly pierced with four rifle balls. ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... his horse a rifle is levelled, its barrel bearing upon his body; while a voice sounds threateningly in his ears, in clear tone, ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... were all closely drawn, a light was streaming. This was very queer indeed, and must mean something wrong. My imagination pictured a modern highwayman inside, with the electric lamps turned on to help him rifle the car, and I stood on tiptoe, peering out of the tiny aperture which was close under the low ceiling of the box-room. Ought I to scream, and alarm the household, since I knew not where to go ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... battalions of infantry which were to form the second British brigade. The brigade in question comprised 1st Battalion of the Grenadier Guards, the 1st Northumberland Fusiliers, the 2nd Lancashire Fusiliers, and the 2nd Battalion Rifle Brigade, together with a battery of Maxims manned by a detachment of the Royal Irish Fusiliers. Brigadier-General the Honourable N. G. Lyttelton, C.B., commanded the second brigade, whilst Major-General Gatacre's former ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... death is related by Mr. I.N. Arnold. "Thomas Lincoln was with his father in the field when the savages suddenly fell upon them. Mordecai and Josiah, his elder brothers, were near by in the forest. Mordecai, startled by a shot, saw his father fall, and running to the cabin seized the loaded rifle, rushed to one of the loop-holes cut through the logs of the cabin, and saw the Indian who had fired. He had just caught the boy, Thomas, and was running toward the forest. Pointing the rifle through the logs and aiming at a medal ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... three skulking thieves of Indians dodging after me, over better than four hundred miles of lonesome country, where I might have bawled for help for a whole week on end, and never made anybody hear me. They wanted my scalp, and they wanted my rifle, and they got both at last, at the end of their man-hunt, because I ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... be no doubt that the answers to these questions all point toward increased membership. As we have chosen to work along the broader lines and by the energy of mass rather than that of velocity—with the sledge-hammer rather than the rifle bullet—it is surely our duty to make that mass as efficient and as impressive as possible, which means that it must be swelled to the largest possible proportions. Large membership may be efficient in two ways, by united weight and by pervasiveness. An army is powerful in the first way. Ten ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... his foot to the rays to discover a rifle-ball that was lodged in his heel received a burn that took ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 40, August 12, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... disturb one in the land, after the musical mania, save the clang of the combers on the long, lonely beach; the cry of the sea-bird wheeling overhead, or the occasional bang of a rifle. Even the narrow-gauge railway, that stopped discreetly just before reaching the village, broke the monotony of local life but twice in the twenty-four hours. The whistle of the arriving and departing train, the signal ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... about one quarter the size of the women's. I marched up to a little dingy gate in the barbed-wire fence, and was hunting for the latch (as no padlock was in evidence) when a scared voice cried loudly "Qu'est ce que vous faites la!" and I found myself stupidly looking into a rifle. B., Fritz, Harree, Pompom, Monsieur Auguste, The Bear, and the last but not least Count de Bragard immediately informed the trembling planton that I was a Nouveau who had just returned from the ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... embassy: Avenida Kenneth P. O. Box 783, Maputo telephone: Flag description: three equal horizontal bands of green (top), black, and yellow with a red isosceles triangle based on the hoist side; the black band is edged in white; centered in the triangle is a yellow five-pointed star bearing a crossed rifle and hoe in black superimposed on an ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government |
