"Underbrush" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... north the glebe was bounded by a thick wood, a rank and dense "second growth" springing from earth where had once stood, decorously apart, the monster trees of the primeval forest; a wild maze of young trees, saplings and underbrush, overrun from the tops of the slender, bending pines to the bushes of dogwood and sassafras, and the rotting, ancient stumps and fallen logs, by the uncontrollable, all-spreading vine. It was such a fantastic thicket as one might look to find in fairyland, thorny ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... ago would its stately trees have been destroyed, its streamlet set to turning wheels, and Nature forced to express herself on those many acres, in corn and potatoes, instead of her own graceful and varied selection of greenery; or, mayhap, its underbrush cut out, its slopes sodded, its springs buried in pipes and put to use, and the whole "improved" into dull insipidity,—all this, but for the will of one man who held the title to the grounds, and rated it so highly, that, though willing to sell, no one could come up to his terms. Happy delusion! ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... had entered the forest, and considering this the best channel of escape, I darted towards it like an arrow. 'Twas scarcely a hundred yards distant, and the swallow could hardly excel my desperate flight; yet, as I turned my head to the shore, I could see two dark objects dashing through the underbrush at a pace nearly double in speed to my own. By this rapidity, and the short yells which they occasionally gave, I knew at once that these were the much ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... accounts for the formation of coal in greater quantity and more combustible in quality than is found in the more recent deposits. But stately as were those fern forests, where plants which creep low at our feet to-day, or are known to us chiefly as underbrush, or as rushes and grasses in swampy grounds, grew to the height of lofty trees, yet the vegetation was ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... of small saplings and underbrush, hastily collected, the mildness of the weather rendering anything beyond what sufficed for the purposes of cooking and drying the men's clothes, superfluous. The soldiers' tent was pitched at some distance from our own, but not too far for us to hear ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... the awful knowledge that all of his props had been kicked out from under him, now at last Jimmy Holden whimpered in helpless fright. Brennan turned towards the sound and began to beat his way through the underbrush. ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... Some underbrush, which, farther on, became forests, embellished the horizon. The doctor went nearer to the ground; the anchors were thrown out, and one of them soon caught in the boughs of ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... the way was blocked, trying to beat down a few more of the barriers, open up a little more of that untrodden territory. And only the little band itself would ever know how stony that path, how deep the ditches, how thick and thorny the underbrush. "Why this couldn't have been so bad," the crowd said, after it had flocked in—"strange it should have ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... a thrashing among the frozen underbrush, while Silver Face stood immovable, the blazing eyes in the mask staring in ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... trying, for the coast was swampy and thickly grown up to underbrush; but in time the jungle gave place to higher timber and to open savannas deep in guinea-grass. Soon after noon the travelers came to a farm, the owner of which was known to one of the guides, and here a stop was made in order ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... day was dawning, and settled down for the day, as we could travel only in the night, lest we should be seen and caught. We were wet—our clothes soaked through from the heavy dew. We had to travel through corn fields, cotton patches, oat fields and underbrush, not daring to take the main road. This is why we were so wet. Uncle Alfred traveled wholly by the stars—they were his guide. He knew by looking at them the four cardinal points of the compass. Many old slaves were guided in this way when traveling in the night, ...
— Thirty Years a Slave • Louis Hughes
... General McPherson and his party wheeled their horses, and at that moment a heavy volley was poured in, killing McPherson and so frightening the horses that they became unmanageable and plunged into the underbrush in different directions. My aide became separated from the General and the rest of the party, and was knocked from his horse by coming in contact with a tree, and lay for some time in an unconscious ...
— The Battle of Atlanta - and Other Campaigns, Addresses, Etc. • Grenville M. Dodge
... showed somewhat more movement now. The negro had long ago wound his line upon its crooked pole, gathered up his stiffened fishes from the bank, thrust them into the pockets of his shamelessly ragged trousers, and was gone to his hut in the underbrush. But the few amphibious households round about were passing out and in at the half-idle tasks of their slow daily life, and a young white man was bustling around, now into the station and now out again upon ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... contented. The other side of the stream is lined with endless stretches of trees,—sycamore, elm, dogwood with their starry eyes peering in innate vanity over the bank into the mirror beneath them, and underbrush of all descriptions. Where the tide has once been, and receded, is a stretch of yellow clay, now glistening from the dews of night. After a while the sun strikes this, and the wet surface glows like gold. Then your wandering eye—for you have forgotten your cork—observes ...
— The Love Story of Abner Stone • Edwin Carlile Litsey
... departed, closely sewed up, and then, if a male or chief, fasten in the branches of a tree so high as to be beyond the reach of wolves, and then left to slowly waste in the dry winds. If the body was that of a squaw or child, it was thrown into the underbrush or jungle, where it soon became the prey of the wild animals. The weapons, pipes, &c., of men were inclosed, and the small toys of children with them. The ceremonies were equally barbarous, the relatives cutting off, according to the depth of their grief, ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow
... miles from the Cave, as you approach it from the South-East, the country is level. It was, until recently, a prairie, on which, however, the oak, chestnut and hickory are now growing; and having no underbrush, its smooth, verdant openings present, here and there, no unapt resemblance to the parks of ...
— Rambles in the Mammoth Cave, during the Year 1844 - By a Visiter • Alexander Clark Bullitt
... his mate from a distant crag. She had grown used to his howls. He had come close to her cabin once in the day-time. She had tried to creep on him and show her friendliness. But he had fled in terror at the first glimpse of her dress through the parting underbrush. ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... slanting boards with his bare feet, and his heart was glad. The boy was sure that no man would dare to follow him, even if the fence would hold a man's weight. He had scurried up the bank before his pursuer had reached the side Jimmy had leaped from so lightly. He scooted through the underbrush. Again and again did the "champeen fence-walker" smile to himself as he slackened his pace to dodge a volley of rocks, and again and again did James Sears—an exemplary youth for the most part, who knew his Ten Commandments by heart—look ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White
... beckoning to somnolence. He judged by the position of the stars, as he lay on his back, that it was past midnight, when suddenly he became aware of a noise to the west of him, on the other side of the brook. Sitting up, and listening intently, he suspected, from the rustle of the underbrush, that some one was following the trail, and would presently come ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... falling, and then leap again. Even in this way, the distance it covered was amazing; Thyrsis was appalled at the power of the creature, its tremendous bounds, the shock of its fall, and the crashing of the underbrush before it. It seemed like a huge boulder, leaping down a precipice; and Thyrsis stood at a safe distance and watched it. According to the poetry-books he should have been ashamed—perhaps moved to ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... a home which will provide a safe and generous support in his old age is that during all the labor and waiting he is enjoying a delightful climate, in which no blizzard drives him from his work. No cyclone endangers his life and fortune. No snakes lurk in the underbrush. No clouds of dust blind his eyes. No sultry summer suns make him gasp for breath, and no intense cold freezes his face or feet. He can work if he wishes as many days as there are in the year, and know that every stroke of ...
— A Review of the Resources and Industries of the State of Washington, 1909 • Ithamar Howell
... the sky has become overcast, the gay aspect of the landscape has changed to sad loneliness and a heavy shower soaks us to the skin. The walk through the jungle is trying, and even the moli loses the way now and again. Towards nightfall we enter a high forest with but little underbrush, and work our way slowly up a steep and slippery slope to an overhanging coral rock, where we decide to camp. We have lost our way, but as night is closing in fast, we cannot ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... progress which the scouts made upon their club-room, which she called "Headquarters." She could see it from her window, and often she would sit and watch as the boys worked around the building, cutting down some of the underbrush, and cleaning up the ground. When their work was done they always came to her room, and talked over ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody
... megaphone. When his horse went lame, the column with which he had wished to advance, passed forward to the front unmolested, while the rear guard, to which he had been forced to join his fortune, fought its way through the stifling underbrush. ...
— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis
... the thickly wooded hills. It was early October, but a crisping frost had already stamped the maple trees with gold, the Spanish oaks were hung with patches of wine red, the sumach was brilliant in the darkening underbrush. A pattern of wild geese, flying low and unconcerned above the hills, wavered against the serene ashen evening. Howat Penny, standing in the comparative clearing of a road, decided that the shifting regular flight would not come ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... through some dense underbrush when Belle suddenly called a halt. The trail was very narrow, and on either side grew dense clumps ...
— Dave Porter at Star Ranch - Or, The Cowboy's Secret • Edward Stratemeyer
... sun, on top of a rail fence, blinking at me consideringly. The fence skirted a little trail that led from my back yard down to Calapooia Creek. It seemed trying to push back a fringe of scrubby underbrush which ran down a hillside; a fringe which was, in truth, but a feeler from the great forest of Douglas fir which one saw marching, file upon file, row upon row, back and back to the snows of the ...
— American Cookery - November, 1921 • Various
... one of the fine, park-like woods, almost clear from underbrush and carpeted with thick grasses and flowers, we met (for it was Sunday) a little congregation just returning from their service, which had been performed in a rude house in its midst. It had a sweet and peaceful air, as if such words and thoughts were very dear to them. The parents ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... Frank certainly was not of that kind. This dark aperture was no doubt the mouth of a cave of some sort, and he determined to inspect it. When he got within about fifteen yards, he noticed what he had not seen before, that there was a well-defined track leading from the cave to the underbrush to the right, which had evidently been made by some large animal; and with somewhat of a start Frank immediately ...
— The Young Woodsman - Life in the Forests of Canada • J. McDonald Oxley
... him. As the crashing sound of the huge dog through the underbrush ceased he noticed a woman coming leisurely toward him. Her arms were full of bitter-sweet berries and flaming autumn leaves. She wore no hat and Fenneben saw that her gray hair was wound like a coronal about her head. Before he could catch ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter
... saw the jungle of vice and party prejudice, but I did not yet see "the Cat." I saw its ears and its eyes there in the underbrush, but I did not know what they were. I thought they were connected ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... running ground-pine; and clearing away, with both eager hands, leaves, sticks, moss, and all the fallen exuciae of the summertime, you tear up long wreaths of that most graceful of evergreens. Then, in another quarter of the woodland, where the underbrush has been killed by the denser shade, there rise the exquisite fan-shaped plumes of the feather-pine, of deepest green, or brown-golden with the pencil of the frost;—for cross or star or thick festoon, there is nothing so beautiful. And again you are attracted into the thickets ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... Alleghanies, as yet hardly heard of by white men. Giant oaks, ashes and tulip trees mingled with the pine and hemlock growth. The hillsides where the sun shone through were thick with rhododendron and laurel. And all through this sylvan paradise the upper branches and the underbrush teemed with wild life. Squirrels, partridges and occasional turkeys offered frequent marks for the long muzzle-loading rifles, while a thousand little song birds flitted constantly through the leaves. Jeremy had never seen ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... thick grove of trees on the side nearest the Academy. Sometimes a poor drive lands a ball in that same grove, and there is much trial and tribulation ere the player has succeeded in dislodging it from the underbrush. ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... struck in the side by one of these missiles, which tumbled him over, but without inflicting a serious wound. A party from our ship penetrated the woods behind the town, where one of them fired at an object which he perceived moving in the underbrush. Going up to the spot, it proved to be a very aged man, apparently on the verge of a century, much emaciated, and too feeble to crawl further in company with his flying towns-people. He was unharmed by the shot, but evidently expected instant ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... pursuing his journey, he made his way into the woods, and, stretching himself out among the underbrush, ...
— The Store Boy • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... gray kitten appeared out of the underbrush, and frisked trustfully across to him. He put out a hand, caressed it, picked it up. In a moment the feminine voice replied, ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... Rover was hungry, and she had not given him even one piece of meat. She tried to forget how selfish she had been; but she could not do so, and quite early she started for home. 14. When she was nearly out of the woods, a rustling in the underbrush attracted her attention. "I wonder if that is a bird or a squirrel," said she to herself. "If I can catch it, how glad I shall be!" 15. She tried to make her way quietly through the underbrush; but what was her terror when she saw it large snake coiled up before her, prepared for a ...
— McGuffey's Third Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... though Lydia, who was fascinated by the manoeuvre of the girl, did not notice the fact, Mr. Briggerland had reached the shore, pulled on a pair of rubber shoes, and with his mackintosh buttoned over his bathing dress, had begun to climb through the underbrush towards the spot where the glasses had glistened. When Lydia looked up he ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... again. Then, of a sudden, the girl's eyes filled; and Trooper Stormont caught her free hand and kissed it;—kissed it again and again,—dropped it and went striding away through the underbrush which was now all rosy with the rays ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers
... also a new style of camp and is intended for use in places where large timber cannot be cut, but where dwarf willows, bamboo cane, alders, or other small underbrush is more or less plentiful. From this gather a plentiful supply of twigs and with improvised twine bind the twigs into bundles of equal size. Use these bundles as you would stones in building the wall and lay ...
— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard
... road, he plunged into a growth of young fir trees, made his way through these, and at length reached a valley where the trees were larger, and the underbrush was not so thick. This would lead him to the level beyond where he could obtain a view of the fire, and learn the real nature of the danger. The heat here was intense, for not a breath of wind fanned his hot forehead. But steadily and rapidly he sped forward, and to ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody
... so that the little treetops were always well over us. The patch of woods was dark. A soil of black loam was under us, a thick soft underbrush reached our knees, and lacy, flexible leaves and branches were at our shoulder height. We pushed them aside, forcing our way softly forward. It was not far. The little murmuring voices of the crowd ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... turned off into a field, to avoid meeting people who might ask questions, Raymond held together the barbed wires of the fence very carefully, so she could creep under without mishap. And when they neared the woods, he kicked all the twigs from her path, and lifted aside the underbrush lest it touch her face. And at each opportunity for this delicious solicitude they would look at each other, ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... joined the president in his horseback morning excursions. Sometimes, he said, when they came to a very steep, high, and rough hill the president would shout, "Let us climb to the top," and the diplomat would struggle over the stones, the underbrush and gullies, and return to his horse with torn garments after sliding down the hill. At another time, when on the banks of the Potomac, where the waters were raging rapids the president said, "We will go to that island in the middle of the river," and immediately plunge ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... underbrush, Beaudry took stock of this dusky nymph with surprise. In her attitude was something wild and free and proud. It was as if she challenged his presence even though she had summoned him. Across his mind flashed the thought that this ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... lower level and began their return walk. On the slope the buildings were not so close together. There were more open spaces, more undeveloped stretches where trees yet remained and thickets of underbrush still ...
— The Secret Wireless - or, The Spy Hunt of the Camp Brady Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... Jimmy, were unusually fleet, and they soon overtook Cassey. Bob's hand was almost upon him when the man doubled suddenly in his tracks and darted off into the thick underbrush. ...
— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman
... background. The tawny rabbit halts amid the dry leaves of a fallen tree. No one sees it. The sinuous weasel slips silently under a rock by the side of the trail and is unnoticed. The mother grouse crouches low amid the underbrush and her little ones follow her example, but the careless company has no time to observe and drifts quickly by. Only the irrepressible red squirrel might be seen, but isn't, when he loses his balance and drops to a lower branch in his efforts to miss nothing of the excitement ...
— On the Trail - An Outdoor Book for Girls • Lina Beard and Adelia Belle Beard
... long minutes of this everlasting scrambling over logs, and crashing through tangled underbrush. Why, I reckon I'll have the map of Ireland in red streaks on my face before I'm done ...
— Phil Bradley's Mountain Boys - The Birch Bark Lodge • Silas K. Boone
... quarters, where the happy slave-voices used to sing "Monkey Motions," and the merry feet used to dance to "Cotton-eyed Joe," weeds and thick underbrush have all grown up, and partridges build their nests there; and sometimes, at dusk, a wild-cat or a fox may be seen stealing across the ...
— Diddie, Dumps, and Tot • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... not far off. The night was pitch-dark. Led by Washington, we got through the thick underbrush without much trouble. The grave was dug near the water's edge, where the Missouri and the Yellowstone, meeting, form an angle. A large fire of dry cottonwood at the head of the grave fitfully lit up the dismal ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... close to the west edge of Bear Canon as he could endure. In two or three places the flames had jumped the wall and were trying to make headway in the scant underbrush of the rocky slope that led to a hogback surmounted by a bare rimrock running to the summit. This natural barrier would block the fire on the west, just as the burnt-over area would protect the north. ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... not long to look; A sheltered place, from underbrush quite free, Was known to all as a most charming nook, Where they might rest and eat in privacy. On choice of this they every one agree; Then place the baskets-laden with good things— And now their voices, in sweet melody, Present pure praises to the King of Kings: A truly pleasant service ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... tumbling rock and ruin, where wild flowers struggled for a holding in spring, and the sharp cactus sent out ever-green points between the stones. Far down, a confusion of low, brown houses, with many dark towers standing straight up from them like charred trees above underbrush in a fire-blasted forest. Beyond all, the still loneliness of far mountains. That was the scene, and those were the surroundings, in which the Roman people reinstituted a Roman Senate, after a lapse of nearly six hundred years, in consequence of the agitation begun and long continued ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... trailed their elders with the experience of youth, aided by the absorption and anxiety of their fathers. Their view of the final object of the search was somewhat obscured by the underbrush behind which they remained. ...
— Youth • Isaac Asimov
... shrieked aloud, and Mr. Hammond shouted to the operator to "repeat." The dense underbrush had parted behind the upper tier of Indians and in the aperture thus made appeared a face and part of the figure of a man—a wild face with straggling hair and beard, and the upper part of his body clad in the ...
— Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence - The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands • Alice B. Emerson
... into a little grassy opening, about an acre in extent, which seemed to have been made expressly with a view to camping out. It was surrounded on three sides by woods, and opened on the fourth into a wild mountain gorge, choked up with rocks, logs, and a dense growth of underbrush and weeds. A clear cold stream tumbled in a succession of tinkling cascades down the dark ravine, and ran in a sandy flower-bordered channel through the grassy glade, until it disappeared in the encircling forest. It was useless to look for a better place than this ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... to work and in half an hour had already the satisfaction of seeing my habitation rising into shape. I was still gnawing with unabated energy when I was interrupted by a low growling in the underbrush. With animal caution I shrank behind a tree, growling in return. I could see something moving in the bushes, evidently an animal of large size. From its snarl I judged it to be a bear. I could hear ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock
... until the road turned toward the range and an opening which he followed into a steeper and narrower rift beyond. Here there were no clearings in the rocky underbrush until he reached Richmond Braley's land. A long upturning sweep ended at the house, directly against the base of the mountain; and without decreasing his gait he passed over the faintly traced way, by the triangular ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... listened. Unable to turn his head, he heard behind him the wild rush of men. Leaping over horse and man they went by. He got a look to right and left. They tore through the slashes, dropping fast and facing a furious fusillade were lost to sight in the underbrush. "By George! they've won," he exclaimed and fell back. "They must have carried the parapet." He waited. In about a half hour a party of men in grey went by. An officer in blue cried out, "Up the hill, you beggars!" More of the grey men ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... dark tangle of forest behind him, where daylight never penetrates the thick tropical growth, lay the body of Bully Evans. It was lying face down in the underbrush, a little round hole in the back of the head. Quinn's treachery had anticipated that of ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... became obscured by gathering clouds, and in the thick underbrush through which my course led me I could see scarcely twenty yards ahead. I attempted to get my direction with the compass, but the needle would not respond. Trusting, however, to my ability to find ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... selected was Lexington in Kentucky,—then a small village in the midst of beautiful groves without underbrush, where the soil was of virgin richness, and the landscape painted with almost perpetual verdure; one of the most attractive spots by nature on the face of the earth,—a great contrast to the flat prairies of Illinois, or ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord
... an inferiority of large timber in Loudoun (then Prince William) and contiguous counties. The responsibility for this condition has been traced to the hunters who frequented this region prior to its settlement and wantonly set fire to the forests in order to destroy underbrush, the better to secure their quarries. A comparatively dense and vigorous new growth followed the discontinuance of ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head
... beautiful, the one at Lyons was more beautiful and complete. As the king entered the city, he saw obelisks of antiquity to the right and left, and a wall of six feet was constructed along the road to the courtyard, which was filled with underbrush and planted thickly with trees and shrubbery. In this miniature forest were hidden ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... a hill, and, looking back over his course, saw the bushes moving in a suspicious manner. Knowing there was no live stock in that locality and that wild game rarely abounded there, he sent several shots in the direction of the moving underbrush. The motion soon ceased, ...
— The Story of the Pony Express • Glenn D. Bradley
... timid, and her curiosity being aroused by the sound, she stood erect, and remained in a listening attitude. In a moment the sound was repeated, and, gauging the point from which it came, she plunged resolutely into the thick underbrush of the forest. She had gone but a few yards when she stopped short with an exclamation of ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... be in a fairly open spot. Thick woods and underbrush are either hot or "damp" cool. If you can find a site that is shaded during the heat of the day so much the better. It is unwise to pitch the tent under a tree that stands alone on account of possible danger from lightning. ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... the two went up inland and entered the forest where it was densely overgrown with underbrush. As they went on, they met Mailehaiwale, the princess's first guardian. When she saw them approaching from a distance, she cried, "O Hauailiki, you two go back from there, you two have no business to come up ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous
... away the banks and carrying with it numberless snags and trees." Never is the Colorado tranquil. As they followed up the stream they suddenly found the road washed away, and were obliged to cut a new path through the underbrush. This proved a long task, so with the pack-mules he pushed on, leaving the waggons to come later. Antoine Leroux was the guide. When they reached the place he had selected for a camp and had unpacked the mules, it ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... all, it should be Martin whose fate it was to rebuild the wall! Why, such a revenge would almost compensate for the property falling into his hands! Suppose it should become his lot to cut away the vines and underbrush; haul hither the great stones and hoist them into place! And if while he toiled at the hateful task and beads of sweat rolled from his forehead, a sympathetic and indulgent Providence would but permit her to come back to earth and, standing at his ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... of the sun. Toward evening, when the shadows are rapidly lengthening across the clearings, the ermine may be seen issuing forth for its night campaign. Now it twists its lithe body like an eel in and out among the rocks and underbrush; now it stands for a moment motionless, peering about in search of a victim, its slender little body arched up in the middle like an enraged cat. It is always on the alert, whisking here and there, sniffing at every hole and corner where perchance ...
— Harper's Young People, May 25, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... given to a piece of partially cleared land lying between the mill-pond and Sandy McLachlan's clearing. The timber on it had been cut down and it had grown up in a wild luxuriance of underbrush and berry bushes. The latter had from time to time been cleared away in patches, and here and there between the fallen tree-trunks were stretches of green grass, where the wild strawberries grew. The Slash was the most delightful place in which to go roaming at large and ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... not ten yards across—nothing more than a creek. The woods and underbrush shut it in closely. There was not a mark in the snow on either hand of footsteps—not that Ruth could see. And how heavy the ...
— Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp • Alice Emerson
... Despite the pouring rain and the lash of the wind it felt good out there. They had been so long in one small close place that it was freedom to have again the whole open world about them. The four stood a little while to breathe it in and then Henry led through the underbrush to the top of ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... know the big pine that hung over the road just this side of Toumine's? Well, it's down, right across the road. I had to ride around it, up among the underbrush." ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... fragrance in the stillness, bloom on the trees. In the thicket dogwood massed itself in clouds of dead-white stars, like an errant trail from the Milky Way, lighting the wooded twilight. Wild azalea, so deeply rose that the hue seemed of the blood, wafted its sharp, unearthly scent across the underbrush to the road. The woods were vocal with the mating songs of their winged inhabitants. The music of the thrush welled from the sheer forceful joy of living. "It is good—good—good to be a lover!" he sang again and again ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... fanned by a strong breeze from the west. The roof was inaccessible both from the inside and the outside, and in a very few minutes both sides of it were covered with a fiery sheet of low, devouring flame similar to that occasionally seen, when fire sweeps rapidly over ground covered with dry underbrush. ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... streamed from the blue sky through the tree-tops, and the golden sunbeams shimmered and danced over the branches, trunks and ground, as if they had been prisoned in the woods and could never find their way out. The shadows of the tall trunks lay in transparent bars on the underbrush, luxuriant moss, and ferns, and the dew clung to the weeds ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... was very evident, for at this point a tall figure bounded from the underbrush, disguised by a black half mask, through which a pair of black ...
— Do and Dare - A Brave Boy's Fight for Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... animals, relating less to climate than to the more mechanical circumstances of life, are made with the same consummate skill that characterizes all the love work of Nature. Land, water, and air, jagged rocks, muddy ground, sand beds, forests, underbrush, grassy plains, etc., are considered in all their possible combinations while the clothing of her beautiful wildlings is preparing. No matter what the circumstances of their lives may be, she never allows ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... by a huntsman peacefully seated at the edge of the forest of Ile-Adam, who was finishing an Havana cigar while waiting for his companion, who had lost his way in the tangled underbrush of the wood. At his side four panting dogs were watching, as he did, the personage he addressed. To understand how sarcastic were these exhortations, repeated at intervals, we should state that the approaching ...
— Adieu • Honore de Balzac
... Luther, arrests our backward glance, and all beyond is dark and void. But generations before Martin Luther the work for the harvest of coming ages was begun. Humble but earnest men, with such rude aids as they possessed, were toiling to clear away the dense underbrush of ignorance and superstition, and let the light of the sun in on the stagnant swamp; struggling to plough up the stony soil that centuries of oppression had made hard and barren; scattering seed that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... accordingly did, the fallen trunk of a tree half-buried in dense undergrowth affording us a perfectly ideal ambush; and we had scarcely settled ourselves comfortably therein when a violent swaying of the underbrush warned us that our quarry was approaching. The next instant the scrub parted right and left, the points of two enormous tusks protruded from the swaying tangle of leaves and creepers, and in the drawing ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... stealthily as an Indian along the ravines and through the thickets. They were tough, hearty, daring, courageous men. They thought it no great hardship to march all day, and lie down beside a log at night without supper. They wanted no better fun than to creep through the underbrush and pick off the Rebels, whirling in an instant upon their backs after firing a shot, to reload their rifles. Although attached to Lauman's brigade, they were expected in battle to go where they could do ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... old man would show himself at daylight in different places removed from his camp in the woods. While squadrons of avengers were scouring the ravines, the river bottoms and the tangled underbrush, he was lying quietly on his arms. Sometimes his pursuers camped within hearing and got their water ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... no answer of any kind. Jabe waited till the moon, still red and distorted, had risen almost clear of the ridge. Then he called again, and yet again, and again waited. From straight across the strangely-shadowed water came a sudden sharp crashing of underbrush, as if some one had fallen to beating the ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... this position. This line made here a sharp angle and by seizing this angle, it was hoped to turn the right flank of Lee's army. Between the position of the Second corps and the rebel works, the ground was covered with pines and underbrush, and as it neared the defenses ascended abruptly to a ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... that was wonderful," she told him. "We rode very early in the morning and the dew was on the grass and we could hear the pheasants in the underbrush when the noise of the horses' feet ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner
... it is complete. The grass is growing at the Palais-Bourbon. A virgin forest is beginning to spring up between Pont de la Concorde and Place Bourgogne. Amid the underbrush one distinguishes the box of a sentry. The Corps Legislatif empties its urn among the reeds, and the water flows around the foot of the sentry-box ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... place, without suffering any inconvenience from the change. It was years before the townspeople dropped the story of Mrs. McAlister's first attempt to choose a site for the house, of her patiently sitting on top of the rail fence, while her husband borrowed a hatchet and manfully whacked away at the underbrush, to clear a path to admit her ...
— Teddy: Her Book - A Story of Sweet Sixteen • Anna Chapin Ray
... boys against going very far from the beach because of the danger of getting lost in the forest, and as they disappeared among the underbrush he threw himself upon the ground, unable longer to fight against the despair which was ...
— The Search for the Silver City - A Tale of Adventure in Yucatan • James Otis
... around the tors to another point, but she could catch no glimpse of any living being, and in that great waste of rocks and furze and underbrush it was not surprising. Kitty, though, was surprised and a little bit alarmed, and she ran from point to point, calling and calling again; but for a long time the only answer was the long sighs the wind gave as it rushed over the level land, and ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... had also been a soldier. He was seventy years of age when he came under the influence of Benedict, through a chance visit to Monte Cassino. Benedict at first ordered him to take an ax and work with the servants at grubbing out underbrush and preparing a field for planting. Cassiodorus obeyed, and soon discovered that there was a joy in obedience he had before never guessed. His name was Brebantus Varus, but on his declaring he was going to remain and work with Benedict, ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... separated by broad belts of high timber. Here and there copses of woodland lay like islands in the sunny seas of tall, waving grass. Where the rivers ran, their alluvial bottoms were densely covered with trees and underbrush, and were often overflowed in the spring freshets. Sometimes the prairies were long, narrow strips of meadow land; again they were so broad as to be a day's journey across, and to the American, bred in a wooded country where the largest openings were the beaver ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... to watch for them was an old settlement duty- road, which had been cut out some years before, but was now partially grown up again with a second growth of timber and underbrush. Having seated myself very snugly, I took out of my pocket a volume of Shakespeare to pass away the time. I had not been half-an-hour so employed, before my attention was suddenly aroused by hearing a stick break near me, when upon looking up I beheld the head and horns of a large buck ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland
... days of the world, the first men had to their forests on land. Besides, who else could dispute his ownership of this underwater property? What other, bolder pioneer would come, ax in hand, to clear away its dark underbrush? ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... will see no quiet assumption of superiority; unless perchance he is a young fox, that has not learned what it means to be met on a runway by a man with a gun when the dogs are driving. With your first slightest movement there is a flash of yellow fur, and he has vanished into the thickest bit of underbrush at hand.—Don't run; you will not see him again here. He knows the old roads and paths far better than you do, and can reach his big hill by any one of a dozen routes where you would never dream of looking. But if you want ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... climes, accompany the Countess of Dalhousie on a botanizing tour through Sillery woods; you have her note book, if not herself, to go by. For May, see what an ample store of bright flowers scattered around you; fear not to lose yourself in thickets and underbrush; far from the beaten track a noble lady has ransacked the environs over and over again, sometimes alone, sometimes with an equally enthusiastic and intelligent friend, who hailed from Woodfield; [243] sweet flowers ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... pointing to the green balsam top. I gripped my rifle and started to creep toward them. A little twig, about as thick as the tip of a fishing rod, cracked under my knee. There was a terrible crash behind the balsam, a plunging through the underbrush and a rattling among the branches, a lumbering gallop up the hill through the forest, and Silverhorns ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... where they were thin and peeped between the leaves, Ann and Peter crowding each other to see over his shoulder. They looked into a kind of open glade not much larger than a good-sized room and walled on all sides by tall trees and thick underbrush. It had a flooring of soft green turf, and about in the middle lay a great rock as large as a playhouse. This rock was all covered over with moss and lichens, and the strange thing about it was that a neat door had been cut in its side. Before this door, talking and waving his ...
— The Wonderful Bed • Gertrude Knevels
... be keener than ever," Dick urged, as Dave paced off another twenty steps higher up. "We're in a growth of deeper forest, with a bigger tangle of underbrush and it will be easy enough to ...
— The High School Boys' Fishing Trip • H. Irving Hancock
... of it too. About 2 P.M. we had been sent out to skirmish along the edge of the wood in which, as our generals suspected, the Rebs lay massing for a charge across the slope, upon the crest of which our army was posted. We had barely entered the underbrush when we met the heavy formations of Magruder in the very act of charging. Of course, our thin line of skirmishers was no impediment to those onrushing masses. They were on us and over us before we could get out of the way. I do not think ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... his way past dense underbrush into the forest proper. Here he walked through shaded groves of giant oaks. All around him was the chirp and bustle of unseen bird and animal life. Far in front of him was a large white sign nailed to a tree. Barrent reached it, ...
— The Status Civilization • Robert Sheckley
... feet in front of them, a full-grown red deer. They were so startled by this apparition that they all stopped as if the beautiful creature had been a lion in their path. For an instant it turned its great brown eyes upon them, and then with two bounds it plunged into the underbrush on the other side of the road. Mrs. Archibald and Margery had never before seen ...
— The Associate Hermits • Frank R. Stockton
... Haven. It was not a strange journey. For years the Hunting Creek warehouse had handled tobacco from Mount Vernon, Belvoir, Gunston Hall, and the neighboring estates. Tradition has it in Alexandria that Washington aided John West when he was struggling through the underbrush and tree stumps staking out the lots. So familiar did the embryo engineer become with the future town site that he drew a map, and added the names of lot purchasers to ...
— Seaport in Virginia - George Washington's Alexandria • Gay Montague Moore
... difficult for them, and the top branches of trees, which kept breaking off and falling down, caused confusion. While the Romans were in such perplexity as this the barbarians suddenly encompassed them from all sides at once, coming through the thickest part of the underbrush, since they were acquainted with the paths. At first they hurled from a distance; then as no one defended himself but many were wounded, they approached closer to them. The Romans were in no order but going along helter-skelter among the wagons and the ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio
... the shade, after breakfast, while Huck had a smoke, and then went off through the woods on an exploring expedition. They tramped gayly along, over decaying logs, through tangled underbrush, among solemn monarchs of the forest, hung from their crowns to the ground with a drooping regalia of grape-vines. Now and then they came upon snug nooks carpeted with grass and jeweled ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... leading from the ford into the swamp that lay between the Indian village and the river were so numerous that the stout-hearted scout hardly knew which one to take. He chose one almost at random, and, after following it through the thick underbrush, he found that it had led him some distance below the village. He followed the margin of the swamp back again, and soon found himself in the outskirts of the village. There he paused to listen. A dog somewhere in the settlement barked ...
— Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris
... pleasantly tempered by a soft breeze; for all in that land was fair, and it grew fairer day by day to all who dwelt there. Tall trees with rich foliage and fragrant flowers, but without lower limbs or underbrush, grew as in a grove, wide as a forest, yet so far apart that the eye could pierce the ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... the direction of the manor-house, a person who seemed to be walking slowly and seeking for something upon the ground. He was a long way off when Middleton first perceived him; and there were two clumps of trees and underbrush, with interspersed tracts of sunny lawn, between them. The person, whoever he was, kept on, and plunged into the first clump of shrubbery, still keeping his eyes on the ground, as if intensely searching for ...
— The Ancestral Footstep (fragment) - Outlines of an English Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... on. Once, from the edge of a thicket of trees, they saw the highway below them and to their left. It was empty. It curved out of sight, swinging to the left again. They moved uphill and down. Now the going was easy, through woods with very little underbrush and a carpet of fallen leaves. Again it was a sunlit slope with prickly bushes to be avoided. And yet again it was boulder-strewn terrain that might be nearly level but much more often was ...
— Operation Terror • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... on the hill remained undisturbed, talking in undertones. For the most part, they speculated on the significance of the faint sounds that came up from below. Sometimes they could trace the crash of a horse through dry underbrush; sometimes a tumultuous clamor of commanding voices would tell them that a flat boat was being worked across a broad creek or a pond; sometimes a hardly audible whirr, and the metallic clinking of a bicycle bell would tell them ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner
... load on the ground, he ran back, and signaled to the others. Angel came up and tried to tell them in his peculiar way of some danger ahead. Two hundred feet south of the house was a thick growth of underbrush, and to that ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Mysteries of the Caverns • Roger Thompson Finlay
... Kant's was in speculative philosophy. But the Scotchman had none of the stomachic phlegm and never-perturb'd placidity of the Konigsberg sage, and did not, like the latter, understand his own limits, and stop when he got to the end of them. He clears away jungle and poisonvines and underbrush—at any rate hacks valiantly at them, smiting hip and thigh. Kant did the like in his sphere, and it was all he profess'd to do; his labors have left the ground fully prepared ever since—and greater ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... made in daylight. That evening we received our ration of rum, and under cover of darkness moved in open order across the Salt Lake for about a mile, then through three miles of knee-high, prickly underbrush, to where our division was intrenched. Our orders were to reinforce the Irish. The Irish sadly needed reinforcing. Some of them had been on the peninsula for months. Many of them are still there. From the beach to the firing-line ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... to his horse's sides and went racing down the slope toward the spot where an instant ago she had made such a gay contrast to dull verdure and gray boulders. For he had glimpsed the quick flash of an up-thrown arm, had heard a low cry, had guessed rather than seen through the low underbrush her young ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... down a well defined, hard packed trail through thorny lavender underbrush. As they went, Joyce blazed marks on various tree trunks marking the direction back to the shell. The tough fibres exuded a bluish liquid from the cuts ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... How much better to consider this very good world as a garden, whose beauty depends largely upon our individual exertions to make it fair. We may cultivate and enjoy the flowers, or let them become so overrun with underbrush that the blossoms are smothered and hidden under the dank growth of the evil-smelling and ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... subject drop by tacit agreement during the meal, and soon after it was over a shout from the crest of the ridge above, followed by a smashing of underbrush, announced that their packer was making for the camp. Lisle answered, and a cry ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... moss-shrouded trees, wrist-thick vines hung quietly, scraping the spongy ground like the tentacles of some monstrous tree-bound octopus. Fitful little plants grew straggly in the shadows of the mossy trunks, forming a dense underbrush that made walking difficult. At midday some few of the blue sun's rays filtered through to the jungle floor, but now, late afternoon on the planet, the shadows were ...
— Survival Tactics • Al Sevcik
... on her mind, she sought to find her way through the trees to the wall. This she was able to do without much difficulty, for though the trees grew thick, there was no underbrush, but she was able to walk along without any very great trouble. Penetrating in this way through the trees, she at length came to the wall. But, to her great disappointment, she found its height here quite as great as it had ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... continued long in that frantic flight through the thick woods. As the branches of the underbrush crackled behind her, it seemed to her that it was the noise of pursuit, and the horror of that unexpected vision was before her, for to face it again seemed to her worse than death. She was strong of soul naturally; her nerves were not ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... left all alone. His life was continually in danger from the Indians. For fear of being surprised, he dared not sleep in camp, but hid himself at night in the cane-brake or thick underbrush, not even kindling a fire lest he should attract ...
— Stories of Later American History • Wilbur F. Gordy
... was a fringe of thick underbrush along the river, and into this he forced his unwilling horse. The bullets followed and clipped the twigs about him like scissors. At last he gained the creek, forded, and mounted the bank on the other side. Here, instead of safety, he found hundreds of Indians, ...
— An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill (Colonel W. F. Cody) • Buffalo Bill (William Frederick Cody)
... be an hour while he was making his way over the hill, through the underbrush, around the cliff. Again and again the fish ran out my line almost to the last turn. A dozen times he leaped from the water, shaking his silvery sides. Twice he tried to cut the leader across a sunken ledge. But at last he was played out, and ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... would lie in our trenches and fire on them till they left. The enemy would be stationed on an opposite hill and they would sometimes get very close to our out-posts, who could see them moving about and talking and hear them walking in the leaves and underbrush. Our sentinels had orders not to fire on them unless they made an attack, when the sentinels fired and got back into the trenches as quickly as possible to escape being ...
— A Soldier in the Philippines • Needom N. Freeman
... narrow rutted lane, half-obliterated in the encroaching underbrush, at the end of which a weather-beaten shack squatted in a clump of zapote trees. As they drew up in the little cleared space before it the door opened and a shriveled, white-haired woman peered out, a light held high in ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... here presented no such appearance as it does now. The river then flowed with a fuller tide. With the exceptions I have noted, a continuous forest overspread the whole landscape. No thickets, however, choked up the ways through it, for the underbrush was swept away every year by fires built by the Indians for that purpose. Winding footways led here and there which the Indians and wild beasts followed. The roots of the smaller grasses were destroyed by this annual burning over. A coarse long grass grew along the ...
— The Two Hundredth Anniversary of the Settlement of the Town of New Milford, Conn. June 17th, 1907 • Daniel Davenport
... feet, light as a feather, and ran to the nearest shelter under the hail of bullets, glad to be in the open, like a hound on the scent. You crawled on your hands and knees, or on your stomach, you ran all bent doubled-up, or did Swedish gymnastics through the underbrush ... that made up for not being able to walk straight; and when it grew dark you said: "What, night already?—What have we been doing with ourselves, today?" ... "In conclusion," said this little French cockerel, "the only tiresome thing in war ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... When he strained his ears to listen there was only the sound of falling water or the clamor of a hidden creek. Sight was of almost as little service among those endless rows of towering trunks, between which the tall fern and underbrush sprang up. There was no distance, scarcely even an alternation of light and shadow. The vision was narrowed in and confused by the unchanging sameness ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... before long!" Tommy argued. "He can't make any headway out there in the underbrush, and the fellow who was here will probably run away from him before he gets three ...
— Boy Scouts in Northern Wilds • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... know me, miss," he said, and stooping he lifted the body of the Frenchman to his broad shoulder, and started up the hillside through the trackless underbrush. ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... longer in the midst of broken, desolate wastes. To the south-west rises the Serra d'Ossa—its sides clothed with evergreen oaks, and a dense growth of underbrush sheltering the wolf and the wild boar, while the northern slope of its rocky ridge is thatched with snow. Before you is spread out the valley of the Guadiana. Sloping downward toward the mighty stream, lie pasture, ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... and to the last rise. Then a figure showed before him, a gigantic form, running and tumbling through the underbrush at one side of the road, a dog bounding beside him. It was Ba'tiste, excited, red-faced, his arms waving like windmills, his voice booming even ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... object of the robbers is to hide so that the soldiers may not find them, and when found, to resist capture if possible. They may hide by climbing trees or dodging behind them, conceal themselves in underbrush, under dead leaves, etc. If played aright, the game should be a very strenuous one, the resistance offered by the robbers requiring several soldiers to overcome. A robber may resist all of the way to prison. A guard is appointed by the General for the prison, and prisoners may run away at ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... they trod had been a pleasance the width of the house, bordered, doubtless, by the forest. Trees grew out of the flower beds now, and underbrush choked the paths. The box itself, that once primly lined the alleys, was gnarled and shapeless. Labyrinth had replaced order, nature had reaped her vengeance. At length, in the deepening shade, they came, at what had been the edge ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... boys went helter-skelter into the underbrush, making all the noise an elephant might in pushing through the woods. Perhaps it was only the result of their eagerness to reach the companion, who seemed to be in trouble; and then again, a racket like that might frighten away ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... stumble upon a party of savages around a camp-fire, or sleeping under a tree. Those of my readers who live in the far South know what thick woods are in that part of the country, but others may not. The trees grow as close together as they can, and the underbrush chokes up the space between them pretty effectually. Then the great vines of various kinds wind themselves in and out until in many places they literally stop the way so that a strong man with an axe could not go forward a hundred feet in a week. In other places the thick cane makes an ...
— The Big Brother - A Story of Indian War • George Cary Eggleston
... and children crying, and all were going as fast as seemingly lay in their power, looking behind now and then as if pursued by some deadly enemy. At sight of Miller's buggy they made a dash for cover, disappearing, like a covey of frightened partridges, in the underbrush along ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... enacted beside the brook escaped him. He who could observe with ease the smashing of a moth's wing thirty rods from shore, possessed a clearness of vision akin to that of a hawk. A bird fluttered in the underbrush near them. ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... toilsome riding; and only the devil's own luck, or some marvellous instinct of our horses, spared us many a stumble over roots, stones, twigs, and underbrush. What faint light the night retained for well-accustomed eyes, had its source in the cloud-curtained moon, and that being South of us, we were hidden in the shadow of the woods. But 'tis a thousand wonders the noise of our passage was ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... tremulous leaves and swaying branches. As they rode, a thousand fantastic shapes appeared and vanished along the way, and now and then as the sound of their horses' feet echoed through the silent forest, some wild thing in the underbrush leaped ...
— The Shepherd of the Hills • Harold Bell Wright
... against whose sides we all may rest. It has waited long, and grown in our father's forest until at last its giant dimensions have been apparent. The leaves of its upper branches caught the eye of a ranger on truth's high mountain, and the underbrush must now be cut away to make a path for our feet. Let the winds annihilate the dogmas of a creed, let our hearts open to all good thoughts, and let this one also be as the anchor of our souls, this glorious thought ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell
... by the cool and confident manner of his companion, Henry continued silently urging his horse forward. A few moments brought them to the desired turn, and as they doubled round a point of low underbrush, the fugitives caught a glimpse of their pursuers scattered along the highway. Mason and the sergeant, being better mounted than the rest of the party, were much nearer to their heels than even the peddler thought ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... the Missouri river, the bluffs rise abruptly from the banks. The railroad, winding around the curves, was literally hewn from the solid rock. Deep gullies and ravines, starting from the water, Intersected all portions of the country, and the thick underbrush made this place a safe and secure hiding-place for fugitives from justice, ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... heart for a year, but she lets it fall and sinks down, moaning. The soldier tears off his red coat, tramples it in the dust, then vaulting to his saddle he plunges into the river, fords it, and crashes through the underbrush on the other side. In a few minutes he has reached the summit of a rock that rises nearly a hundred feet above the stream. The horse halts at the edge, but on a fierce stab of the spur into his flank he takes the leap. With ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... destruction with taunts, with invitations" as Whitman would say. I have never been in a sector like this, where patrols could be made in daylight. Here the deep forest permits it. It also greatly facilitates ambushes, for one must keep to the paths, owing to the underbrush. I and a few others are going to try to get permission to go out on 'patrouilles d'embuscade' and bring in some live prisoners. It would be quite an extraordinary feat if we could pull it off. In our present existence it is the only way I can think of to get the Croix de Guerre. And to be worthy ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... land sloped gradually upward, terminating in a forest of forty to fifty acres. This forest was in good condition. The trees were mostly varieties of oak and hickory, with a scattering of wild cherry, a few maples, both hard and soft, and some lindens. It was much overgrown with underbrush, weeds, and wild flowers. The land was generally good, especially the lower parts of it. The soil of the higher ground was thin, but it lay on top of a friable clay which is fertile when properly ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... with Ethan Brand on the wild mountain-side, and was right glad to hear the rough murmur of tongues, and the footsteps of what seemed a pretty numerous party, stumbling over the stones and rustling through the underbrush. Soon appeared the whole lazy regiment that was wont to infest the village tavern, comprehending three or four individuals who had drunk flip beside the bar-room fire through all the winters, and smoked their pipes beneath the stoop through ...
— The Snow Image • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... heard the noise of a volley behind the Illyas, and the latter made a concerted rush for the underbrush to the west, as Muro, with his men, sprang forward through the clearing; and the boys, with Stut, sprang from the wagon and started the cheering, followed by ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Conquest of the Savages • Roger Thompson Finlay
... cottage—unpainted as yet—in contrast to a mass of foliage in the early autumn before the leaves had begun to turn, in which the yellow-grays one often sees predominated, he suddenly thought to himself: "The tree-trunks and underbrush do not stand out; they are all of one piece, each keeping its place, while my house"—as he rather inelegantly but forcibly expressed it—"sticks up like a sore thumb." Later, this very clever man made ...
— Outdoor Sketching - Four Talks Given before the Art Institute of Chicago; The Scammon Lectures, 1914 • Francis Hopkinson Smith
... most part, condemned to live in a mental jungle where his arm will soon be too feeble to clear away the growths that enclose him, and his eyes too weak to find the light." The man who has allowed his mental capacities to clear his way through the dense underbrush of religious dogma finds that he has emerged into a purer and healthier atmosphere. In the bright light of this mental emancipation a man perceives the falsities of all religions in their historic, scientific, and metaphysical aspects. The healthier mental viewpoint holds up to scorn ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... Thou hast seen but half. There was an Indian on the track of that deer. Should we step in and take his quarry, he might be minded to empty his gun into us instead! I saw him standing nigh the spot where the trail enters the wood again yonder, and when he saw us he slipped like a shadow into the underbrush." ...
— The Puritan Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... have been wandering in the wilderness of prejudice and ridicule for forty years feel a peculiar tenderness for the young women on whose shoulders we are about to leave our burdens. Although we have opened a pathway to the promised land and cleared up much of the underbrush of false sentiment, logic and rhetoric intertwisted with law and custom, which blocked all avenues in starting, yet there are still many obstacles to be encountered before the rough journey is ended. The younger women are starting with great advantages over us. They have the results ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... nothing more than some eighty houses, scattered here and there, in the midst of an immense grove, where the trees have been thinned out and the underbrush cleared away. Through the grove flows a stream; and the principal avenue crosses it, over an elastic bridge of cocoa-nut trunks, laid together side by side. The avenue is broad, and serpentine; well shaded from one end to the other, and as pretty a place for a morning ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... least a hundred feet. Other dim boles looked equally large. But what gave the scene its aspect of immensity was the vast spaces separating tree from tree. It was like some gigantic, supernatural hall in a life after death. The lowest branches were fifty yards or more from the ground. There was no underbrush; the soil was carpeted only by the dead, wet leaves. He looked all around him, to find his direction, but the cliffs of Sant, which he had descended, were invisible—every way was like every other way, he had no idea which quarter to attack. He grew ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... The underbrush is risin' an' spreadin' all around, Jest like a mist o' greenness 'at hangs above the ground; A million manzanitas 'ill soon be full o' pink; So saddle up, my sonny,—it's ...
— Songs Out of Doors • Henry Van Dyke
... timber-land on Bear Top. The horses slipped on the pine needles when Al left the trail and rode up a gentle incline where the trees grew large and there was little underbrush. It was very beautiful, with the slanting sun-rays painting broad yellow bars across the gloom of the forest. In a little while they reached the crest of that slope, and Lorraine, looking back, could only guess at where the trail wound on among the ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... magic that enables these favored ones to bring out the hidden capabilities of things around them; and particularly to give a look of comfort and habitableness to any place which, for however brief a period, may happen to be their home. A wild hut of underbrush, tossed together by wayfarers through the primitive forest, would acquire the home aspect by one night's lodging of such a woman, and would retain it long after her quiet figure had disappeared into the surrounding shade. No less a portion of such homely ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... was wandering among the thick underbrush, here trying to evade the thorns which entangled his habit of guingon as if to detain him; there trying to step over the roots of the trees which stuck up through the ground and made the inexperienced traveler stumble ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... she saw Farmer Ellison rush suddenly from cover upon the very place where she had sat, fishing. She saw him run, furiously, hither and thither, beating the underbrush with his cane, shaking the stick wrathfully. His face showed the keenest disappointment ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... obstructed by beaver-dams that, in order to avoid them, he directed his course toward the high plain on the right. This he gained with some difficulty, after wading up to his waist through the mud and water of a number of beaver-dams. When he desired to rejoin the canoes he found the underbrush so thick, and the river so crooked, that this, joined to the difficulty of passing the beaver-dams, induced him to go on and endeavor to intercept the river at some point where it might be more collected into one channel, and ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... time the man he was after had started away, swish-wish through the underbrush; but he was only a few rods in the lead, and one of thickset build was no match for Kendrick in a footrace. As Phil overhauled him he turned suddenly and fiercely grappled with ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... Uncle Henry indifferently. "Something in the woods, must be. Underbrush most likely. You can always tell words you don't know by the sense of the ...
— Understood Betsy • Dorothy Canfield
... sign of a path was lost. The negro warder was compelled to use his machete to cut a way through thorny underbrush and creepers in order to make a path for ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... do exactly as I bid." He started back again through the trees, swiftly, swinging monkey-like from limb to limb, following a zigzag course that he tried to select with an eye for the difficulties of the trail beneath. Where the underbrush was heaviest, where fallen trees blocked the way, he led the footsteps of the creature below them; but all to no avail. When they reached the opposite side of the gorge ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... er de patter-rollers, he scramble off inter de underbrush like he bin shot out'n a gun. En he wa'n't mo'n gone 'fo' Brer Rabbit, he whirl in en skunt de cow en salt de hide down, en den he tuck'n cut up de kyarkiss en stow it 'way in de smoke-'ouse, en den he tuck'n stick de een' er de cow-tail in de groun'. Atter he ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris |
