"Riderless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Pierson walked away laughing, and the younger officers were left to themselves. Half-a-dozen of them interlaced arms, striding up toward the Porta Nuova, near which, at the corner of the Via Trinita, they had the pleasant excitement of beholding a riderless horse suddenly in mid gallop sink on its knees and roll over. A crowd came pouring after it, and from the midst the voice of a comrade hailed them. 'It's Pierson,' cried Lieutenant Jenna. The officers drew ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... heed to her. For now horses were galloping riderless along the road and into the fields. And men were crawling back from the fight, to fall exhausted in the rear, and then—then the steadfast line of the scarlet-cloaked Danes charged down the hill, driving our men like ...
— A Thane of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... The wounded began to come in. Riderless horses came along, both German and Belgian. These were caught and mounted by civilians glad to have so rapid a ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... horse for her from a peasant who had captured it, a riderless animal that belonged ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty
... the way, was named Black Bess. It got so accustomed to its cue that it knew when it had to gallop across the stage. One night during the third act this cue was given as usual. Its rider, however, was not ready, and the horse galloped riderless ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... coming down the path was riderless. It was the animal Haines had ridden, and apparently much the better steed ...
— Neal, the Miller - A Son of Liberty • James Otis
... by a quarter-past three. The Dragoon Guards, who had been trying to cover the retreat, galloped back, one or two horses galloping riderless. Under the Red Cross flag the dhoolies then began to go out to pick up the results of the battle. For an hour or so that work lasted, the dead and dying being found among the ant-hills where they fell. Then we all trailed ...
— Ladysmith - The Diary of a Siege • H. W. Nevinson
... hands crossed over his sword. The casket was shallow, and thus he was exposed to the view of the gaping multitude, without even a glass lid to cover his bronzed face, and with the glaring sun beating down upon his closed eyes and noble gray head. Just behind him they led his riderless black horse, with his master's boots reversed in the stirrups and the empty saddle knotted with crape. It was at once majestic, heartrending, and terrible. It unnerved me, and yet it was not surprising to have such a moving spectacle greet me on ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... servants were awaiting his return and told him that the two horses had returned riderless some little time before, that of ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... no one could tell; it was marvellous the way he stuck on. At last the spirited animal contrived to get the rider well forward on his neck, and then Hay slipped off and the horse was away over the plain at full gallop, riderless. He was chased and caught at last after a long run. Then up stepped a wily old trooper of the 5th Dragoon Guards who used to be a jockey. He saw that the horse was now tired out and got on his back without difficulty, and as the animal by this time ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... persons and drawn sabres to the panic-stricken fugitives." Another writer, an eye-witness, says the spectacle presented was that of "solid columns of infantry retreating at double-quick; a dense mass of beings flying; hundreds of cavalry-horses, left riderless at the first discharge from the rebels, dashing frantically about in all directions; scores of batteries flying from the field; battery-wagons, ambulances, horses, men, cannon, caissons, all jumbled and ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... suddenly gave back and began running, and through the gateway a small troop of horse came pouring at their heels. And albeit these cavaliers must have suffered desperately in so charging up to a covered foe (and many riderless chargers came galloping with them), yet the remnant held such good order that in pouring through they seemed to divide by agreement, a part wheeling to right and a part to left to drive the skirmishers, while the main troop held ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... where he could look down into the valley below, Dave peered long and earnestly for a sight of a riderless horse. To his delight he saw the animal ...
— Cowboy Dave • Frank V. Webster
... chariot and throne of the great joss himself, and just behind him a riderless bay horse, intended for his imperial convenience should he tire of being swayed about on the shoulders of his twelve bearers, and elect to change his method of conveyance. Behind this honoured steed came a mammoth rock-cod in a pagoda of his own, ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... approach the animal neighed, and Garin, hearing the sound, reined in and peered forward into the gloom, to descry the horse's head and back outlined above the blur of the hedge. His men halted behind him whilst he approached the riderless beast and made—as well as he could in the darkness—an examination of the saddle. One holster he found empty, at which he concluded that the rider, whoever he had been, had met with trouble; from the other he drew a heavy pistol, which, ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... enough to give him space, crouching on his saddle-bow, to pass beneath the deadly spear. Then, as they swept past each other, out shot that long, right arm of his and, gripping Morella like a hook of steel, tore him from his saddle, so that the black horse rushed forward riderless, and the white sped on bearing a ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... themselves, they came leisurely to the base of the gray mountain and to the old maple-trees, under which they found two persons waiting. One was a tall man mounted on a white horse, and leading a riderless black horse. His hat was pulled down about his head so that his face could not ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... clear; and ahead of her far away in the middle of the road a lantern shone very red. Christina ran towards it, and as she approached she saw faces like miniatures grouped above it. They did not heed her until she was close upon them, until she had noticed one man holding a riderless horse apart from the group and another coiling up a stout rope. Then Esteban, who was holding the lantern, raised his hand to keep ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... the twilight shadows grew thicker around us with every moment. Yet not so thick had they become but that I could see a coach at a standstill in the hollow, some three hundred yards beneath us, and, by it, half a dozen horses, of which four were riderless and held by the two men who were still mounted. Then, breathlessly scanning the field between the road and the river, I espied five persons, half way across, and at the same distance from the water that we were ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... moved forward to victory as the fog lifted; but at the moment of triumph a riderless horse came galloping back to the camp. It was the ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... flying Indians were beyond any fair chance of hitting; but their father took a long and steady aim with his deadly rifle, and upon its report a horse and man went down. But the rider was in an instant upon his feet again, soon caught one of the riderless horses which had galloped off with its companions, and followed ...
— On the Pampas • G. A. Henty
... him was death, but there was some life too: one or two poor, abandoned riderless horses were quietly picking bits of corn from between the piles of dead and dying men, or were standing, sniffing the air with dilated nostrils, and snorting with terror at the deafening noise. Bobby had steadied himself, neither his head nor his limbs were aching ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... the houses were still burning, and now and again a fresh sheet of flame would leap skyward. Here and there I met with riderless horses, and men bringing in wounded comrades. They all told the same story. Conde had fallen upon Hocquincourt, and simply swept his army away. His quarters were in ruins, many of his infantry were killed, and his cavalry had become ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... the mines and the settlement of Ten Mile Gulch. He was headed toward the village, and was nine and three-quarter miles nearer to it than the mines. He had found another good cigar somewhere, and was humming the selfsame tune as on the previous afternoon; but the riderless horse was not ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... a gun down the road, then another, and several shots following in quick succession. A distant angry murmuring and trampling of many feet drew Hare to the gate. Riderless mustangs were galloping down the road; several frightened boys were fleeing across the square; not a man was in sight. Three more shots cracked, and the low murmur and trampling swelled into a hoarse ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... revolver showing over his horse's ears. A hundred paces and the timber gave place to a sandy dip, in the center of which was the water hole. The dip was not more than an acre in extent. Up to his knees in the hole was Billinger's riderless horse, and a little way up the sand was Billinger, doubled over on his hands and knees beside two black objects that Philip knew were men, stretched out like the dead back at the wreck. Billinger's yellow-mustached face, pallid and twisted with pain, looked over them as Philip galloped ...
— Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • James Oliver Curwood
... dark, and the wind was getting colder, when the hoofs sounded down the path again. There were three of them now—and Joy's heart gave a little spring, till she saw that the man riding the other horse was no one she knew. The pony was riderless, and he was leading it, while the naughty little boy who had caused all the trouble was perched in front of the lady's saddle, most impenitently conversational. She had one arm tight around him, as if she did not want to lose him again, ...
— The Wishing-Ring Man • Margaret Widdemer
... volley of further and far more trenchant abuse was discharged by Superintendent Cairns, of the New South Wales Police. But Kilbride was already in the saddle; a covert outward kick with his spurred heel, and the third horse went cantering riderless into the trees. ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... go; and one day he went into a bush (that very bush you rode through to-night), and he shot seven elephants, and the next day he went in to fetch the ivory, and about night his horse came into camp riderless, and was dead from the fly before the sun went down. The Englishman is in that bush now; anyway, he never came back. And now anybody who ventures into that bush is chased by the white horse. I wouldn't go into that bush for all the ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... resembling thunder, that came nearer and nearer out of the night and kept close to the prison. He lay still and listened shudderingly in the hope of hearing the reassuring step of the watchman passing his door, while fancies chased one another in his heavy head like riderless horses. The hollow, threatening sound grew ever louder and clearer, until it suddenly shattered the stillness of the night with a thunderous roar, which seemed to bring everything crashing down. It was as though a great gulf had opened and ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... on Job's mind which many years afterwards brought about the incident was strong enough. When Job was a boy of fourteen he saw his father's horse come home riderless—circling and snorting up by the stockyard, head jerked down whenever the hoof trod on one of the snapped ends of the bridle-reins, and saddle twisted over the side with bruised pommel and knee-pad ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... Harold saw, numbered some 200 sabers. They had with them a number of riderless horses, whose accouterments showed that they belonged to an English regiment; most of the men, too, had sacks of plunder upon their horses. They had evidently made a successful raid, and had probably ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... uncover on meeting a funeral," she remarked. "This was a private, but if he had been an officer, his helmet and sword would be on the flag, and directly behind the gun-carriage, his orderly would lead his riderless horse. A military wedding is so pretty, Frances. I saw one once in Bath Abbey. The officers were all in full uniform and after the ceremony they formed in the aisle, two lines going way down out of the church and at a signal, drew their swords ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... enemy belched forth from thirty iron mouths a flood of smoke and flame, through which hissed the deadly balls. Their flight was marked by instant gaps in our ranks, by dead men and horses, by steeds flying wounded or riderless across the plain. The first line is broken—it is joined by the second—they never halt or check their speed an instant. With diminished ranks thinned by those thirty guns which the Russians had laid with the most deadly accuracy, with a halo of flashing steel above their heads, ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... the survivors halted irresolute, half disposed to turn back. Colonel Blythe was down. They missed his encouraging voice; his noble figure was no more visible, while his fine old white charger, riderless, his flanks streaming with gore, was galloping madly down the hill. Many more officers were laid low by this murderous discharge; amongst others, Anastasius Wilders had fallen, severely wounded, and his blood had spurted out in a great pool upon the ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... stillness that lay along the south road, came the popping of rifles; and then all was still. Then came the sounds of hoofs, and then a riderless horse ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... in the turbid stream. But the recollections of home, of a bright-eyed maiden in the sunny South, and an inherent love of life, actuated me to continue swimming.... But I hear something behind me snorting! I feel it passing! Thank God, I am saved! A riderless horse dashes by; I grasp his tail; onward he bears me, and the shore is reached!" And thus Cunningham passes out ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... for at least a dozen Arab steeds roamed the plain riderless. English archers, for they were from England, were ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... and martial dress, Uncurbed, unreined, and riderless, With darting eye, and nostril spread, And heavy and impatient tread, He came; and oft that eye so proud Asked for his rider ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... riderless, and considerable consternation prevailed. Victor, who was on the watch, rushed to meet them with characteristic nimbleness, and he and Piers between them carried Sir Beverley in, and laid him down before the ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... fire been opened upon them from the walls, quite in accordance with the Boers' own tactics; our men lying down and taking deliberate aim, with the result that saddles were emptied and horses galloping riderless in all directions. ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... too quick for Ned, who ran swiftly, avoiding another look at the silent and motionless figure on the ground. The riderless horse was crashing about among the trees. From a point three or four hundred yards behind there came the sound of much shouting. Ned thought it to be an outburst of anger caused by the ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler
... stole across the moor, and Janet laughed aloud in her glee. She ran across to the well, and there, standing alone, riderless, stood the steed of the little ...
— Stories from the Ballads - Told to the Children • Mary MacGregor
... she chose the devastated wood-lot! Wherever the trotting, treacherous pasture faltered between hobbly, rock-strewn glare and soft, lush-carpeted spots of shade, she chose the hobbly, rock-strewn glare! On and on and on! Till dust turned sweat! And sweat turned dust again! On and on and on! With the riderless gray thudding madly after her! And Barton's sulky roan balking frenziedly at each new swerve ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... change and yet did not understand it. He never talked with people enough to hear the rumors afloat of the Sunday horse-races, or of the midnight revel on the Fourth of July at the Yellow Jacket. The night that Bess came home saddleless and riderless, with the white foam on her, and when he searched till near morning, to at last find Job stretched in a stupor by the wayside down the Chichilla road, he thought the boy's after story was true—that story of a frightened runaway—and little ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... belonged, and, in a small way, a sort of distinct nationality. There was rivalry between each Region and its neighbours, and when the one encroached upon the other there was strife and bloodshed in the streets. In the public races, of which the last survived in the running of riderless horses through the Corso in Carnival, each Region had its colours, its right of place, and its separate triumph if it won in the contest. There was all that intricate opposition of small parties which arose in every mediaeval city, when children ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... previous day, but on a greater scale. With lance and battleaxe the chivalry of England strove to break the ranks of the Scotch, while with serried lines of spears, four deep, the Scotch held their own. Every horse which, wounded or riderless, turned and dashed through the ranks of the English, added to the confusion. This was much further increased by the deep holes into which the horses were continually falling, and breaking up all order in their ranks. Those behind pressed forward to reach the front, and ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty
... and the saddle was empty, a revolver flipping into the air, as the man went plunging over. I sprang to the horse's bit, the frightened animal dragging me nearly to the fence before I conquered him. But I dare not let go—once free he would join the troop horses, his riderless saddle sure to alarm the guards. With lacerated hands, and shirt torn into shreds, I held on, jerked and bruised by the mad struggle, until the fellow stood trembling. Using the bridle rein for a halter ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... a grip of iron, from which he struggled madly to get free, while the horse, with a shrill neigh of terror, started off riderless. ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... raise my horse so as to extricate my leg but I had already grown so weak with my wound that I was unable, and from the mere attempt, I fell back exhausted. To add to my horror, a horse, who was careering about, riderless, within a few yards of me, received a wound, and he commenced struggling and rearing with pain. Two or three times, he came near falling on me, but at length, with a scream of agony and a bound, he fell dead—his body touching my own ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... severing it from his shoulder. But on the instant, the white-plumed hero wheeled, with his avenging sword uplifted, and the next thing the drummer-boy saw, as he lay bleeding on the ground, was a great black horse dashing riderless away. ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood
... trigger so close together that four hundred rifles sang together as one. The charge halted in its tracks. The entire front rank was shot away. Horses and men went down together, and the horses uttered neighs of pain, far more terrific than the groans of the wounded men. Many of them, riderless, galloped up ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler
... before she would essay the leap. While he forced her, Madam Carolan sat at the one library window that gave on the road, and knotted her hands together and waited. She waited, one gusty March evening, until the shouting stopped, and the bewildered mare came trotting riderless into view. Then she and the maids ran to the wood. But even after that she still sat at that window at the end of every day, a familiar figure to all who came and went upon ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... will beckon her over the border into the land where troubles just begin. She won't know how to sew, or bake, or make good coffee, for such arts are liable to be overlooked when a girl makes a career for herself, and so love will gallop away over the hills like a riderless steed, and happiness will flare like a light in a windy night. Oh, no, my little country maid, stay where you are, if you have a home and friends. Be content with fishing for trout in the brook rather than cruising a stormy sea for whales. A great ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... the road, and turned toward the slope. Saddled horses were led down out of the junipers. Jean saw bodies, evidently of dead men, lifted into the wagon, to be hauled away toward the village. Seven mounted men, leading four riderless horses, rode out into the valley ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... they urged their horses on, started in his saddle as Scott fired and clutched his side instantly with his rifle hand. His pony bolted as the half-hitch of the rawhide thong on its lower jaw was loosened and the rider, toppling, fell heavily backward to the ground. The riderless horse dashed on. The yelling Indians had had their blunt warning and now scurried for cover. The interval, short as it was, gave Bucks ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... dark mass Tom had first seen soon resolved itself into two horsemen and two riderless animals. They were still three or four miles away, but in twenty minutes they reached the party advancing to meet them. The whites waved their hats and gave them a cheer as ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... galloped across the path of a wolf, Rostov gave rein to his Donets horse and galloped to intersect the path of the dragoons' disordered lines. One Uhlan stopped, another who was on foot flung himself to the ground to avoid being knocked over, and a riderless horse fell in among the hussars. Nearly all the French dragoons were galloping back. Rostov, picking out one on a gray horse, dashed after him. On the way he came upon a bush, his gallant horse cleared ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... had heard the solitary rifle-shot, doubtless supposing their own man had come upon the quarry. We fired too fast, for the Armenians were not drilled men, but we dropped two horses and five Kurds, and the remaining four fled, with the riderless animals stampeding ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... carbine at him, and, without checking his horse's pace, fires. The heavy Sharpe's bullet tears a gaping hole through the Rebel's heart. He drops from his saddle, his life-blood runs down in little rills on either side of the knoll, and his riderless horse ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... Under this murderous discharge riderless horses were seen galloping over the plain, and riders disengaging themselves from their wounded steeds. Before long, however, the combat became one of hand to hand; the Mexicans behind their carts, the Indians ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... a horse came galloping homeward. It is Felice, old Felice, riderless, splashed with mud, wild-eyed, sore with fatigue! Felice, Felice, what horrors hast thou not seen! If thou couldst speak, if that tongue of thine could be loosed, what would it say of those who, forgetful of their souls, sink ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field
... and a sound of rolling stones and a wild clatter of hoofs. Unity sprang to her feet; Cary came down the bank at a run, tossed her his armful of blossoms, and was in the middle of the road in time to seize by the bridle the riderless horse which ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... in this side of the bandits' circle—holes that did not close up. Riderless mounts dashed about frantically, their reins trailing; wounded horses added to the uproar with their death screams. ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... wildly, followed the constable. So this was desert law? No word of warning or inquiry, but a hail of shots, a riderless horse,—two men stretched upon the sand and the burning sun swinging in a cloudless circle above ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... at her as she ran on riderless, saw her come upon some rough ice, and jolt and ditch her runner, and veer until she had actually made a half-circle, and was heading straight ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... Emir's officer had stayed too long in his blind belief in the success of the Khalifa's troops—the avenging forces were close behind, and the dervishes were falling fast, dotting the plain with their white garments, while riderless horses and camels careered wildly ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... the day Billy spent in acquiring further knowledge of Spanish by conversing with those of the men who remained awake, and asking innumerable questions. It was almost sundown when Pesita rode in. Two riderless horses were led by troopers in the rear of the little column and three men swayed painfully in their saddles and their clothing was stained ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... guards of the enemy approached; and fifteen of their scouts made their appearance on the ridge to the north of the town. The burghers reserved their fire until these men were almost upon them. Then they let their Mausers speak, and in a moment there were nine riderless horses. The other six English made their escape, although they must have had wounds ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... gone," muttered De Catinat, as he caught at the bridle of the riderless horse. "The sight of Paris has shaken his wits. What in the name of the devil ails you, that you ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... a messenger came, Bringing the sad, sad story— A riderless horse: a funeral march: Dead on the field ...
— Diddie, Dumps, and Tot • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... The riderless pony brought the news to the 195th, though there had been consternation in the Colonel's household for an hour before. The little beast came in through the parade ground in front of the main barracks, where the ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... the bridge, when a horse belonging to their company dashed through the bridge without its rider, whereupon these soldiers attempted to cross the bridge for the purpose of seeing what had been the fate of the owner of the riderless horse, when they were met by a portion of the enemy, led on by Colonel Kelley. As they met, Archey McClintic shot Colonel Kelley with a pistol. Seeing that they would be overcome by the number of the enemy, this gallant trio wheeled and retreated through the bridge. As they ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... on his elbow, suddenly straightened. He pointed toward the doorway. The saloon-keeper saw the motion from the corner of his eye. He lowered his paper and rose. In the soft radiance a riderless horse stood at the hitching-rail, his big eyes glowing, his ears pricked forward. Across the horse's shoulder was a ragged tear, black against the tawny gold of his coat. The men glanced at each other. It was the horse of the fourth man; the man who had staggered in that ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... broad and foolish grin. "Said I not," he cried joyfully, "that thou wert a better man than the other? For he was but small and fierce and hath met sorrow, or his horse had not come back riderless." ...
— A Boy's Ride • Gulielma Zollinger
... The riderless steeds, wild with wounds and with fear, Dash away o'er the field in unbridled career; Their stirrups swing loose and their manes are all gore From the mad cavaliers that shall ride them no more. Of the hundred ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... upon his left side, his hat still shading the glazing eyes, Keith lying flat, his face in the crook of an arm whose hand still gripped a revolver. There was a grim smile on his lips, as if, even as he pitched forward, he knew that, after he had been shot to death, he had gotten his man. The riderless horses gazed at the two figures, and drifted away, slowly, fearfully, still held in mute subjection to their dead masters by dangling reins. The sun blazed down from directly overhead, the heat waves rising and falling, the dead, desolate ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... The riderless brute had fallen in at the tail of the line now, behind Cadet Corporal Haslins, and was going along peaceably enough—-until Bert Dodge made a lunge for the bridle. Then the beast shied, ...
— Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point - Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life • H. Irving Hancock
... rested his helmet—the yellow horsehair plume and gold trimmings looking soiled by long service. His sabre was there, too, and strapped to the saddle on each side were his uniform boots, toes in stirrups—all reversed! This riderless horse, with its pall of black, yellow helmet, and footless boots, ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... on! he sped, seemingly bearing a charmed life because bullets whizzed by him like hail. He was not idle, and when the opportunity presented itself his revolver spoke and more than one Indian pony was made riderless thereby. ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... Field-of-the-Cloth-of-Gold, and across the blaze of golden glory rode dark shapes of cloud, purple and crimson, violet and black. They were Arthur's knights tilting in tournament, while the Queen of Beauty and her attendant ladies looked on. Now and then, as I watched, a knight fell, and a horse tore away riderless, his gold-'broidered trappings floating on the wind. When this happened, out of the illumined sea would writhe a glittering dragon, or scaly heraldic beast, to prance or fly along the horizon after the vanishing charger of the fallen knight. ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... the story together. Mr. Barradine had been out riding late yesterday, and the riderless horse had given the alarm some time about nine o'clock in the evening. But, although a wide-spread search continued all through the night, the body was not found ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... Riderless the horse was, and with none to hold his bridle. But he waited patiently, submissively, there where I saw him, at the shabby corner of a certain shabby little street in Chelsea. 'My beautiful, my beautiful, thou standest meekly by,' sang Mrs. Norton ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... the point," said Jack, "I'm afraid the rest of the gang will see it run riderless into the town and know that Jesse has got into trouble. They may take warning and fly before we can ...
— Jack Wright and His Electric Stage; - or, Leagued Against the James Boys • "Noname"
... thundered away, riderless, leaving a squirming, wriggling confusion of forms in the road where the overseer was battling for his life. Martel's voice rose shrilly in a curse, and then Norvin felt himself dragged roughly ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... struck spurs into my horse, and seizing my father's by the bridle, while my two brothers struck it behind with their swords, we led him swiftly through the scene of immense confusion that ensued—horses riderless, or bearing wounded men, swaying in their seats, broken ranks, and people in blouses,, who rushed upon the King, to touch him or his horse, with frantic shouts of "Long live the King!" As we retired, I just saw the taking by assault ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... three horsemen, leading as many riderless steeds. On ahead was another group of riders. Rachel Carter ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... there. And then he saw that the bridle-reins were upon the ground, that they had been trampled upon and broken, that the two stirrups were hanging upside down in the stirrup leathers as stirrups are likely to do when a saddled horse has been running riderless. ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... saving my legs and dodging branches. The imperative need of this came to me with convincing force. I dodged a branch on one tree, only to be caught square in the middle by a snag on another. Crack! If the snag had not broken, Satan would have gone on riderless, and I would have been left hanging, a pathetic and drooping monition to the risks of the hunt. I kept ducking my head, now and then falling flat over the pommel to avoid a limb that would have brushed me off, and hugging the flanks of my horse ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... of them attempted to make their way up this natural zigzag approach in order to fire upon the retiring picket they were themselves received at 400 yards by a well-directed sputter of musketry, and were glad to make off with five riderless horses, two men upon one horse, and leaving three lying quite still on the ground. Thereafter the ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... pony was indeed missing. I thought she had simply broken loose, and would be found somewhere in the neighborhood, so mounted and made a hasty search. I saw our train several miles away, toiling up a long ascent, but there was no sign of a riderless pony on the road. On my return to the ...
— Captured by the Navajos • Charles A. Curtis
... hoglike, horselike now he raced, Riderless, in ghost across a ground Flint of breast, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... admonished him of his own disability. About him his band had melted away; doggedly had they given up their lives beneath sword, mace and poniard. The ground was strewn with the slain; riderless horses were galloping up the road. The free baron breathed yet harder; before his eyes he ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... occasionally allow him to let the stirrups down. There were days on which he had more than twenty falls from his horse; and at last it was always in fear and trembling that he went to riding instruction. Whenever his horse dashed away riderless after a jump, Frielinghausen rejoiced in the few minutes' respite that shortened by that much the hour of his lesson. He could never manage to go over a hurdle with his hands placed on his hips; at every jump they snatched at the horse's ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... night was broken by the ominous sound. A yell of pain and fury arose. Two horses turned back rearing, and dashed away, but the third was gripped by a strong hand; and before the party behind could see a vestige of what was happening, two riderless horses had galloped past them, throwing them into a ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... Valley merged into the larger valley. Then she saw other horses, among them Lem Billings's bay mustang. Columbine faltered on, when suddenly she recognized the horse Jack had ridden—a sorrel, spent and foam-covered, standing saddled, with bridle down and riderless—then certainty of something awful clamped her with horror. Men's husky voices reached her throbbing ears. Some one was running. Footsteps thudded and died away. Then she saw Lem Billings come out of the ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... of richly clad people, the seven hundred priests and cardinals with their retinues, these knights and grandees of Rome in dazzling cavalcades, these troops of archers and Turkish horsemen, the palace guards with long lances and glittering shields, the twelve riderless white horses with golden bridles, which were led along, and all the other pomp and parade!" Weeks would be required for arranging a pageant like this at the present time; but the Pope could improvise it in the twinkling of ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... morning Sidney Buller walked forth from the buildings of the ranch and struck for the open prairie. The sun was up, but the morning was still cool. Before he had gone far he saw, approaching the ranch, a single riderless horse. As the animal came nearer and nearer it whinnied on seeing him, and finally changed its course and came directly toward him. Then he saw that there was a man on its back; a man either dead or asleep. ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... a run heard his beast clatter over the drawbridge of the moat. We rolled a great stone on to the bridge that none could draw it up, and, with the Normans following behind, pursued him into his cover. The good steed stood riderless before the gate. With all our weight we burst the door, and ran in a great body into the hall wherein I had ...
— The Fall Of The Grand Sarrasin • William J. Ferrar
... other, for of all the men I ever knew I think that in such matters Orme is the most unselfish. Nothing would induce him to mount one of the camels, even for half-an-hour, so that when I walked, the brute went riderless. On the other hand, once he was on, notwithstanding the agonies he suffered from his soreness, nothing would ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... flames ascend from the faggots beneath. He has burnt his finger and is putting it to his lips. Above are the interlacing boughs of a sacred tree, and sharp eyes may detect the talking pies that perch thereon, to which Sigurd is listening. On one side we see the noble horse Grani coming riderless home to tell the tale of Sigurd's death, and above is the pit with its crawling snakes that yawns for Gunnar and for all the wicked whose fate is to be turned into hell. On the south side are panels filled with a floriated design representing the vine and twisted knot-work ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... principal Bazaar, they beheld, much to their consternation, four of the guns of the horse artillery, which immediately opened upon them with grape and canister, which told fearfully among them, as the number of riderless and wounded horses plainly showed, and the irregular horse, not being trained to act in concert with the regular troops, the whole were thrown into confusion, and were unable to reform or advance upon the guns. By a rapid movement, Major Huntingdon had brought his two twelve ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... startled creature broke into a trot, which presently, as she realized that she was riderless, became a panic-stricken gallop. Mrs. Kildare went back ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... them, the foe afore and behind them, The king borne back in the melee; all, all is vain; They fly with death at their heels, fierce sun-rays blind them, Riderless steeds affrighted, tread down their ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow
... man in khaki, loping his horse up the slope of an arroyo half a mile distant, started at the sound of the first shot and raced over the crest. He pulled the horse to an abrupt halt as his gaze swept the plains in front of him. He saw riderless horses running frantically away from a smoking blot, he saw the blot streaked with level, white smoke-spurts that ballooned upward quickly; he heard the dull, flat reports that ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... wheeling back they go. It was a sight to see the lances rise and fall that day; The shivered shields and riven mail, to see how thick they lay; The pennons that went in snow-white come out a gory red; The horses running riderless, the riders lying dead; While Moors call on Mohammed, and "St. James!" the Christians cry, And sixty score of Moors and more in narrow compass lie. Above his gilded saddle-bow there played the Champion's sword; And Minaya Alvar Fanez, Zurita's gallant ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock
... up and marched back along the road to Vlamertinghe, fondly imagining we were going back to our well-earned rest (as a matter of fact that was the programme), but we had not been in these huts more than half an hour when down the road from St. Julien there rushed one long column of transports, riderless horses, and wounded (mostly of the French Algerian regiments). And everywhere was the cry, 'The Boches have ...
— One Young Man • Sir John Ernest Hodder-Williams
... his troopers to catch a riderless horse which was galloping near, he spoke for a moment or two with his friend, and then, as the horse was brought up, he told him ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty
... gave a gasp. He tried to recover, but Major Lyon was too fast for him. He hit the sword sharply, and in a twinkling it sailed into the trees, to lodge among some small branches. The weapon had hardly left the captain's hand when a riderless horse ran against his own, and he went down, under the runaway's feet. Ceph swerved to one side; and then Deck was carried away from the ...
— An Undivided Union • Oliver Optic
... acrid smell of smoke hung heavy in the twilight; when he reached the station of Noviomagus he found it all in flames, with dark figures which ran wildly in and out against the glare. Here he changed his exhausted horse for a riderless gray which came snorting with terror out of the smoke and gloom, ready to welcome a master's hand and voice. He caught it, left the good roan by the roadside, and hastened on. He met and passed people on ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... in an instant. The horse set off riderless for his own stable. Anthony's arms were about her, ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green
... became Titanic only when it ceased to be a Revolution and ceased to be French. The magnificent stanzas of Barbier tell the true story of the riderless steed re-bitted, re-bridled, and mounted by the Italian master of mankind, the Caesar for whom the eagle-eyed Catherine of Russia had so quietly waited and looked when the helpless and hopeless orgie of 1789 began. The Past from which he emerged, the Future which ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... history, not expressly nor fully, but by hints and glimpses, leaving the rest to conjecture; throwing up its salient points into a strong, lurid light against a background of shadows. The knight rides out a-hunting, and by and by his riderless horse comes home, and that ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... on through the wood, the Abbot began to see signs of a fight; riderless horses crashing through the copse, wounded men straggling back, to be cut down without mercy by the English. The war had been "a l'outrance" for a long while. None gave or asked quarter. The ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... not discovered until the morning succeeding the murder. His riderless horse was then seen standing at the door of the stable at Five Forks, and in great terror. Judge Conway set out rapidly to look for his brother, who was supposed to have met with some accident. Two or three neighbors, whom he chanced ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... night, trying to catch the hoof beats of caballeros whose last echoes from those stones had died away a century ago. Those women were silent, but Tansey heard the jangle of horseless bridle-bits, the whirr of riderless rowels, and, now and then, a muttered malediction in a foreign tongue. But he was not frightened. Shadows, nor shadows of sounds could daunt him. Afraid? No. Afraid of Mother Peek? Afraid to face the girl of his heart? Afraid of tipsy Captain Peek? ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... with the smell of gunpowder, and many riderless horses, snorting with fear and pain, galloped with flying reins up and down the road. The ground was strewn with dead and dying, and the snow was trampled and bloody. The onset of the dragoons was pitiless, incessant, furious; no quarter ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... they had reached the gate of the Palms, and their appearance startled the sentry on post into a state of undisciplined joy. A riderless pony, the one upon which Jose' had made his escape when the firing began, had crept into the stable an hour previous, stiff and bruised and weary, and had led the people at the Palms to ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... disappeared. If slain in the battle, his body was never found. Wounded and despairing, he may have been slain in flight or been drowned in the stream. It was afterwards said that his war-horse, its golden saddle rich with rubies, was found riderless beside the stream, and that near by lay a royal crown and mantle, and a sandal embroidered with pearls and emeralds. But all we can safely say is that Roderic had vanished, his army was dispersed, and Spain was the prize of Tarik and the Moors, for resistance ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... looked just the same. Mulvaney, riderless, was battling toward them through the torrent, but the stress and struggle of the second before had been instantly cut short. There was no spreading ripples, no break in the gray surface of the stream to show where the two ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... rescue with one riderless horse, a splendid Arab gelding tied by the bridle to the wheel of a water-cart and left behind in the stampede. Jeremy appropriated it, riding Arab fashion with short stirrups, and I wouldn't have blamed Feisul's own brother for falsely ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... mean only that Sir John's riderless horse has just been found near the castle, with severed ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... and a heavy volley of lead flew round the heads of the fugitives. Helmar gave the word, and again the carbines rang out, simultaneously several of the rebels' horses ran off riderless. The fight now waxed furious; the deadly aim of Helmar and his two friends was telling rapidly, whilst ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... astonished eyes at the scene into which it had been precipitated, then dropped its head to the grass and began contentedly to graze. A second horse scrambled into view, slipping once on the mossy rocks and regaining equilibrium when its hoofs sank into the yielding surface of the meadow. It was riderless, though on its back was a high-horned Mexican saddle, scarred ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... and hungry. He felt ashamed of himself. She had been a friend to him when he sorely needed a friend. And of course these men knew her. No doubt they had seen her often at the Flores rancho. She had brought his saddle back—which meant that she had found the buckskin, riderless, and fearing that something serious had happened, had caught up the pony and ridden to Showdown, alone, and no doubt against the wishes of her father and mother. It was mighty fine of her! He had never realized that ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... much about the appearance of your animal. Anything will do for riding about at Dongola, and learning to keep your seat. In the first fight you have with Dervish horsemen, there are sure to be some riderless horses, and you may then get a good one, for a pound or two, from some Tommy ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... re-strapped, and we are soon on the return path downward through the woods. The saddles pitch like skiffs at sea. These Pyrenean horses are far more pronounced in their motions than the lowly Swiss mule. One by one the ladies dismount, and for the steep portions at least the horses go riderless, and no doubt secretly exult in their ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... "crowned with glory and honor." And the bands had played martial music for him. But his horse stood riderless by his grave, and the empty cavalry boots hung, top down, from ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... dashing on at racing speed, turning in the saddle to look back at the tidal wave which they are leading, disappear in a cloud of sabres, clashing and cutting; but the fight is partly obscured by the rising dust and the mist from the over-heated animals. Riderless horses come, wounded and trembling, out of the melee; others appear, running in fright, carrying dying troopers still sitting their chargers, the head drooping on the breast, the sword-arm hanging lifeless, the blood-stained sabre dangling from ...
— History of the Second Massachusetts Regiment of Infantry: Beverly Ford. • Daniel Oakey
... northward, but my instinct was right, his last hope was for his horse-holders, and at a sharp angle of the by-road, where it reached the pond, exactly where Camille and I had stood not an hour before, I came abruptly upon Cricket—riderless. I seized his rein, and as I bent and snapped the halter of one horse on the snaffle of the other I saw the missing horseman. Leaping from the saddle I ran to him. He was lying on his face in the shallow water where General Austin and his staff had so gaily halted a short while before, and ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... the surrey were Miss Sapphira and Bob Clinton. On the back seat was Simon Jefferson whose hairy hand gripped a halter fastened to a riderless horse: the very horse which should have been between the shafts of ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... When the riderless log was hauled up inshore, Lincoln mounted it to make the next cast in person. Having an extra rope with him, he lassoed the tree and soon drew the log up. Cold as they were, the three men dropped down and straddled beside him. At his ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... crest of the gently sloping hill, where attack was threatened. For two hours, from one till three, the cannonade lasted, and the batteries on both sides suffered severely. In both the Union and Confederate lines caissons were blown up by the fire, riderless horses dashed hither and thither, the dead lay in heaps, and throngs of wounded streamed to the rear. Every man lay down and sought what cover he could. It was evident that the Confederate cannonade was but a prelude ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... practised in a feeble way on small open clearings, cautiously cleaved with fire or hewn with the tomahawk in the native forests. The cow, the sheep, and the goat were more or less domesticated, though the horse was yet riderless; and the pastoral had therefore, to some extent, superseded the pure hunting stage. But what inroad could the stone hatchet make unaided upon the virgin forests of those remote days? The neolithic clearing must have been a mere stray oasis in a desert of woodland, like the villages ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... messengers of death. For about an hour they made it very interesting for us. It was almost impossible to hit one as they kept circling the camp, drawing nearer with each circle made. How many were killed we did not know as they carried them off, but from the number of riderless ponies, a dozen or more must have been dispatched to their happy hunting grounds. During the fight a portion of them bore down on the poor pilgrims' camp, in plain sight, and massacred all, running off their cattle and such of their outfit as ...
— Dangers of the Trail in 1865 - A Narrative of Actual Events • Charles E Young
... naval guns. Moreover, they came within very long range of our fifteen-pounders, so we were enabled to return them a 'quid' for their 'quo' of the previous night, with probably about the same result to their skins, though one riderless horse ...
— The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the South African War - With a Description of the Operations in the Aden Hinterland • Cecil Francis Romer and Arthur Edward Mainwaring
... castle and the village two cavaliers and a led horse were waiting for him: the two men were Michelotto and the Count of Benevento. Caesar sprang upon the riderless horse, pressed with fervour the hand of the count and the sbirro; then all three galloped to the frontier of Navarre, where they arrived three days later, and were honourably received by the king, Jean d'Albret, the brother ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... given signal they are started off. Down the live lane, the whole length of the Corso, they fly like the wind: riderless, as all the world knows: with shining ornaments upon their backs, and twisted in their plaited manes: and with heavy little balls stuck full of spikes, dangling at their sides, to goad them on. The jingling ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... zouaves, turcos, chasseurs, infantry of the line, most of them without arms, their uniforms soiled and torn, with grimy hands, blackened faces, bloodshot eyes starting from their sockets and lips swollen and distorted from their yells of fear or rage. At times a riderless horse would dash through the throng, overturning those who were in his path and leaving behind him a long wake of consternation. Then some guns went thundering by at breakneck speed, a retreating battery abandoned by its officers, and the drivers, as if drunk, rode down everything ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... thou think of our woe and grief when thy palfrey was found standing riderless at the stable door, and Sister Scholastica told us that there he had been since nones! And she had none to send in quest but Cuddie, ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... frenzied cries of rage and pain; and then nothing but the thunderous rumble of hoofs; the shouts of the driving rustlers; scattered shots and the clashing of horns. A vast dust cloud ballooned above the herd; and five riderless Circle L horses trotted aimlessly about, snorting ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... men to ride up. As he called out, a rifle cracked from the box-elder trees ahead of him. The sheriff fell, shot through the head, and a deputy springing from his saddle to pick him up was shot in precisely the same way, through the head. The riderless horses bolted; the posse, thrown into a panic, did not fire a shot, and for an hour dared not ride back for the bodies. After dark they got the two dead men and at midnight rode with them into ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman
... to Miller we had forgotten the rider who had been long gradually dropping behind. Now as we galloped away,—Bader, Absalom Gray, myself, and Crowfoot's riderless horse,—I looked behind for that comrade; but he was not to be seen or heard. We three were ...
— Old Man Savarin and Other Stories • Edward William Thomson
... Boers we saw the captain dismount, the group being barely visible owing to a rise in the ground. At the end of five or ten minutes we were just able to distinguish the sound of a shot, immediately after which we saw the officer's grey mare bolting westwards across the veldt riderless, with one of the Boers galloping for all ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of a riot and passed a night in the basement of Platt's Hall. But preparedness was all that was needed. A few days later we took part in a most imposing procession. All the military and most other organizations followed a massive catafalque and a riderless horse through streets heavily draped with black. The line of march was long, arms were reversed, the sorrowing people crowded the way, and solemnity and grief on every hand told how deeply Lincoln ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... favourite opera. In matters artistic they had a similarity of taste. They leaned towards the honest and explicit in art, a picture, for instance, that told its own story, with generous assistance from its title. A riderless warhorse with harness in obvious disarray, staggering into a courtyard full of pale swooning women, and marginally noted "Bad News", suggested to their minds a distinct interpretation of some military catastrophe. They could see what it was meant to convey, and explain it to friends ...
— Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches • Saki (H.H. Munro)
... Congressmen and picnickers from Washington who had come out to see the Rebellion put down at a single blow. The road became a mass of neighing, plunging horses, broken and tangled wagons, ambulances and riderless artillery teams. Horses neighed in terror more abject than that which filled the hearts of men. Men once had reason—the poor horse had never claimed it. The blockades on the road formed no barrier to the flying men on foot. They streamed ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... hinterland of the plains was concerned. He heard much and saw more, witnessed the smallpox scourge lashing the Indian tribes, saw the general disquiet and disorder with no one in control. The steed of the far West was riderless, the reins had been thrown away and the country was running wild. Butler's report is graphic in the extreme and has many recommendations, but the one that mainly concerns us just now is that which advises the establishment of constituted authority with ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... suspicion. She looked again at the glove, the whips and the two horses standing riderless; then she sprang on her horse with an intense longing to leave this place. She started back to Les Peuples at a gallop. Her brain was busy reasoning, connecting different incidents and ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... breeze of this roaring fight? Fast and far his hastily summoned messengers ride. To add a crowning disaster to the confusion of the early morning death grapple, the sun does not touch the meridian before a bleeding aide brings back McPherson's riderless horse. Where is the general? ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... as much alarmed as myself," said Mr. Carrollton, the troubled expression of his countenance changing at once. "You do not know how anxious I was when I saw Gritty come riderless to the door, nor yet how relieved I am in ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... its head upon the ground, groaning horribly the while, I emptied the five cartridges of the repeater into those Black Kendah, pausing between each shot to take aim, with the result that presently five riderless horses were galloping loose ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... mule did go home 'riderless' eventually," said Katherine, rubbing her bumped elbow. "Didn't he make speed going around that narrow, slippery ledge, though?" she went on. "I expected him to go overboard every minute. But he tore along as easily as if he were ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... the trees suddenly came to an end, and was astonished to see a riderless horse trotting towards him. His astonishment increased as he recognised the saddlery to be British. There was no other living creature in sight. A waving wheatfield, among which some scarlet poppies were growing, marked the skyline, beyond which the ground ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... themselves, and partridges picking up grain, of his Pisan frescoes; yet others using the antique as mere pageant shows, allegorical mummeries, destined to amuse some Duke of Ferrara or Marquis of Mantua, together with the hurdle races of Jews, hags, and riderless donkeys. ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... in less than half an hour approached a village, which he learned from a man he met was Gulnach. He waited by the roadside for a quarter of an hour, and then saw a man galloping towards him, leading a riderless horse. He drew ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... against their bodies and their legs contorted. Some might be shown disarmed and beaten down by the enemy, turning upon the foe, with teeth and nails, to take an inhuman and bitter revenge. You might see some riderless horse rushing among the enemy, with his mane flying in the wind, and doing no little mischief with his heels. Some maimed warrior may be seen fallen to the earth, covering himself with his shield, while the enemy, bending over him, tries to deal him a deathstroke. There again might be seen ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... stirrup; but before they can swing into the saddle a joyous cry is in their ears, and pop! pop! pop! pop! ring the revolvers as, with the glad, fierce cry still resounding, three horsemen launch in upon them—only three, but those three a whirlwind. See that riderless horse, and this one, and that one! And now for it—three honest men against four remaining thieves! Pop! pop! dodge, and fire as you dodge! Pop! pop! pop! down he goes; well done, gray-bearded Sosthene! Shoot there! Wheel here! Wounded? Never mind—ora! ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... do all this to-night because this was a special occasion, and they knew exactly how to make Him come out of the tent and send a certain call ringing across so that their friend the stallion Sooltan would come racing, with native pad and halter, riderless towards them. ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... the spur, plunged madly along the road. So long as the road was straight, Martin let the horse go, but at the first bend, when there was no chance of his pursuers seeing him, he checked the animal a little, slipped from his back, and with a blow sent him careering riderless along the road. ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... more illuminated as she rode from the wagon. A big pinto horse was strung out and running his best, the other Three Bar men pounding after him. A riderless horse circled in the flat, a dark shape sprawled near him, and she wondered which one of her men had gone down. A knot of horsemen were turning up an opening gulch on the far side of the valley. A half-dozen Three Bar riders ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts
... horse, he crept a little to the right, and then rising carefully in another thicket he picked out every dark spot in the gloom. He made out presently the figure of a riderless horse, standing partly behind the trunk of an oak, larger than most of those ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the roadside I saw a few riderless horses running terror-stricken to the rear. These were, I believe, the animals that Jackson and his aides had ridden to the front. It is recorded that he was wounded by some soldiers of the 18th North Carolina regiment who were in the brigade of General James H. Lane. ...
— Reminiscences of a Rebel • Wayland Fuller Dunaway
... land Uprooted."—Frantic, in the dust his hair He rends in agony and deep despair; The western sun had disappeared in gloom, And still, the Champion wept his cruel doom; His wondering legions marked the long delay, And, seeing Rakush riderless astray, The rumour quick to Persia's Monarch spread, And there described the mighty Rustem dead. Kaus, alarmed, the fatal tidings hears; His bosom quivers with increasing fears. "Speed, speed, and see what has befallen to-day To cause these groans ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... the horsemen completely by surprise, and they pulled up with a jerk. The action proved their undoing, for as they stood thus for a moment, they gave those in the train the opportunity they desired and the volley that followed turned four more riderless horses upon the plain. ...
— The Broncho Rider Boys with Funston at Vera Cruz - Or, Upholding the Honor of the Stars and Stripes • Frank Fowler
... of his horse's harness and of embroidered trappings, the Sieur de la Montaigne lay stretched upon the ground, with his saddle near by, and his riderless horse was trotting aimlessly about at the ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... a moment his heart stood still. Far above, on the rim of the bench, silhouetted clearly against the moonlight sky were two figures on horseback. Even as he looked the figures blended together—there was a swift commotion, a riderless horse dashed from view, and the next moment the sky-line showed only the rim ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... the general and another officer had their horses shot under them. There was an immediate wild stampede of the survivors, the two dismounted men contriving with difficulty to catch and mount a couple of riderless horses; and ere they had got beyond range two more men and three more horses were bowled over by the main body of Jack's negroes, who had the adventurous party in view as soon as they were lost to sight by the band of ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood |
