"Single file" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... difficult task, the capture of the forts, was to come. The only way in which the first, Fort Ingles, could be approached, was by a precipitous path, along which the men could only pass in single file, the fort itself being inaccessible except by a ladder, which the enemy, after being routed by Major ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... the boy sitting like dusty tramps by the roadside, with a modest knapsack lying at their feet. His white calves twinkled sturdily, the uncouth Swiss guide with a surly mouth stalked like an unwilling bear at his elbow; a small train of three mules followed in single file the lead of this inspiring enthusiast. Two ladies rode past, one behind the other, but from the way they sat I saw only their calm, uniform backs, and the long ends of blue veils hanging behind far down over their identical hat-brims. His two daughters, ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... my way up step by step, one hand against the wall and my shoes scraping cautiously for a resting-place, while my men followed in single file with ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... open the door, and, single file, six little boys march in, bearing large jars labeled butter, salt, flour, pepper, cinnamon, and milk. The COOKS place a table and a large bowl and a pan in front of the LADY VIOLETTA and give her a spoon. The six little boys ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... must trust to fortune," said Denviers, as we carefully followed the black in single file over a surface which seemed to be covered ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... come in single file with their little mugs, and get each a drop of boiling water. I get up, interested in this proceeding, and slip out with one of them into the pent-house and so on to the Barrier. You will hardly believe me, when I tell you what I saw — all the Polar explorers standing ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... neither objected to the test, and we tramped in single file toward the house. Some precaution kept me at the rear, and I followed silently when Coombs entered the open door of the kitchen. Unknown to me there was a narrow back stairway, and we mounted this without exchanging a word. In the upper hall Coombs threw open the rear door, and, ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish
... steepness of the path which leads into this cavern, it is rarely visited by tourists. The party, however, with perhaps more curiosity than prudence, determined to explore and visit this cave. A female guide was procured, and a candle supplied to each person. All being ready, in single file they entered the mouth of the cavern, carefully groping their way, not without difficulty. Miss Anderson soon lost courage, and turned back, stating that she and Mr Cunningham would return to the inn at Elie, and prepare tea; the other two resolved to proceed ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... Single file, as before, we pushed into the breast-high grass, and the walking was easy. Once we crossed a patch of oozy turf from which arose a score of jack-snipe; again we skirted a drying pond whose boggy edges were the hunting ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... have made a mistake. The cowl-like habit turned out to be the coarse native blanket, used for so many purposes by rustic Indians, and which they wear in this monastic fashion in the, sometimes chill, early mornings, or when it is wet. Their walking in single file was not in order to assist them in the preservation of perpetual silence, but because jungle footpaths make this mode of progression a necessity, and country folk get so used to walking in this fashion that when they emerge on to the high-road ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... two or three waves are likely to meet machine gun fire, and generally move in extended order. Not more than two waves can be accommodated in one trench. Subsequent waves will move in line or in line of section columns in single file. Russian saps must be run out as far as possible across "No Man's Land" to be opened up immediately after the assault, as approach trenches. Ladders or steps are necessary to assist the leading waves in leaving the trenches, as they must move in lines. Provision must be made for bridges ...
— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker
... intimation that a fresh jorum of coffee was being brewed. The horses were resaddled; and with an eloquent exchange of bows, curtseys, and kindly smiles, we took leave of our courteous entertainers, and sallied forth into the wind and rain. It was a regular race home, single file, the Rector leading; but as we sped along in silence, amid the unchangeable features of this strange land, I could not help thinking of him whose shrewd observing eye must have rested, six hundred and fifty years ago, ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... of the day on which this unfortunate surprise took place, the Indian army, consisting of eight hundred and forty-seven warriors, painted and equipped for war, marched in single file through a prairie near the fort and in full view of the garrison, and encamped on an adjacent elevation on the opposite side of the river. From this situation, frequent conversations were held by them with the whites, in which they deprecated the longer continuance of ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... content. Last Sunday afternoon we all went to the Lake, and Una and I wove a laurel wreath, and Una crowned her father. For mountain-laurel grows about us. We have now twelve hens. Twice a day we all go and feed them. We go in single file. Mr. Hawthorne called it to-day the procession of the equinoxes. The hens have some of them been named: Snowdrop, Crown Imperial, Queenie, and Fawn. Snowdrop is ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... and the men made a long circuit to drive toward us as Caldwell had directed. After half an hour had passed we heard them yelling as they closed in, but what was our disgust to see them solemnly parading in single file up the bottom of the valley on an open trail and carefully avoiding all thickets where a serow could possibly be. As Harry expressed it, "all the animals had to do was to sit tight and watch the noble procession ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... found that the side passage narrowed greatly, so that they had to proceed in single file and with heads bent. They moved with their hands in front of their heads, so as to avoid a possible collision with the ...
— The Rover Boys on the Plains - The Mystery of Red Rock Ranch • Arthur Winfield
... volleyed the miscreants from there, and drove them into the open, while the remaining part kept them from seeking refuge in the bush. The Squire's men had the shelter of the brook alders and willows, now, and, led by Mr. Terry, in single file, at a rate almost as rapid as that of Rawdon's retreat, faced now and again to the left to fire, and loaded as they ran. At last the shelter ceased, and all were in the open, both pursued and pursuers. "Kape it up," cried the indomitable veteran; "don't give the murtherin' ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... signs of any indication to move forward. So the long-eared steed was mounted and the ford of the Aguadores reconnoitered. The bullets were zipping through the rank tropical jungle. Two or three men were hit. Those who moved forward were going single file, crouching low, at a dog trot. There was no evidence of hesitation or fear here. Some of the "Brunettes" passed, their blue shirts unbuttoned, corded veins protruding as they slightly raised their heads to look forward, great drops of perspiration rolling ...
— The Gatlings at Santiago • John H. Parker
... was little traffic. Occasionally a long dray, on a gigantic pair of wheels, drawn by a long string of white Normandy horses in single file, with blue harness and jangling bells, filled up the roadway. Costermongers trundled their barrows along with strange, unmusical cries. Now and again an empty cab returning to its stable, with weary horse and semi-somnolent coachman, crawled through ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... have been coquettish had it not been undeniably natural. Reaching the wall that enclosed the right side of the park, she opened a wicket that led into a narrow path through a large field of ripe corn. She passed into this path, followed in single file by Mademoiselle Marie and by Camors. Until now the child had been very quiet, but the rich golden corn-tassels, entangled with bright daisies, red poppies, and hollyhocks, and the humming concert of myriads of flies-blue, yellow, and reddishbrownwhich sported amid the sweets, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... her surprise on beholding them. But they were not permitted to communicate with each other. Presently the whole party emerged from the wild mountain gorges, through which they had been passing for some time, and proceeded in single file along a narrow path that skirted the precipices of the coast. The cliffs here were nearly a hundred feet high. They descended sheer down into deep water; in some places ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... stretching shiny feelers on the hot dry sand—and prickly purple eggs of the sea-urchin. Women go about their labour through the throng, some carrying stones upon their heads, or unloading boats and bearing planks of wood in single file, two marching side by side beneath one load of lime, others scarcely visible under a stack of oats, another with her baby ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... family walked single file into the log meeting house and took their places on one of the long wooden benches. John Carter, sitting on the bench in front of them, turned and nodded. Carter had promised to buy the Lincolns' south field. He would ...
— Abe Lincoln Gets His Chance • Frances Cavanah
... single file he led the men through the forest, he seemed again to be back on Cape Cod picking his way over their own lost road through the wood, and he heard "the beat of a horse's feet and the swish of a skirt in the dew." And then a carbine would rattle, or a horse would ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... men; natives generally of a state, the great body of whose population are well-formed, and distinguished by features of clear, open intelligence. They were well-mounted, and each man carried a short rifle, a sword, and pair of pistols. They rode in single file, following their commander; a gentleman, in person, of great manliness of frame, possessed of much grace and ease of action. They formed at command, readily, in front of the post, which may be now said to have assumed the guise of a regular military station; and Fullam, the captain, advancing ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... cotton were flapping in the breeze, hung from house to house, or on lines put up for the occasion. Furs, too, were nailed up on the fronts of houses. Those who were going to give away blankets or elk-skins managed to get a bearer for every one, and exhibited them by making the persons walk in single file to the house of the chief. On the next day the cotton which had been hung out was now brought on the beach, at a good distance from the chief's house, and then run out at full length, and a number of bearers, about three yards apart, bore it triumphantly away from the ...
— Metlakahtla and the North Pacific Mission • Eugene Stock
... continent, that swung far back toward the barge in the segment of a great semicircle. Fortunately there were still open channels in this main field, and one of them led toward the schooner. They struck out up this estuary, which presently became so narrow that they were forced to travel single file. Occasionally their kicking feet would strike slimy filaments in the water, but for a while the channel cheered the swimmers, for they could now see they were making ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... little log tower at the door, Dodd and I made our way out of the church, and returned to the house to drink tea. I had just finished my last cup and lighted a cigarette, when the door suddenly opened, and half a dozen men, with grave, impassive countenances, marched in in single file, stopped a few paces from the holy pictures in the corner, crossed themselves devoutly in unison, and began to sing a simple but sweet Russian melody, beginning with the words, "Christ is born." Not expecting to hear ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... encircling wall towards the houses. These latter were clad in garments of llama cloth and boots and belts of leather, and they wore caps of cloth with back and ear flaps. They followed one another in single file, walking slowly and yawning as they walked, like men who have been up all night. There was something so reassuringly prosperous and respectable in their bearing that after a moment's hesitation Nunez stood forward as conspicuously as possible upon his rock, and gave vent to a mighty ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... second flight of stairs, in single file as before, and presently—when they had climbed some ten steps and had turned to negotiate ten more that ascended at an angle—a curtain moved a little, and the dim light changed to a sudden shaft that nearly ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... the writer frequently has seen wild elephants reconnoitre dangerous ground by means of a scout or spy; communicate intelligence by signs; retreat in orderly silence from a lurking danger, and systematically march, in single file, like the jungle tribes ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... roses absently, and shook the fairy petals into her little sweet-grass basket with the air of a woman whose thoughts were far away. We said nothing, knowing that Aunt Olivia's secrets always came our way in time. When the rose-leaves were picked, we carried them in and upstairs in single file, Aunt Olivia bringing up the rear to pick up any stray rose-leaf we might drop. In the south-west room, where there was no carpet to fade, we spread them on newspapers on the floor. Then we put our sweet-grass baskets back in the proper place in the proper closet ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Comrades!" A soldier and a Red Guard appeared in the door, waving the crowd aside, and other guards with fixed bayonets. After them followed single file half a dozen men in civilian dress-the members of the Provisional Government. First came Kishkin, his face drawn and pale, then Rutenberg, looking sullenly at the floor; Terestchenko was next, glancing sharply around; he stared at us with cold fixity.... They passed ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... In single file, and with a little space separating them, they started off, the motors soon popping merrily as the boys entered into the spirit of ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen
... how the path seemed to lengthen. Graham watched the girl's every step, helping her over the difficult places, pushing aside the tangled branches, his eyes resting upon her as frankly, as tenderly as a mother looks at her child. In single file we marched through the gray morning, clearing cold after the storm, and the silence was seldom broken, for we ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke
... mark this which I am going to say once for all: If I had not force enough to project a principle full in the face of the half dozen most obvious facts which seem to contradict it, I would think only in single file from this day forward. A rash man, once visiting a certain noted institution at South Boston, ventured to express the sentiment, that man is a rational being. An old woman who was an attendant in the Idiot School ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... and the many heaps of snag-like trees half buried in sand and mud, but when as near as they could guess an hour had passed they were still some distance from the brig and suffering from a feeling of weariness which made them all trudge along slowly and silently in single file. ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... sun-tanned and oddly clad multitude. The Dutch sailors lowered their fenders between the ship's side and the boat's guards, lines were made fast, a light stage was run down from the ship's upper deck to the boat's forecastle, and in single file, laden with their household goods, the silent aliens were hurried aboard the Votaress and to their steerage quarters, out of sight between and behind ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... their heads together and stood with sad eyes, regarding the attendant's leisurely unlatching of the gate. They slipped forth and walked in single file to a suite of offices inscribed "Pole Brothers, Brokers," and, beneath, "The United Merchant Shippers' Corporation," and passed through a door which, in addition to this declaration, bore the ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... prisoners were being conducted into the still dark courtyard on a cold early morning in winter. They walked in single file—a soldier, a prisoner, a soldier, a prisoner, a soldier—there seemed to be no end to it; there was a steady shuffling of feet across the courtyard. A small gate opened in the wall with a creaking sound. All walked through ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... had enjoyed the entire trip. Sleeping in the open air without other shelter than their blankets afforded, scouting by day in single file over miles of mere game-trails, up hill and down dale through the wildest and most dolefully-picturesque scenery he "at least" had ever beheld, under frowning cliffs and beetling crags, through dense ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... bus with four hundred Sherwood Foresters through Reninghelst, Ouderdom, and Vlamertinghe to Kruisstraat, which we reached in three hours. Hence guides of the 4th Gordons led us by Bridge 16 over the Canal and along the track of the Lille Road. It was a dark night, and as we stumbled along in single file, we could see the Towers of Ypres smouldering with a dull red glow to our left, while the salient front line was lit up by bursting shells and trench mortars. Our route lay past Shrapnel Corner and along the railway line to Zillebeke Station, and was rendered ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... of more than a hundred miles between the Fort Churchill and York Factory. Only the stronger men and women were selected for the journey. On the 6th of April, 1814, a party of twenty-one males and twenty females started on this now celebrated tramp. At first the party began to march in single file, but finding this inconvenient changed to six abreast. Unaccustomed to snowshoes and sleds the Colonists found the snowy walk very distressing. Three fell by the way and were carried on by the stronger men. The ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... listen. No one speaks. The stony boots come on. Enter in single file a procession of seven green men, even hands and faces are green; they wear greenstone sandals, they walk with knees extremely wide apart, as having sat cross-legged for centuries, their right arms and right forefingers point upwards, right ...
— Selections from the Writings of Lord Dunsay • Lord Dunsany
... They rode in single file, each man with a led camel ridden by a woman, except that Yasmini directed her own mount and for the most part showed the way, her desert-reared guide being hard put to keep his own animal abreast of her. ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... Potokomik's journey out. When the three Eskimos left us in the shack they started at once in search of Emuk's tupek. The storm that raged for two days swept pitilessly across their path, but they never halted, pushing through the deep- ening snow in single file, taking turns at going ahead and breaking the way, until night, and then they stopped. They had no ax and could have no fire, so they built themselves a snow igloo as best they could without the proper implements and it protected them against the drifting snow and piercing wind ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... in single file; Bernard, a bright-faced, snub-nosed boy with a girlish mouth, a little in advance, Eugenia following, and the puppy at her heels. On the way across the meadow, where myriads of grasshoppers darted with a whirring noise beneath the leaves of coarse mullein plants or the slender, ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... by the average onlooker which would approximate with any degree of accuracy the size of the assembly? Or if an observer were stationed at a certain point, and 10,000 persons were to pass him in single file without his counting them as they passed, what sort of an estimate would he make of their number? The truth seems to be that our mental conception of number is much more limited than is commonly thought, and that we unconsciously adopt some new unit as a standard of comparison when ...
— The Number Concept - Its Origin and Development • Levi Leonard Conant
... proved a rich prize, for in it were buffalo meat and some kettles. Broth was soon made and served to the weakest. The strong gave up their share. Then amid much joking and merry songs, the column marched in single file through a bit of timber. Not two miles away was Vincennes, the goal of ...
— Hero Stories from American History - For Elementary Schools • Albert F. Blaisdell
... ain't any water in that crotch, and nothin' else but heat and rattlers. The point of the thing is this: Spring rains for a couple of million years have wore a regular watercourse down that crotch, and I think we can run the sheep over it, single file." ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... cold and wearying journey. The men were obliged to march in single file along narrow roads which bordered precipices. Several mules, one of them laden with gold, lost their footing and were plunged down the cliff. Napoleon was forced to dismount and go on foot to keep warm. For a short time he rested beside the ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... lengthen itself out, taking the form of the corridor. They walked almost in single file; first the wapentake, then Gwynplaine, then the justice of the quorum, then the constables, advancing in a group, and blocking up the passage behind Gwynplaine as with a bung. The passage narrowed. Now Gwynplaine touched the walls with both his elbows. In the roof, which was made ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... exasperated, but none the less determined to seek vengeance. With elastic step, and in single file they pressed forward, and an hour later came to another clearing, in the midst of which stood a dwelling, occupied by the family of John Allen, consisting of five persons, viz., himself and wife and three children. Temporarily with them at ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... the travel came upon one track, and that so steep the ascent could be made only by cutting steps in the ice and snow—fifteen hundred steps in all. Frequently every step would be full, while crowds jostled each other at the foot of the ascent to get into the single file, each man carrying a ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... wait for an answer. He led the way. And the others followed in a strange procession. Somehow, automatically, they fell into single file, and they moved on their magnetic-soled slippers toward a passage tube in one wall. Their slipper soles clanked and clicked in an erratic rhythm. Brent walked with the mincing steps necessary for movement in weightlessness. ...
— Space Tug • Murray Leinster
... in contrasted tints. A little land-breeze carried them forward. The lagoon reflected their deep colours till they reached the port. Then, slightly swerving eastward on their course, but still in single file, they took the sea and scattered, like beautiful bright-plumaged birds, who from a streamlet float into a lake, and find their way at ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... took up the line of march in single file, Sola dragged me into an empty chariot and we proceeded with the procession toward the point by which I had entered the city the day before. At the head of the caravan rode some two hundred warriors, five abreast, ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... it were midnight darkness, that they may not be seen from any distance. This obscurity, when once raised, lasts for seven days; and they are perfectly acquainted with all the passes of the mountains, in which they march one after another in single file, so that no one can possibly escape them, but all who fall in their way, must encounter death or captivity, the old being slain, and the young sold for slaves. I Marco, who write this book, was once very near falling into ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... great activity. In the shadow of one of the dilapidated hovels, four humped oxen stood, their heavy harness still hanging upon them, though the sledges they drew, covered with stone dust and broken pieces, were some distance away from them. A company of half a score of children were ascending in single file, along a slanting plane of planks, into the hollow in the cliff upon which work had been renewed. Along the rock-wall ahead of them a scaffold had been erected and here were men drilling holes in the stone, or driving wooden wedges into ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... roots of dead pine-trees, while the evening sunbeams streaming up the canon colored all the picture a rosy purple and made it glorious. After crossing the river, the dauntless climbers, led by their chief, at once began to scale the canon wall, turning now right, now left, in long, single file, keeping well apart out of one another's way, and leaping in regular succession from crag to crag, now ascending slippery dome-curves, now walking leisurely along the edges of precipices, stopping at times to gaze down at me from ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... first, as he knows the way, and I will follow him; the rest drop in in single file, with the sergeant at the rear. Keep close enough to distinguish the man in front, and be careful where you put your feet. No noise, not a word spoken unless I pass back an order; then give it to the next ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... visitors had to give way to men who marched in single file carrying what seemed to be huge cheeses, but the guide explained that within these were cups, saucers, bowls, and basins, and men mounted on ladders piled these yellow tubs up the walls of the ovens. When the visitors had peeped into the huge interior, they were conducted to the furnaces; and ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... additional men for this excursion, so that they now had five guides, none of whom were superfluous, since they carried with them various barometric instruments which required careful handling. They began the ascent in single file, but the slopes soon became so steep and the light snow (in which they floundered to the knees at every step) so deep, that the guides resorted to the usual method in such cases of tying them all together. The two head guides alone, Leuthold and Wahren, remained detached, clearing the snow ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... when on a journey, is a very interesting spectacle. One of the largest is usually the leader. The rest follow in single file, at a slow, measured pace, their heads ornamented tastefully with ribands, while small bells, hanging around their necks, tinkle as they go. They throw their high heads from side to side, gazing around them, and when frightened ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... strange-looking migrants—largely refugee Jews—from the far Russian Empire and the regions of Hungary and Roumania. At the daily rate of 2,800 it would take this indescribable assortment more than 166 days to pass in single file. Then the Italians would consume about eighty days more. For over eight months you would have watched so large a proportion of illiteracy, incompetency, and insensibility to American ideals, that you would be tempted to despair of the Republic. Nor would you lose the ...
— Aliens or Americans? • Howard B. Grose
... way in complete silence. Our little caravan, in single file, presented a strange, shadowy, mysterious appearance as it followed the winding path, dimly seen through the mist, first on this side and then on that; not a sound being heard, except the crunching of one's own pulk over the snow. My reindeer and myself seemed to be the only living things, ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... the fjord, the people looked to us like the cairns out on the moorlands, only these tiny cairns moved in single file about the hay-fields. I seemed to smell the sweet hay in the homefields, but of course this was only my imagination. I also fancied I could hear the maids laughing, especially one of them. I would willingly have sacrificed a good deal to be over there helping her dry the ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... tried to cross over on the log; but, being compelled to go in single file, they were shot down by the Indians, until six captains and a number of men had been slain. Captain Moseley and a mere handful of men finally rushed over the log and burst into the fort, where they were assailed ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... (perseverence) 604.1; perennial, evergreen; constant. Adv. continuously &c adj.; seriatim; in a line &c n.; in succession, in turn; running, gradually, step by step, gradatim [Lat.], at a stretch; in file, in column, in single file, in ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... beneath his blanket four magnificent belts of wampum, two of which he handed to the sub-chief and two to the renegade. Timmendiquas said a few words to every one of them, and, instantly leaving the village they traveled northward at the swift running walk of the Indian. They passed near Henry in single file, the sub-chief at the head and Blackstaffe in the rear, and he noticed then that they carried supplies as if for a long journey. Their faces were turned ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... take a stroll, or a "string" as he called it, about the village, and as they walked in single file on the narrow sidewalks, the idea of "string" seemed to be realized. They went into the Court House and up into the court-room, and down into the Recorder's office, filled with books, and introduced Bart to Ben Graylord, the Recorder, who showed him a ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... was, and of heavy and ungainly build; but his belief in the finality of his uncouthness was morbid and imaginary, and half his inability to get on with his fellows, no less than with the maidens who were brought down in single file to Ashbridge, was due to this. He knew very well how light-heartedly they escaped to the geniality and attractiveness of Francis, and in the clutch of his own introspective temperament he could not free himself from the handicap of his own sensitiveness, and, like others, take himself for granted. ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... Gen. Young, by agreement the night before and without orders from anybody decided to advance at daybreak and dislodge the Spaniards from Las Guasimas. They went by two narrow trails single file, the two trails were along the crests of a line of hills with a valley between. The dotted line is the trail we should have taken had the Cubans told us it existed, if we had done so we would have had the Spaniards in the ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... one end of the village enclosure (I will hereafter call this the "entrance end") by the side of the end emone of the village (this may be the chiefs true emone or it may be the secondary emone), and walk in single file along one side of the village enclosure, and half of them walk round the other end (which I will call the "far end") in front of the emone there (which also will be either the true one or the other one), and back again along the other side, until there ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson
... nothing but take a paseo into the woods, a paseo among the houses, a paseo at the landing-place, looking at us and our vessel, and too lazy to speak fast; while the others were driven about, at a rapid trot, in single file, with burdens on their shoulders, and followed up by their taskmasters, with long rods in their hands, and broad-brimmed straw hats upon their heads. Upon what precise grounds this great distinction was made, I do not ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... ceiling. The clean frosty smell of the open fields was changed for a warmer air, damp with the heavy odor of moss and fallen leaves. There was something wild and delicious in the forest in that hour of night. The men and boys tramped on silently in single file, as if they followed the flickering light instead of carrying it. The dog fell back by instinct, as did his companions, into the easy familiarity of forest life. He ran beside them, and watched eagerly as they chose a safe place to leave a coat or two and a basket. He ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... next morning. Maria rode, in Amazon fashion, on a mule between her husband and Harry. Bertie followed with Jose, to whose saddle the three baggage mules were attached in single file. They were undisturbed on their journey. Three or four times they were hailed by men on the rocks above as they went through difficult points of the pass. The reply of Dias, that the two gentlemen with him were Englishmen who had been exploring the ruins and ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... now ready, and the order, "March," was given. Off started the Indians in single file with as much apparent ease as if they were taking a pleasure walk along a well-beaten path instead of plunging, heavily laden, into the recesses of a trackless forest. Captain Glazier, his brother and Mr. Paine followed their lead, guided only by the white bottoms of the canoes gleaming through ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... commanded the country toward the east; on the right was El Caney, a fortified village held by a small force of Spaniards. The country between the two points was a jungle, the roads hardly better than trails, where troops frequently had to go in single file. The fight at El Caney was severe, the enemy being well-entrenched, well-armed and protected by wire entanglements and block houses, and General Lawton suffered a loss of more than 400 killed and wounded before driving the Spaniards out of their ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... its direction was a white cloud of vapor. The road we had just left wound on, down the hill again, and toward what might have been a dark clump of trees. The grass in the field was short and scrubby, and worn quite bare in places. There was a path which Mr. Daddles knew, and this we followed in single file. ...
— The Voyage of the Hoppergrass • Edmund Lester Pearson
... braves performed this office, Silvertip leaned against a tree and took no notice of the brothers. When they were thus securely tied one of their captors addressed the chief, who at once led the way westward through the forest. The savages followed in single file, with Joe and Jim in the middle of the line. The last Indian tried to mount Lance; but the thoroughbred would have none of him, and after several efforts the savage was compelled to desist. Mose trotted ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... (after several stanzas which as yet are incomplete, Describing all the fight in epic style) When the Billycock was going, she'd a dozen prizes towing (Or twenty, as above) in single file! ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... yellow-wood species, and interspersed wherever the ground was dry with huge euphorbias, of which the tall finger-like growths and sad grey colouring looked unreal and ghostlike in the waning light. Following the advice given to us, we rode in single file along the narrow path, fearing lest otherwise we should tumble into some bog hole, until we came to higher land covered with the scattered thorns ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... Secretary, advanced without further hesitation. Lord GEORGE HAMILTON walked arm-in-arm as far as the door with Sir M. HICKS-BEACH. Here they were observed to hastily relieve themselves from contiguity and enter in single file. As they had up to that moment been engaged in earnest conversation, this little incident caused a sensation among the crowd looking on. The new Chief Secretary was easily recognised as he descended from his hansom with a sprig of shamrock in his coat and another of shillelagh ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, Jan. 2, 1892 • Various
... of Life are fortified. They are guarded by narrow passes where the world must go single file and where, if one slip from the trail, he falls into chasms of awful depths; by cliffs of apparent impassable abruptness which, if in scaling, one lose his head he is lost; and by false trails that seem to promise easy going but lead in the wrong direction. ...
— Their Yesterdays • Harold Bell Wright
... Chekiang provinces a line of half a dozen white goats were often seen feeding single file along the pathways, held by a cord like a string of beads, sometimes led by a child. Here, too, one of the most common sights was the water buffalo grazing unattended among the fields along the paths and canal banks, with crops all about, One of the most ...
— Farmers of Forty Centuries - or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan • F. H. King
... drawled, "anything to oblige, although this is a new one on me. Come on, Matt; it seems the gentleman does not wish to be disturbed—— Well, neither would I under such circumstances. Here you! line up there in single file, and get a move on you—pronto! Show 'em what I mean, Matt; put that guy that talks English at the head—— Yes, he's the one. Now look here, amigo, you march straight out through that door, and head for the ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... statistical measure of the degree of correspondence. Suppose, for an example, we wish to find out how closely people's weights correspond to their heights. Stand fifty young men up in single file in order of height, the tallest in front, the shortest behind. Then weigh each man, and shift them into the order of their weights. If no shifting whatever were needed, the correlation between height and weight would be perfect. Suppose the impossible, that the shortest man ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... horse and reviewed her followers as they rode up single file. Her guests were in merry mood, and ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... remove the sheep from one side of the river to the other, the shepherd crosses the plank, sounding his horn, and each individual of the flock passes regularly after him in single file. Even in the highest floods, there has ...
— Minnie's Pet Lamb • Madeline Leslie
... good lodging on their rocky and mossy surface. These stupid birds, in their yellow and white feathers, with their heads thrown back and their wings like the sleeves of a monastic habit, look, at a distance, like monks in single file walking in procession along ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne
... warriors bobbed along in single file; at sunset the spear blades seemed still wet with blood. They raised their long shields, adorned with crude geometrical designs, and sang for the white man a rambling song ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... the mosque. This village has a sheltered hill which the Indians call Ylihan; it is a natural fort. The Moros had in it some pieces [113] with ladles, and sixteen or seventeen versos and other firearms. The ascent is very narrow, so that it is difficult to mount it single file. At its sides are steep precipices and heights. There Corralat had taken shelter with all his men, and, confident in his arms and the ruggedness [of the place] was proudly awaiting the Spaniards. At his rear was a rough and very secret ascent, which did not alarm our commander; for, six days ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 27 of 55) • Various
... my lads, and never allow wine to interfere with business. Follow me, but cautiously, one after the other in single file, and look to your footing. 'Tis perilous steep between here and the gate;" and, indeed, so they found it, but all reached the level forecourt in safety, and so through the ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... it happened, that O'Hara left the vault when he did. Five minutes after he had gone, six shadowy forms made their way silently and in single file through the doorway of the vault, which they closed carefully behind them. The fact that it was after lock-up was of small consequence. A good deal of latitude in that way was allowed at Wrykyn. It was the custom to go out, after the bell had sounded, to visit ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse
... general that the enemy shall be exterminated. On this occasion, after the performance of an Umsebeuza, or war song, - which is exactly like all the other songs, - the chief makes a speech to his brothers and friends, arranged in single file. No particular order is observed during the delivery of this address, but every gentleman who finds himself excited by the subject, instead of crying 'Hear, hear!' as is the custom with us, darts from the rank and ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... The route lay through a wild and rocky country—the debatable ground, desolated by years of war—and the troops straggled into a long procession, and had several times for more than an hour to move in single file over passes and through narrow defiles strewn with the innumerable boulders from which the 'Belly of Stones' has derived its name. The right of their line of march was protected by the Nile, and although it was occasionally necessary to leave ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... Peterkin walked along the sands between us. We had two ways of walking together about our island. When we travelled through the woods, we always did so in single file, as by this method we advanced with greater facility, the one treading in the other's footsteps. In such cases Jack always took the lead, Peterkin followed, and I brought up the rear. But when we travelled along the sands, ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... to go single file and Polly noticed how naturally Scott took the lead, leaving her to follow and Hard to bring up the rear. She noted with some amusement that it seemed characteristic of him to take the lead everywhere, just ...
— Across the Mesa • Jarvis Hall
... hurried away, the men and women following the wagons, the latter in front. All were in single file, and on each side of them the militia were drawn up two deep, with twenty paces between their lines. Within two hundred yards of the camp, the men were halted until the women approached a copse of scrub-oak, about a mile distant, and near which, it appears, the Indians ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... among them who had done more than slip on his trousers, so that they were in light fighting trim; and as soon as they were outside the gate, the lieutenant gave the word, "Quick march— double!" and away they went in single file along the narrow path. ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... for a few hundred yards the wide, rut-riddled thoroughfare of Main Street, the riders branched off to cross rising ground. They proceeded in single file and at a footpace, for the highway had been honeycombed and rendered unsafe; it also ascended steadily. Just before they entered the bush, which was alive with the rich, strong whistling of magpies, Purdy halted to look back and wave ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... three feet wide, and arranged a haversack under his head. As we loitered, each unwilling to leave him first, Sir Elliot thundered at us to come on, saying, "I don't know why it is, but a Yeoman never will obey an order till you've sworn at him." Then reluctantly we set off in single file, working our way back by the bank of a stream, and still under cover of the rise in the ground, a little way up which we found one of our Sussex men, with his horse bogged to the neck. Further on we paused a moment, and the Fife man, saying that he thought the ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... Players all in single file, teacher leading. Each player reaches right hand forward to player next in front and left hand back, grasping hands. March forward, circling to left and winding up into a spiral. When tightly wound, last player should ...
— My Book of Indoor Games • Clarence Squareman
... silver lake the figures of the negroes writhed and squirmed in the moonlight like acrobats who, having been too long inactive, must go through their tacks from sheer surplus energy. In single file they marched, weaving in concentric circles, now with their heads thrown back, now bent over their instruments like piping fauns. And from trombone and saxaphone ceaselessly whined a blended melody, sometimes riotous and jubilant, sometimes ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... one, so narrow that the girls walked in single file and even then the fir boughs brushed their faces. Under the firs were velvety cushions of moss, and further on, where the trees were smaller and fewer, the ground was rich in a variety of green ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... convoys are moving are indicated upon the map, or the position of the massed troops in bivouac is similarly shown. The airmen load their machines with a full charge of bombs. When all is ready the leader ascends, followed in rapid succession by the other units, and they whirr through the air in single file. It now becomes a grim game ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot |
