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More "Trigger" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to get more information on him now, and they're going to do a little deep probing, if they can get him set up right; maybe they'll be able to trigger off another flash on ...
— Fifty Per Cent Prophet • Gordon Randall Garrett
... double report half an hour later. Every fellow looked interested, for well did they know that when Jack pulled trigger there was a pretty fair chance of something dropping ...
— Motor Boat Boys Down the Coast - or Through Storm and Stress to Florida • Louis Arundel
... old bean." Roy opened his mouth by way of invitation. Cuthbert promptly pressed the trigger—and missed his mark. ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... death itself! Waiting for them to come within range of the rifle requires great patience, for the approach is always more or less slow, and frequently just as they are at the right distance and the finger is on the trigger, off the whole band will streak, looking like horizontal bars of brown and white! I am always so glad when they do this, for it seems so wicked to kill such graceful creatures. It is very seldom that I watch the approach, but when ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... local obstacles; and before the movement had developed, while the troops were still in mass and {p.166} changing their places, a tremendous fire at two hundred yards opened from the line of trenches—every rifle apparently emptying its magazine as rapidly as the finger could handle the trigger. Coming wholly unexpectedly in the dark, at the critical moment of a change of formation, great confusion ensued, and contradictory orders were given, among which the most disastrous possible, "Retire," is said to have been uttered, ...
— Story of the War in South Africa - 1899-1900 • Alfred T. Mahan
... and, in places, bulged outward. I flinched at every turn in the canyon; but, with rifle cocked and thrust forward, I went on. The cracks in the walls, the boulders and pieces of cliff that obstructed my path, and the occasional thickets—all made me halt with careful step and finger on the trigger. I followed the splashes on the stones, which told me that the bear had passed that way. As I went cautiously on I felt a tightening at my throat. The light above grew dimmer. When I stopped to listen it was so silent that I heard only the pounding of my heart ...
— The Young Forester • Zane Grey
... reply, "the woman will give the whole thing to the newspapers. They have smelled a rat so long they would pay well for a tip. She has all the documents. So if you want to swing and ruin everybody concerned, just pull that trigger." ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... instant there was a scream, and a female figure sprang out from the shadows and rushed before Jack just as Thornton pulled the trigger. ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... face turned to flame, and then back to chalk again. He made a quick movement towards the telephone bell, stretching out a hand to reach it, but at the same moment Jones pulled the trigger and the wrist was shattered, splashing ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood
... letter he had shoved under the table-cloth. I read it, and rushed out and hitched up a horse and drove like mad to my brother-in-law's, but I got there too late, the poor boy had taken a shot-gun to his room, and put the muzzle into his mouth, and set off the trigger with his foot. In the letter he told me what was the matter—he had got into trouble with a woman of the town, and had caught syphilis. He had gone away and tried to get cured, but had fallen into the hands of a quack, who had taken all his money and left his health ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... order to examine the weapon —finally contriving, more by accident than skill, to break it. The cartridges, of course, fitted into the empty cylinder. But before inserting them she closed the pistol once more, cocked it, and held it out. Her arm trembled violently as she pulled the trigger. Could she do it? As though to refute this doubt of her ability to carry out an act determined upon, she broke the weapon once more, loaded and closed it, and thrust it in the pocket of her coat. Then, washing the grease from her hands, she put on her gloves, and was about to turn out the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... picked your panel; With a bank of cloud in the south south-east, Stand ready to shorten sail; Fight shy of a corporation feast; Don't trust to a martingale; Keep your powder dry, and shut one eye, Not both, when you touch your trigger; Don't stop with your head too frequently (This advice ain't meant for a nigger); Look before you leap, if you like, but if You mean leaping, don't look long, Or the weakest place will soon grow stiff, And the strongest ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... You shall not long enjoy your triumph. I have but one cartridge, but perchance it will be enough for you. [Pulls trigger, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 31, 1917 • Various
... babel-chatter was a failure. More than this, they seemed to be on the ground." Creeping cautiously up, and peering through the brush, he saw something the height of a stump between two forked trees. It did not look natural; he aimed, pulled trigger, and killed ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... the trigger, but the bullet buried itself harmlessly in the wall of the cabin. Malatesta attempted to jerk the gun away, but Gus, fortified by the leverage against the sill and the window bars, held on, his own weapon crashing to the floor. How Tony managed to dive through that hole as he did, ...
— Radio Boys Loyalty - Bill Brown Listens In • Wayne Whipple
... back upon him as he swung the pistol into line with one of the jelly-masses. He barely pressed the trigger before the charging brutes knocked him ...
— Zehru of Xollar • Hal K. Wells
... of the sexual system in women would lead me to believe that the clitoris is the only peculiarly sensitive part of the female genitalia, coition giving no pleasure unless 'the trigger of love' is simultaneously manipulated, as can be done when intromission is effected a tergo; that the mind of a normally healthy maiden is altogether free from sexual excitement of a physical kind, and that little curiosity is felt about the precise modus ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... the middle of the room peering into the dark corners. The chief was so startled that, without thinking, he made one leap from the recess right out in front of the fireplace. The soldier, no less startled, up with his rifle and pulls the trigger, deafening and singeing the engineer, but in his flurry missing him completely. But, look what happens! At the noise of the report the sleeping woman sat up, as if moved by a spring, with a shriek, 'The children, Gian' Battista! Save the children!' ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... force, As almost beat him off his horse. He lost his whinyard, and the rein; But, laying fast hold of the mane, Preserv'd his seat; and as a goose 525 In death contracts his talons close, So did the Knight, and with one claw The trigger of his pistol draw. The gun went off: and as it was Still fatal to stout HUDIBRAS, 530 In all his feats of arms, when least He dreamt of it, to prosper best, So now he far'd: the shot, let fly At random 'mong the enemy, Pierc'd TALGOL's gaberdine, and grazing 535 Upon his shoulder, in the passing, ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... work, even as in the contrivance of killing a Fox or Wolf with a Gun, the moving of a string, is the death of the Animal; for the Beast, by moving the flesh that is laid to entrap him, pulls the string which moves the trigger, and that lets go the Cock which on the steel strikes certain sparks of fire which kindle the powder in the pann, and that presently flies into the barrel, where the powder catching fire rarifies and drives out the bullet which kills the Animal; in all which actions, there ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... Hal quietly. "That's why I must insist that you raise your hands. Instantly!" His voice hardened and his finger tightened on the trigger. "Shoot ...
— The Boy Allies with Haig in Flanders • Clair W. Hayes
... diwine, from experience, that the ewent gives you some sentiments that are werry original. My adwice to you is, to shut both eyes until the word is given to fire, and then to open them suddenly, as if just awaking from sleep; after which you may present and pull the trigger. Above all, Toast, take care not to kill any of our own friends, most especially not Captain Truck, just at this ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... forecastle; and here was the enemy crying and pleading like a frightened child. His obsequious "Here, sir," his horrid fluency of obtestation, made the murder tenfold more revolting. Twice Carthew raised the pistol, once he pressed the trigger (or thought he did) with all his might, but no explosion followed; and with that the lees of his courage ran quite out, and he turned and fled ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... missile Jared Long sent a bullet through him, and then, shifting the muzzle of his Winchester toward the line of dusky figures, he blazed away as fast as he could sight the weapon and pull the trigger. ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... gun at my ear. The monstrous arm released the victims, and waved in agony, breaking the thick, clammy branches of the vegetation, and the vast head disappeared. Edmund had fired all the ten shots in his automatic pistol with a single pressure of the double trigger and an unvarying aim, directed, no doubt, at one of ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... commanded Dick, an' I stuck in my tracks. "No man is allowed to doubt my deal without havin' something to remind him of it. I ain't a-goin' to kill that snake now; but I do intend to remove his trigger fingers." ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... tried to think out what life would be without a right hand. In the end he decided that it was not worth while. But he could not pull the trigger of his gun with his left hand. He tried it and failed. So at last he tied a stout cord to the trigger, fastened the end of it to the door, and sitting on the bench kicked the door to. They had ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... on their farms now flocked in great numbers to the forts, and every effort was made to strengthen the defences at all points. The men, including all the boys who were large enough to point a gun and pull a trigger, were organized into companies and assigned to port-holes, in order that each might know where to go to do his part of the fighting whenever the Indians should come. Even those of the women who knew how to shoot, insisted upon being provided ...
— The Big Brother - A Story of Indian War • George Cary Eggleston
... the debate rapidly, when the accident happened. One of the men, curiously examining Bassett's shot-gun, managed to cock and pull a trigger. The recoil of the butt into the pit of the man's stomach had not been the most sanguinary result, for the charge of shot, at a distance of a yard, had blown the head of one of the debaters ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... but Dundee paid him scant attention. He picked up the now harmless "Who's Who" and turned to page 410, a corner of which had disappeared with the string that was still fastened to the hair-trigger hammer of the Colt's .32. Very clever and very simple! The murderer of two people and the would-be murderer of a third had had only to unscrew the metal covering of the register, wedge the end of the silencer into one of the many holes, replace the screws, and paste the ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... is a remnant of College-day dreams (Its wadding is made of forensics and themes); Ah, visions of fame! what a flash in the pan As the trigger was pulled by ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... heat to start a chemical change. You already know this in a practical way. You know that you have to rub the head of a match and get it hot before it will begin to burn; that gunpowder does not go off unless you heat it by the sudden blow of the gun hammer which you release when you pull the trigger; that you have to concentrate the sun's rays with a magnifying glass to make it set a piece of paper on fire; and that to change raw food into food that tastes pleasant you have to heat it. If heat did not start chemical ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... went to his own bungalow and began cleaning a rifle. He told the servant that he was going to shoot buck in the morning. Naturally he fumbled with the trigger, and shot himself through the head— accidentally. The apothecary sent in a report to my chief, and Jevins is buried somewhere out there. I'd have wired to you, Spurstow, if you could ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... red welt shot across Burleigh's livid face as he himself staggered back to his desk. With raging tongue and frantic oath he leaped out again, a leveled pistol in his hand, but even before he could pull trigger, or Folsom interpose, Loomis's stick came down like a flash on the outstretched wrist, and the ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... to himself, he became aware that the warriors were invisible. They may have believed they were acting as oscillating targets for some hidden enemy, who was likely to press the trigger at any moment; and, unable even to approximate as they were his biding-place, they withdrew in their ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... roddin' this outfit," Kirby remarked. "That fella's gone to rout him out. Do your talkin' like a short-trigger man, Drew." ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... neutralized and made inoperative by the presence of the very faintest contradictory idea in the margin. For instance, I hold out my forefinger, and with closed eyes try to realize as vividly as possible that I hold a revolver in my hand and am pulling the trigger. I can even now fairly feel my finger quivering with the tendency to contract; and, if it were hitched to a recording apparatus, it would certainly betray its state of tension by registering incipient movements. Yet it does not actually crook, and the ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James
... Remington, but he knew the gun and, holding coarsely upon the swiftly moving blot, he began to shoot. The first bullet sent up a great splash of dust beneath the horse's nose, making him leap as if to hurdle a fence. The rifle was automatic; Gale needed only to pull the trigger. He saw now that the raiders behind were in line. Swiftly he worked the trigger. Suddenly the leading horse leaped convulsively, not up nor aside, but straight ahead, and then he crashed to the ground throwing his rider like a catapult, and then slid and rolled. He half got ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... the revolver, and, while he talked, with his right hand he played with the pen and with his left began slowly and imperceptibly drawing the weapon to his side. As his hand finally closed upon it, second finger on trigger and forefinger laid past the cylinder and along the barrel, he wondered what luck he would have ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... Mr. Yens!" shouted the captain, a small, bristling Martian with graying, stiff hair. He snatched the neuro-pistol at his side, pointed it at Tolto, pressed the trigger. ...
— The Martian Cabal • Roman Frederick Starzl
... Deerslayer, since we are on the subject, we may as well open our minds to each other in a man-to-man way; answer me one question; you have had so much luck among the game as to have gotten a title, it would seem, but did you ever hit anything human or intelligible: did you ever pull trigger on an inimy that was capable of pulling ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... Much as they had suffered in the assault, the assailants were too numerous to be longer held at bay. With a feeling of despair, Harold recognised the futile click that followed his pressure on the trigger and told him that he had ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various
... aunt to lie down by him in silence. Their lives depended now on neither their voices nor their movements telling the murderer where to fire. He chose his place. The barrel of the revolver grated as he laid it against the wall. He touched the hair trigger. A faint click was the only sound that followed. The third barrel had ...
— Miss or Mrs.? • Wilkie Collins
... of his enemies silhouetted against the blaze for a fleeting instant, then they were flaming statues. One only, Jung Sin, nearer than the rest, leaped for the window and escaped the first gush of flame. Allan pressed the trigger of his ray-gun. But no blue flash answered that pressure. The weapon's charge ...
— When the Sleepers Woke • Arthur Leo Zagat
... at all events?' enquired the ferocious Jacques. 'Why leave him the possibility of betraying our secret? Marguerite, give me one of my Pistols: A single touch of the trigger ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... tamarisk kept waving in the wind just in front of the rifle, beyond my reach. The mahout leaned forward and gently bent it down. Now, all was clear. The tiger's eyes were like green glass. The elephant for a moment stood like stone. I touched the trigger. ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... away at them that was piling out around the corner of the street, I let the gun go, and I drilled him clean. Great sensation, gents, to have a life under your trigger. Just beckon one mite of an inch and a life goes scooting up to heaven or down to hell. I never got over seeing Hollis spill sidewise out of that saddle. There he was a minute before better'n any five men when it come ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... a cannon sound so big. De Ku Kluckers 'peared ter hear it too, fer dey comed squar outen h'yer inter de big road. Den I opened up an' let her bark at 'em ez long ez I could see a shadder ter pull trigger on. Wonder ef I hurt enny on 'em. D'yer know, 'Gena, ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... polo-players, planters, African explorers, big-game hunters, ex-revenue-officers, and Indian-fighters, besides any number of others who have led the wildest kinds of life, all chock-full of stories, and ready to fire 'em off at a touch of the trigger. Teddy hasn't come yet, and so I haven't been able to do anything for you; but you must trot right out, all the same, and join our mess. Besides, I want you to pick out a horse for me, something nice and quiet, ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe
... surrounded the cabin, while I lay motionless, with my hand on the trigger of my gun. The savages now began to break in the door and soon effected an entrance. Immediately I heard a loud noise. They had discovered the two dead bodies and the rattlesnake. They thought the two whites had killed ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... The broadside was exposed, thus it would have been impossible to have had a more perfect opportunity after a long stalk. Having waited in a position for a minute or two, to become cool and to clear my eyes, I aimed at his shoulder. Almost as I touched the trigger, the antelope sank suddenly upon its knees, in which position it remained for some seconds on the summit of the ant-hill, and then rolled down to the base, dead. I stepped the exact distance, 169 paces. I had fired rather high, as the bullet had broken ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... down, he is bound to fall from a height. He must have been raised almost to the skies; he has caught glimpses of some heaven beyond his reach. Vehement must the storms be which compel a soul to seek for peace from the trigger of a pistol. ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... now left, to force his way through the congestion at the door, like a harried rabbit at a wattled fence. A touch on the shoulder simultaneously with the click of a trigger at his ear brought his face round over his shoulder. He made the instinctive pioneer motion to his hip, looked into the bore of the Colonel's pistol, and under Keith's grip dropped his "gun-hand" with ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... skin. His rifle barrel grew so hot that ordinarily he could not have borne it upon his palms; but he kept on stuffing cartridges into it, and pounding them with his clanking, bending ramrod. If he aimed at some changing form through the smoke, he pulled his trigger with a fierce grunt, as if he were dealing a blow of the ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... such fool. He is a mighty poor shot—and he knows it. Personally I believe he shuts both eyes before pulling trigger. He is armed with a long flint or percussion lock musket, whose gas-pipe barrel is bound to the wood that runs its entire length by means of brass bands, and whose effective range must be about ten yards. This archaic implement is known as a "trade gun" and has the ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... and the like, by which another and more important action, whose forces were heretofore restrained, can be set into activity: e.g., the pressure which sets in motion a machine, previously at rest, is Auslosung; the pressure on the trigger of a gun is Auslosung; the friction of a match which is the beginning of a great fire is Auslosung. (2.) This idea may now be applied to chemical processes: e.g., a glass of sugar-water will remain ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... office and an evening of exasperated misery at home, I got a revolver and some cartridges, locked myself in my room, confronted myself desperately in the mirror, put the muzzle of the loaded pistol to my temple, and pulled the trigger. ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... word spoken. Lawler saw the gun in Singleton's hand. He leaped quickly to one side as Singleton pulled the trigger—the smoke streak touching his clothing as he moved. He leaped again as Singleton shot at him a second time. This time he was so close to Singleton that the powder burned his face. And before Singleton could shoot again Lawler struck—with the precision and force that he had put ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... gun-trigger on the heap of straw, with her clothes on and her feet drawn up under her rag of a skirt, so as to keep them warm. And huddled up, with her eyes wide open, she turned some scarcely amusing ideas over in her mind that morning. Ah! no, they couldn't continue living without food. She ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... load all the four rifles, and he can not fire half as fast as they can load; and I say to the mother, "Can you shoot?" She says, "Let me try;" and she takes a gun, and points it at the wolves, and pulls the trigger, and I see one of them throw his feet up in the air. "Ah!" I say, "I see you can shoot! You keep the rifle, and fire it yourself." And I say to the oldest daughter, "Can you shoot?" "I guess I can," she says. "Well, dare you?" "I ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... distance of my pillow. What construction could I put upon them? My heart began to palpitate with dread of some unknown danger. Presently, another voice, but equally near me, was heard whispering in answer. "Why not? I will draw a trigger in this business, but perdition be my lot if I do more." To this, the first voice returned, in a tone which rage had heightened in a small degree above a whisper, "Coward! stand aside, and see me do it. I will grasp her throat; I will do her business in an instant; ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... enfevered and his lips dry and cracked. He carried a handsome fowling-piece, which presented, at first glance, no feature of dissimilarity to the usual pattern except that trigger and hammer were absent, and the rim of the barrel was not blackened ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... open; you are chatting with your wife, and sipping a cup of tea; outside, the assassins are supplied with a short ladder; one ascends to a level with the window, sights you at his ease, presses the trigger, the ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... another flash he seemed to realize what was up, sprang back, and drew pistol. He had caught us in the act. There was nothing else to do; we both sprang upon him. He fired, and hit me, but only in the arm, and before he could pull trigger again we both grappled him. I seized his gun, Bridget his throat, but he screamed and fought like a tiger, then wilted all of a sudden. I was scared and helpless, but she had her wits about her, and told me ...
— Waring's Peril • Charles King
... having as it were trained himself for the occasion, he is perfectly cool and collected, and ready to avail himself of every circumstance he might turn to his advantage—a moment's hesitation in pulling the trigger when the signal is given, and he fires first—many a man has received his death-wound before now ere he had discharged ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... never,' threw his right leg over the pommel of his saddle, slipped on to the ground, drew his knife, dashed at me, and after snatching my gun from my hand, stuck his knife (as he thought) into me. Then he rushed towards the captain, pulling the trigger of my gun, and pointing straight at the latter's head; the gun was not loaded, having only the old percussion caps on. (Now I saw why he wanted me to fire, so that he might know whether my gun was loaded; but the old caps ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... of the gravest sources of restlessness in the world. Touchiness, when it becomes chronic, is a morbid condition of the inward disposition. It is self-love inflamed to the acute point; conceit, WITH A HAIR-TRIGGER. The cure is to shift the yoke to some other place; to let men and things touch us through some new and perhaps as yet unused part of our nature; to become meek and lowly in heart while the old sensitiveness is becoming numb from ...
— Addresses • Henry Drummond
... what I'll do, Ralph. I'll swim ashore after dark and fix a musket to a tree not far from the place where we'll have to land, and I'll tie a long string to the trigger, so that when our fellows cross it they'll let it off, and so alarm the village in time to prevent an attack, but not in time to prevent us gettin' back to the boat. So, Master Captain," added Bill, with a smile that for the first ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... to them my favourite rifles, and had instructed them in their use; each man paid particular regard to the rifle that he carried, and, as several were of the same pattern, they had marked them with small pieces of rag tied round the trigger guards. This esprit de corps was most beneficial to the preservation of the arms, which were kept in admirable order. Mahomet, the dragoman, rode my spare horse, and carried my short double-barrelled rifle, slung across his ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... us, and not a shot was wasted. They did not fire, as regular soldiers nearly always do, volley after volley, straight in front of them, but every one picked his man, and shot to kill. They fired like lightning, too, never dwelling on the trigger, yet never wildly wasting lead, and all around us our best and boldest dropped, until we dared not face them. We dropped to cover, and tried to pick them off, but they were cool and watchful, throwing no ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... one of these, he broke the end off and rubbed in on the fore-sight very gently, careful not to let it explode, and succeeded in making the little projection so luminous that he could align it with the back-sight and the Arab's body. Then he pulled the trigger, and saw the dark figure leap forward and fall prone. Saw it, indeed, but only in a fraction of a second, for he stole back to the sand ridge, slipping in another cartridge as ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... shall find us men!" said the bee-hunter, with a mien as fierce as if he led a party of superior strength, and of a courage equal to his own.—"You have a piece, old man, and will pull a trigger in behalf of ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... and, for aught I know, might have been left on the island by Wallace, Carteret, Cook, or Vancouver. The stock was half rotten and worm-eaten; the lock was as rusty and about as well adapted to its ostensible purpose as an old door-hinge; the threading of the screws about the trigger was completely worn away; while the barrel shook in the wood. Such was the weapon the chief desired me to restore to its original condition. As I did not possess the accomplishments of a gunsmith, and was likewise destitute of the necessary tools, I was ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... himself yelling and firing his rifle as rapidly as he could pull the trigger. For a moment the five Brothers, all together, seemed to be in comparative safety. But then bullets began to sing about their heads ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates
... yuh to go ridin'," Jim said thoughtfully. "This here gun's kinda techy, anyway, unless you're used to a quick trigger. Yuh might be ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... was without result; but, at the second fire, Kugelblitz was struck in the breast; yet he still held his weapon undischarged. He pressed his left hand on the wound as he pulled the trigger with his right. The pistol missed fire. Another cap was placed upon the nipple, but it also failed. The second of Demboffsky then handed another weapon to the dying man; who, with quiet resolution, still closing his ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... Captain Klorantel called, informing me that a request had come in for emergency condensation. He told me to set up and await execution order. I preset two forward radiators for forty kilometers at low condensation, with a three kilometer radius at surface. I then put the controls on automatic trigger, notified the captain, and went on with my normal duties. At 0221, we came out of trans-light, and I adjusted my equipment ...
— Indirection • Everett B. Cole
... them, in a voice that shook and sometimes broke with rage, their character, their characteristics, the moral standing of their parents and grandparents, the probable fate of their sons, and the certain and shameful destiny of their daughters. He invited them, with finger on trigger, to advance one step and meet the death that should enable him to give their ill-favoured bodies one by one to the pariahs and the hawks, before he proceeded to sack Ain al Baidah and overcome single-handed the whole of its fighting men. And, absurd ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... troops; and it was generally supposed that the enemy would not be admitted without a struggle. Indeed some swaggerers, who had, a few hours before, run from the breastwork at Oldbridge without drawing a trigger, now swore that they would lay the town in ashes rather than leave it to the Prince of Orange. But towards the evening Tyrconnel and Lauzun collected all their forces, and marched out of the city by the road leading to ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... that box that you have dragged about London and carried on your defenceless shoulders, sleep, at the trigger's mercy, ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... was a scoundrel and a coward: a scoundrel for charging a blunderbuss against religion and morality; a coward, because he had not resolution to fire it off himself, but left half a crown to a beggarly Scotchman to draw the trigger at his death. ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... so will I," I shouted; but before I could pull my trigger a bullet whistled past my ear. Providentially no one was hit. My bullet also flew wide of its mark; indeed, I was too ...
— The Cruise of the Dainty - Rovings in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... metal imprinted a cold ring just between the eyes. He did not flinch at the grisly contact. His hand was as firm as a rock. He must depress the muzzle just a trifle—it would make more certain. He began to press the trigger, ever so faintly, then a little more firmly, strangely wondering how much more imperceptible a degree of pressure would be required to produce the roaring, shattering shock which should whirl him into the dark night ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... muttered the other as he gingerly poked the muzzle of his rifle through the few remaining straws. "Now watch and see if his hands come up and whether he falls forward or just drops;" with which he slowly pressed the trigger and the shot roared in the ...
— The Emma Gees • Herbert Wes McBride
... whirl, cutting to and fro with his terrible campilan, and before any one could prevent, he had felled two troopers. With a howl, Lewis plunged into their midst, pistol leveled, but before he could pull the trigger, the Moro buried the sword in his own ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... do; for they would sit down and say their prayers, sitting on an old saddle, or their knapsacks, maybe, and then take off their boots and their stockings, and lean their chin on the barrel of their musket. Then they would put their toe on the trigger, and pouf! it was all over, and there was no more marching for those fine old Grenadiers. Oh, it was very rough work up ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Cornish archers, may be best described by the arms they carried. The irresistible cross-bow was their main reliance. Its shot was so deadly that the Lateran Council, in 1139, strictly forbade its employment among Christian enemies. It combined with its stock, or bed, wheel, and trigger, almost all the force of the modern musket, and discharged square pieces of iron, leaden balls, or, in scarcity of ammunition, flint stones. The common cross-bow would kill, point blank, at forty or fifty yards distance, and the best improved at fully one hundred yards. The manufacture ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... hand shot forward with the fierceness of a tiger's claw: there had been a movement in the saloon entrance. Only by the fraction of a second was the finger on the trigger stayed. ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... A or point B—the same sort of process that guided the pen to make legible and effective writing instead of illegible and ineffective scrawls—the same kind of control that determines when and where a trigger shall be pulled so as to secure the anticipated slaughter of a bird. So far as energy is concerned, the explosion and the trigger-pulling are the same identical operations whether the aim be exact or random. It is intelligence which directs; ...
— Life and Matter - A Criticism of Professor Haeckel's 'Riddle of the Universe' • Oliver Lodge
... camera down to demonstrate. "Now just stand behind me," he concluded, "and pull the trigger when I say 'now'." ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... was drunk—declared openly that he would shoot me at sight. The waiter contrived to draw the cartridges from his revolver, and to give me a hint as I entered. And sure enough my man stood up, took aim, and pulled the trigger of the empty weapon. I hit him on the jaw, and let it rest at that. But if I hadn't treated that waiter right, I might have been a ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot
... have been shut most of the time, for I observe a good many elderly people adjust the organ of vision to any optical instrument in that way. I suppose it is from the instinct of protection to the eye, the same instinct as that which makes the raw militia-man close it when he pulls the, trigger of his musket the first time. He expressed himself highly gratified, however, with what he saw, and retired from the instrument to make room for ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... green flame. Kreynborg was using a pocket-gun, one of those small terrible weapons which shoot a projectile barely larger than the graphite of a lead pencil, but loaded with a fraction of a milligram of hexynitrate. Two hundred charges would feed automatically into the bore as the trigger ...
— Invasion • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... and silence of death seemed to reign within: yet each one of the little garrison was at his post, looking out through a loophole, and covering one or another of the foe with his revolver, while with his finger upon the trigger, he only awaited the word of command to send the bullet ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... and instantly a most surprising event came to pass. That jerk at the rope must have set a hair-trigger going, for there followed a sudden rattling noise, the loop was instantly tightened around his ankle, and in a trice Johnny was hanging head down, as helpless ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas
... the seal—all harsh and unmelodious, save the tones of this sweet little singer. Nothing but starvation or scientific research could justify the slaughter of one of these innocents. I believe I shut my eyes when I pulled the trigger of my gun, and I know my heart gave a regretful thump when I heard the thud of its poor, bleeding body upon the ground. When we started for Franklin Point the next day, Lieutenant Schwatka concluded to follow Toolooah's advice, and keep upon ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... him home, bag and baggage, sir. He is not entitled to the dignity or consideration of the usual formalities. Moreover, he is the trigger of the United States so long as he remains at liberty in it. I estimate that there is a new Jacobin club formed daily. At any moment he may do something which will drive these fools, under their red caps ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... night he would spend after the challenge, and the pistol aimed at him, he shuddered, and knew that he never would do it—"suppose I call him out. Suppose I am taught," he went on musing, "to shoot; I press the trigger," he said to himself, closing his eyes, "and it turns out I have killed him," Alexey Alexandrovitch said to himself, and he shook his head as though to dispel such silly ideas. "What sense is there in murdering a man ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... same, blacks are as ready as whites to take advantage of the weak, and are as civil and respectful to the powerful. We armed our men with muskets, which gave us influence, although it did not add much to our strength, as most of the men had never drawn a trigger, and in any conflict would in all probability have been more dangerous ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... this one white man. There had been times when he could have killed him from afar. More than once on the trail Wentworth unconsciously stood with the sights of Alex Thumb's rifle trained upon his head, or his heart. But such was his hatred that Thumb always stayed the finger that crooked upon the trigger—and bided his time. ...
— The Challenge of the North • James Hendryx
... of exactly as much use as a bucket of snow in Africa," I retorted. "If I had never closed my eyes, or if I had kept my finger on the trigger of a six-shooter (which is novelesque for revolver), the result would have been the same. And the next time you want a little excitement with every variety of thrill thrown in, I can put you by way of it. You begin by getting the wrong berth ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... The counterweight being suitably adjusted, the lever falls when the thread has become fine enough to need another cocoon. The stop, T, and the lever serve as two parts of an electric contact, so that when they touch each other a circuit is completed, which trips a trigger and sets in motion the feed apparatus by which a new cocoon is added. In practice the two drums or pulleys are mounted on the same shaft, D (Fig. 1), difference of winding speed being obtained by making ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 620, November 19,1887 • Various
... is an irresistible weapon of wholesale murder, and is just as deadly no matter who pulls the trigger. It spreads terror as well as death by its loud discharge, and it leaves little clew as to who is responsible for the shot. Its deadly range is so fearfully great as to put all game at the mercy of the clumsiest tyro. Woodcraft, ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... and spat the ball into it, struck the butt on the pommel of the saddle to send it down, as well as to drive the powder into the pan, and taking his chance of the gun priming itself, he aimed as before, and pulled the trigger. The explosion followed, and a second buffalo lay dead upon the plain, with a glove beside it to show to whom ...
— Away in the Wilderness • R.M. Ballantyne
... watched for a moment when it was well within rifle shot, and drawing his rifle from the toboggan he dropped upon a knee, aimed carefully, and pulled the trigger. The frost-clogged firing pin did not respond, and the wolf, seeming to understand ...
— The Gaunt Gray Wolf - A Tale of Adventure With Ungava Bob • Dillon Wallace
... also and looked after William Craft. I inspected his weapons; "his powder had a good kernel, and he kept it dry; his pistols were of excellent proof; the barrels true, and clean, the trigger went easy, the caps would not hang fire at the snap. I tested his poignard; the blade had a good temper, stiff enough and yet springy withal; the point was sharp."[213] After the immediate danger ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... tellin' how he'd never missed a shot. The boys, jus' to tease Johnny, had gone to the cabin that very day an' drawed his shot out, jus' leavin' the powder alone so Johnny would think he'd missed when he pulled the trigger an' ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... move that Gale had not witnessed for many years. He extended one of the guns, butt foremost, as if surrendering it, the action being free and open, save for the fact that his forefinger was crooked and thrust through the trigger-guard; then, with the slightest jerk of the wrist, the gun spun about, the handle jumped into his palm, and instantly there was a click as his thumb flipped the hammer. It was the old "road-agent spin," which Gale as ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... put her finger to the trigger. For a second the boat was quiet. The brown spot hung on the crest of a wavelet. It was a beautiful target; Marian was sure of ...
— The Blue Envelope • Roy J. Snell
... to decide approximately the whereabouts of his prey by the momentary shaking of a twig. He raised his rifle and covered that twig steadily; his forefinger played tentatively on the trigger; but on second thoughts he refrained. He was keenly conscious of the fact that the beast was doing its work with skill superior to his own. In comparison to his, its movements were almost noiseless. Jack Meredith was too clever a man to be conceited in the wrong place, which ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... was a self-cocker. He raised it again, drawing hard on the trigger as he did so. It roared and leaped in his hand, and a whiff of burned powder came to his nostrils. Then Wilbur was astonished to hear himself shout at the ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... know. When you've been goin' around ever since January loaded up to the muzzle with spite and sure-thing vengeance, same as an old-fashioned horse pistol used to be loaded with powder and ball, it must be kind of hard, just as you're set to pull trigger, to have to quit and swaller the whole charge. Liable to give you dyspepsy, if nothin' worse, ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... he steadied the gun with his left arm and shoulder, seized the pistol-grip, placed his finger on the trigger, and then slowly and carefully brought the target within the sighting ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... leave Bill alone," Briggs remarked, "there wouldn't be no fight. But he goes off like a hair-trigger gun, and he'd scrap a dozen quick as one. I'm lookin' to see his finish one ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... not—I dare say you will not, Mr. Tyrrel," answered the Captain—"I am free to think that you know better what belongs to a gentleman.—And as to time—look you, my good sir, there are different sorts of people in this world, as there are different sorts of fire-arms. There are your hair-trigger'd rifles, that go off just at the right moment, and in the twinkling of an eye, and that, Mr. Tyrrel, is your true man of honour;—and there is a sort of person that takes a thing up too soon, and sometimes backs out of it, like your rubbishy Birmingham ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... and sun on that smooth sward, only now and then roused by the fleet rush of a deer through the wood, or the brisk chatter of a plume-tailed squirrel, till one hears a distant, sharp, clucking chuckle, and in an instant more pulls the trigger, and upsets a grand old cock, every bronzed feather glittering in the sunshine, and now splashed with scarlet blood, the delicate underwing ground into down as he rolls and flutters; for the first shot rarely kills at once with an amateur; there's too much excitement. Splendid ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... bishops at my feet? The Duke of Ichar, and Don Fernan Nunez; And is it thus a faithful wife you treat? I wonder in what quarter now the moon is: I praise your vast forbearance not to beat Me also, since the time so opportune is— Oh, valiant man! with sword drawn and cocked trigger, Now, tell me, don't you ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... have families who would be shocked, or even blamed, if the matter became public; others have a weakness at heart and recoil from the circumstances of death. That is, to some extent, my own experience. I cannot put a pistol to my head and draw the trigger; for something stronger than myself withholds the act; and although I loathe life, I have not strength enough in my body to take hold of death and be done with it. For such as I, and for all who desire to be out of the coil without posthumous scandal, the Suicide ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... upon us, and, far from being naked, the miners wore all the clothing they possessed. Here the terror of the peons was an old American mine-boss rated "loco" among them, who went constantly armed with an immense and ancient revolver, always loaded and reputed of "hair trigger," which he drew and whistled in the barrel whenever he wished to call a workman. A blaze crackling in the fireplace was pleasant during the evening in the manager's house, for "Peregrina" lies even higher above the sea than "Pingueico"; but even ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... walked, I learned some particulars of that terrible device the Lewis gun; how that it could spout bullets at the rate of six hundred per minute; how, by varying pressures of the trigger, it could be fired by single rounds or pour forth its entire magazine in a continuous, shattering volley and how it weighed no more ...
— Great Britain at War • Jeffery Farnol
... that mean? It was a mystery to us, but the same idea struck us all, that he had been killed, and that the Prussians were blowing the trumpet to draw us into an ambush. We therefore returned to the cottage, keeping a careful lookout with our fingers on the trigger, and hiding under the branches; but his wife, in spite of our entreaties, rushed on, leaping like a tigress. She thought that she had to avenge her husband, and had fixed the bayonet to her rifle, and we lost sight of her at the moment that we heard the trumpet again; and, a few moments later, ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... time enough to blow him in two, and pulled on my trigger, not aimin' to hurt the old sooner, only to snap a bullet between his toes, but she wouldn't work. Old Jedlick he was so rattled at the sight of that gun in my hand he banged loose, slap through the winder into that ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... wounds-to disarm him. Immediately he found himself released he commenced the attack again, cutting and slashing like a demon, knocking the revolver from the consul's already badly wounded hand while he yet hesitated to pull the trigger and take his treacherous assailant's life. The revolver went off as it struck the floor and wounded the consul himself in the leg-broke it. The servant now rallied sufficiently to come to his assistance, and together they succeeded in disarming the ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... our men, but, as I said, to their right. I decided that Providence had favored me in providing a good-sized stump just beyond and in the line I proposed to fire. I brought my gun to an "aim," waited for a flash from a Confederate gun, and pulled the trigger. About as soon as could be, after the flash of my fire, came quite a volley of bullets singing around my head, from the enemy's line. I moved closer to my stump for more complete protection, when to my dismay, I found it to be only a body of tall grass. I ...
— Personal Recollections of the War of 1861 • Charles Augustus Fuller
... not act my part sufficiently well to command their respect, for the chief seized my handkerchief, and putting it into his belt, proved that he had no respect for flags of truce; another got hold of my rifle, and, on examining the lock, pulled the trigger, and very nearly shot one of his companions. One then took off my jacket, and one appropriated my hat, not withstanding my significant entreaties to be allowed to retain it; indeed, I soon found that I had little chance of ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... his position, which was on the outer rail. Grayling, the favourite, had drawn the inner rail. Jake, obeying orders, swung his weight on Alibi's bit and dragged the rearing, plunging creature into the middle of the line. At that instant the starter jerked the trigger ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan
... Roland, warmly, "would you not defend your life from the villains? Would you suffer yourself to be tomahawked, unresisting, when a touch of the trigger under your finger, a blow of the knife at your belt, would preserve the existence nature and heaven alike call on you to protect? Would you lie still, like a fettered ox, ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... ceases, the stentorian order comes to 'Down dog-shore!' on which the dog-shore trigger is touched off, the dog-shores fall, an awakening quiver runs through the sliding-ways and cradle; and then the whole shapely vessel, still facing the land from which she gets her being, moves majestically into the water, ...
— All Afloat - A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways • William Wood
... to tradition, that as Glenure rode on the fatal day from Fort William to his home in Appin, the way was lined with marksmen of the Camerons of Lochaber, lurking with their guns among the brushwood and behind the rocks. But their hearts failed them, no trigger was drawn, and when Glenure landed on the Appin side of the Ballachulish Ferry, he said, 'I am safe now that I am out of my mother's country,' his mother having been of clan Cameron. But he had to reckon with the man with ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... the Umbrella. The machine is thus kept expanded during descent. The car is fastened to the centre cord, and the whole attached to the balloon in such a manner that it may be readily and quickly detached, either by cutting a string, or pulling a trigger. Consequently, in the East, where the Umbrella has been from the earliest ages in familiar use, it appears to have been occasionally employed by vaulters, to enable them to jump safely from great heights. Father Loubre, ...
— Umbrellas and their History • William Sangster
... darted to the bosom of her dress. Before Alan could stop her—almost before he realized what she was doing—she had drawn out a little pistol, cocked it, and pulled the trigger. But her hurry at the last moment spoiled her aim. Alan felt a sting in the left arm, and knew that she had so far succeeded in her intentions; but with his right hand he was able to snatch the pistol from her, and to fling it ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... A tube of brass, thickening towards the butt, at which was a square chamber firmly welded to a socket for receiving the pole, formed the gun itself. Within the chamber aforesaid a nipple protruded from the base of the tube, and in line with it. The trigger was simply a flat bit of steel, like a piece of clock spring, which was held down by the hooked end of a steel rod long enough to stick out beyond the muzzle of the gun three or four inches, and ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... advise yuh to go ridin'," Jim said thoughtfully. "This here gun's kinda techy, anyway, unless you're used to a quick trigger. Yuh might be safer without ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... wire, Ned, Bob and Jerry, with the others, passed through. Each member of the party carried an automatic pistol and several hand grenades. These were small, hollow containers, of cast-iron, loaded with a powerful explosive, which was set off after a certain trigger or spring or firing pin (according to the type used) was released by the thrower. The explosive blew the grenade to bits, and it was scored, or crisscrossed, by deep indentations so that the iron would break up into small ...
— Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line - The Motor Boys Fighting for Uncle Sam • Clarence Young
... 'hind de log— Finger on de trigger and eye on the hawg! Click go de trigger and bang go de gun! Here come de owner and ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... by the muzzle, a young Boer attempted to draw it toward him. The charge went off and lodged in his stomach, inflicting a fatal wound. The soldier had been killed in the act of taking aim, and his finger had stiffened round the trigger. The young fellow thus killed by a dead man was the only son of ...
— With Steyn and De Wet • Philip Pienaar
... he pointed it full at the tall form with a steady aim. He pulled the trigger—the explosion followed, and that the bullet did its office there could be no manner of doubt, for the figure gave a howling shriek, and fell headlong from the ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... of the gun came to his shoulder. His fingers sought the trigger. Cautiously he thrust it through the bars of the gate. Bending down, he took a long and deliberate aim. The fates seemed to be on his side. Rochester suddenly stiffened into attention, his gun came to his shoulder, as with a loud whir a pheasant flew out of the wood before him. The two reports ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... clever foxes of the Opposition made the mistake of pulling the first trigger. Vinet, under the spur of self-interest, bethought himself of his wife's only friends, and looked up Mademoiselle de Chargeboeuf and her mother. The two women were living in poverty at Troyes on two thousand francs a year. Mademoiselle Bathilde de Chargeboeuf ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... And the dead between the trenches and death lurking ready at a trigger's pull should life show itself! When daylight comes the British sing out their "Good-morning, Germans!" and the Germans answer, "Good-morning, British!" without adding, "We hope to kill some of you to-day!" Ragging ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... my cabin. It was located aft, on the stern deck, near the stern watch tower. A small metal room with a chair, a desk and a bunk. I made sure no one was in it. I sealed the lattice grill and the door, set the alarm trigger against any opening of them, ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings
... Julien pressed the trigger, as if in obedience to that order, incorrect, but too natural to be even noticed. The weapon was discharged, and the three spectators at the window of the bedroom uttered three simultaneous exclamations on seeing Gorka's arm fall and his hand ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... screwed into the hammer; the spiral main spring, which surrounds the striker, is contained in a hollow in the body. The handle is placed at the rear end of the bolt, and bent down toward the stock, so as to allow the trigger to be reached without wholly quitting hold of the bolt. The extractor is so connected with the bolt head as not to share the rotation of the latter when the handle is turned down into the locking position. When the handle is turned up to unlock the bolt, the hammer is cammed slightly to the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 601, July 9, 1887 • Various
... rattlesnake. The sudden hate in the boy's face was curious—it was instinctive, primitive, deadly. He must shoot off-hand now and he looked down the long barrel, shaded with tin, until the sight caught on one of the beady, unblinking eyes and pulled the trigger. Jack leaped with the sound, in spite of Chad's yell of warning, which was useless, for the ball had gone true and the poison was set loose in the ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... at any rate I shall be glad to get her from under my intuition. She has somehow discovered my partiality for Sir Lucius O'Trigger: sure Lucy can't have betrayed me! No, the girl is such a simpleton, I should have made her confess it. (Calls) Lucy! Lucy!—Had she been one of your artificial ones, I should ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... ye," answered the Trapper, "fer my eye was at the sights and my finger on the trigger, and the feelin' of natur' was strong within me to crop one of yer ears then and there, Shanty Jim, but somethin', mayhap the sperit of the Lord, staid my finger, and ye went with yer thievin' in yer hand to yer camp ontetched ...
— Holiday Tales - Christmas in the Adirondacks • W. H. H. Murray
... but half in panic. Fowler Smythe squeezed his trigger and the tiny dart leaped unseen across the crap layout. My lift had been way off—it should have thrown the stick toward the ceiling, where no one would have been hurt. Instead it merely twitched the crap-stick, and the dart struck Pheola ...
— Vigorish • Gordon Randall Garrett
... spoke to the dogs. Man and huskies were not twenty steps from him. With a tense breath Philip replaced his pistol in its holster. He did not want to kill, and he possessed a proper respect for the hair-trigger mechanism of his automatic. In the fight he anticipated with Jean the weapon would be safer in its holster than in his hand. Jean was at present unarmed, except for his hunting-knife. His rifle leaned against a tree, and in ...
— God's Country—And the Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... to Euclid and Homer, which is of the greater importance nowadays, an ear that can detect a false quantity in a Greek verse, or an eye that can sight a Rebel nine hundred yards off, and a hand that can pull a trigger and shoot him? Knowledge is power; but knowledge must sharpen its edges and polish its points, if it would be greatliest available in days like these. The knowledge that can plant batteries and plan campaigns, that is fertile in expedients and wise to baffle the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... crackling pyrotechnics against the ether-wall of the squat and monstrous Standish. But Costigan's infernal machine did not rely only upon vibratory destruction. At almost the first flash of the pirate's weapon the officer touched a trigger; there was a double report, ear-shattering in that narrowly confined space; and the pirate's body literally flew into mist as a half-kilogram shell tore through his armor and exploded. Costigan shut off his beam, and, with not the slightest softening of one hard ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... the only piece of foolishness you have n't committed already!" replied Louisa, with a biting satire that would have made any man let go of the trigger in case he had gone so far as ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... seas for two-score years, at least half of them as master. At the outbreak of the Great War he was given command of the Doraine, relieving a younger man for more drastic duty in the North Sea. He was an Englishman, and his name, Weatherby Trigger, may be quite readily located on the list of retired naval officers in the British Admiralty offices if one cares to go to the trouble to look ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... colonel experienced a slight heat in his leathery cheeks. "All you've got to do is to hold your arm out straight, pull the trigger, and ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... intention of the mind, or the relation of holy things, which make a part of murder or sacrilege, have no necessary connexion with the outward and visible action of him that commits either: and the pulling the trigger of the gun with which the murder is committed, and is all the action that perhaps is visible, has no natural connexion with those other ideas that make up the complex one named murder. They have their union and ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books III. and IV. (of 4) • John Locke
... pistol and he looked towards Bellingham with an inexorable face. As the second-hand stole round, he raised his hand, and the finger twitched upon the trigger. ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... jointly, on condition that they marry within two years. Then, with a perfectly clear head, he laid down his pen and sighed, but his face was bright and tranquil. He picked up the revolver, cocked it, placed the muzzle against his temple, and without the tremor of a nerve he pressed the trigger. ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... pipe against a corner of the fire-place, got up and without saying a word, strode away. Wash Sanders was soon gone, after halting at the door to say that he might not be able to eat enough to keep a setting hen alive, but that he reckoned he could pull a trigger with any man that ever came over the pike. And now the Major, old Gid and the Englishman ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... Gudrun, coldly, stiffening a little. 'I can't see that they were even playing at killing. I suppose one boy said to the other, "You look down the barrel while I pull the trigger, and see what happens." It seems to me the purest form ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... ole gal did holler. 'Pears like I nebber hear a cannon sound so big. De Ku Kluckers 'peared ter hear it too, fer dey comed squar outen h'yer inter de big road. Den I opened up an' let her bark at 'em ez long ez I could see a shadder ter pull trigger on. Wonder ef I hurt enny on 'em. D'yer know, 'Gena, ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... the report of Mukoki's revolver, or the whoops of the victors. If there had been an ambush it was all over now. Each moment added to his conviction, and as he thrust the muzzle of his gun ahead of him, his finger hovering near the trigger and his snow-blinded eyes staring ahead into the storm, something like a ...
— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... light from him, and, pulling the keys from his pocket, he fell to trying them at the lock of the first chest. One fitted; the bolt shot with a hard click, like cocking a trigger, and he raised the lid. The chest was full of silver money. I picked up a couple of the coins, and, bringing them to the candle, perceived them to be Spanish pieces of eight. The money was tarnished, yet it reflected a sort of dull metallic light. The ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... reserve my opinion. Such were my reflections as I turned to resume my interrupted crawl to safety. But in an instant I was still again—still, and crouching close under the wall, motionless as an insect that feigns death, holding my breath, my hand on the trigger. For the door of the cottage was flung open, and Constantine and ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... objects which were wasting away. Their disintegration is identical with our own. They have their decay, their ruptures, their tumors, their madnesses. A piece of furniture gnawed by worms, a gun with a broken trigger, a warped drawer, or the soul of a violin suddenly out of tune, such are the ills which ...
— Romance of the Rabbit • Francis Jammes
... taken aim, and was about to pull trigger, when the canoe commenced rocking about, as if ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... equilateral triangle. In this large space thus inclosed several loons were surrounded, and the work of trying to shoot them began. Before beginning to fire, the boys had been warned never under any circumstance to pull a trigger if one of the other boats should be in line, no matter how distant. Bullets even from an ordinary shotgun will sometimes so bound over the waves as to go an immense distance, and very serious injuries have resulted. As has been ...
— Three Boys in the Wild North Land • Egerton Ryerson Young
... Ichar, and Don Fernan Nunez; And is it thus a faithful wife you treat? I wonder in what quarter now the moon is: I praise your vast forbearance not to beat Me also, since the time so opportune is— Oh, valiant man! with sword drawn and cocked trigger, Now, tell me, don't you cut ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... this, as he usually did, the spaniel circled away to where it narrowed, and leaped across it in his run. Then St. Remi, drawing a pistol from his holsters, fired at and shot his faithful companion, averting his eyes as he touched the fatal trigger, and galloping rapidly away from the death-cry that smote upon his ear; and, as he dashed the spurs into his reeking horse, he invoked maledictions on the money which was the cause of this unfortunate journey. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... defending his life, meant nothing short of a long term in the penitentiary, and still more probable death by lynching at the hands of a cowardly mob. He very bravely determined to protect his life as long as he had breath in his body and strength to draw a hair trigger on his would-be murderers. How well he was justified in that belief is well shown by the newspaper accounts which were given of this transaction. Without a single line of evidence to justify the assertion, the New Orleans ...
— Mob Rule in New Orleans • Ida B. Wells-Barnett
... glanced carefully along the barrels, but just then only the eyes of the brute were invisible. A moment of intense excitement followed, and then, emboldened by the extreme stillness, he showed his whole head above the surface. I pulled the trigger, and a Meade shell crashed through the monster's skull, scattering his brains in the water and actually sending one splinter of the skull to the opposite edge of the tank, where my little Hindoo boy picked it up and brought it ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... instant, Luerson struck Mr Knight a tremendous blow on the head with his mallet, which felled him to the earth, stunned and lifeless. He next rushed upon Frazer, who had fairly covered him with the muzzle of his piece, and would inevitably have shot him, but just as he pulled the trigger, the man whom I had seen creeping round behind him, sprang upon him, and deranged his aim; two or three of the others, who had stood looking on, taking no part in the affair, now interposed, and by their assistance Frazer was overpowered and secured. Whether they ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... that cast on purpose, will ever lay it," continued a third. But Spike disregarded all. This time he was resolved that his aim should be better, and he was inveterately deliberate in getting it. Just as he pulled the trigger, however, Don Juan Montefalderon touched his elbow, the piece was fired, and there stood the immovable figure as before, fixed against the tower. Spike was turning angrily to chide his Mexican friend for deranging his aim, when the report of an answering musket came back like an echo. Every eye was ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... telegraph poles, from kneeling figures, came the spurting flames of revolver shots. The reports were a sharp rattle. Martin dropped to his knee and raised his arm. The gun in his hand leaped like a live thing as he pulled the trigger. He was given entirely over to the battle lust of the moment. He was cool, he was happy, he laughed aloud, and he shot rapidly, with intent to kill, ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... quits his piece while he has any powder in his horn or a bullet in his pouch. I have not drawn a trigger this day, Eau-douce, and shouldn't relish the idea of parting with those reptiles without causing them to remember my name. A little water will not harm my legs; and I see that blackguard, Arrowhead, among the scamps, and wish to send him the wages he ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... course. Their father had been a soldier in the civil war, and in some way the rifle he carried, with his name and the date scratched on the trigger-plate, was sent to the boys by a comrade after his death. Dan, there, was handling it, supposing it unloaded as usual, when it went off and shot his brother, who was leaning over him, right through the ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... at the open window. Finger on trigger, Banneker held up his flashlight in his left hand and irradiated the spot. He saw the hand, groping, and on one of its fingers something which returned a more brilliant gleam than the electric ray. In his crass amazement, ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... to me. On they came nearer and nearer, uttering the most menacing growls. I had, I thought, but one chance—to knock over one of them with one barrel, and the other with the second. I pulled the trigger. The first barrel missed fire; the next did the same. In my agitation when last loading I had forgotten to put on the caps. I had no time even to remedy my neglect. I was completely at the mercy of ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... across a low branch, drew the stock snug and laid her cheek to it and her steady finger on the trigger. ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... kept waving in the wind just in front of the rifle, beyond my reach. The mahout leaned forward and gently bent it down. Now, all was clear. The tiger's eyes were like green glass. The elephant for a moment stood like stone. I touched the trigger. ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... prudent in the latter to have held his tongue, but instead he went on answering taunt for taunt, rather than endeavouring to calm the rage of the pirate captain, which increased till I feared every instant that he would pull the trigger. ...
— The Two Supercargoes - Adventures in Savage Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... sought wildly for Virginia but when she glimpsed Wiley moving swiftly towards the door she set down his dinner with a bang. The disrespectful epithet which he had applied to her had been lost in the clatter of plates, but the moment the Widow came into the room she sensed the hair-trigger atmosphere. ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge
... joined them. He was a two-year-old, young, tender, with the velvet just off his antlers. Thorpe aimed at his shoulder, six inches above the belly-line, and pressed the trigger. As though by enchantment the three woods creatures disappeared. But the hunter had noticed that, whereas the doe and fawn flourished bravely the broad white flags of their tails, the buck had seemed but a streak of brown. By this ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... rifle barrel grew so hot that ordinarily he could not have borne it upon his palms; but he kept on stuffing cartridges into it, and pounding them with his clanking, bending ramrod. If he aimed at some changing form through the smoke, he pulled his trigger with a fierce grunt, as if he were dealing a blow of the fist ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... pain, and for a moment he stood undecided what to do. Then a hoarse shout of triumph raised by the conspirators reached his ears, and, gritting his teeth, Bob pulled out his revolver, placed it against Firefly's head and pulled the trigger. ...
— Bob Chester's Grit - From Ranch to Riches • Frank V. Webster
... as in the contrivance of killing a Fox or Wolf with a Gun, the moving of a string, is the death of the Animal; for the Beast, by moving the flesh that is laid to entrap him, pulls the string which moves the trigger, and that lets go the Cock which on the steel strikes certain sparks of fire which kindle the powder in the pann, and that presently flies into the barrel, where the powder catching fire rarifies and drives out the bullet which kills the Animal; in all which actions, there ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... cocked at safety on my lap, I turned the muzzle of it toward the Tarjum, and purposely let my hand slide down to the trigger. He became uncomfortable. His face showed ...
— An Explorer's Adventures in Tibet • A. Henry Savage Landor
... a remnant of College-day dreams (Its wadding is made of forensics and themes); Ah, visions of fame! what a flash in the pan As the trigger was pulled ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... out over the muddy water, at first making out nothing but driftwood. Then suddenly he saw a log with an object clinging to it which he took to be a man, and an Indian at that. Alfred raised his rifle to his shoulder and was in the act of pressing the trigger when he thought he heard a faint halloo. Looking closer, he found he was not covering the smooth polished head adorned with the small tuft of hair, peculiar to a redskin on the warpath, but a head from which streamed long ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... like a flash and, raising the weapon, pointed it straight at the German captain and pulled the trigger. ...
— The Children of France • Ruth Royce
... and so by some instinct he knew in a moment that that must be the master maker of all this devil's brew. Therewith, still kneeling upon the deck, he covered the bosom of that shadowy figure pointblank, as he thought, with his pistol, and instantly pulled the trigger. ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... upon them. After all was complete, he stepped back against the door and squinted, gauging the elevation. It was to his satisfaction. With supple wrist and quick movements he uncoiled the small cotton rope he had brought with him and took two turns around the trigger of the shotgun. The rest of the rope he passed around a rod in the foot of the bed, which gave a direct back pull on the trigger, and thence he carried it over the upper hinge of the door, which opened inward, and finally down to the knob and back again ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... uttered, in a tone of eagerness and anger, within so small a distance of my pillow. What construction could I put upon them? My heart began to palpitate with dread of some unknown danger. Presently, another voice, but equally near me, was heard whispering in answer, "Why not? I will draw a trigger in this business; but perdition be my lot if I do more!" To this the first voice returned, in a tone which rage had heightened in a small degree above a whisper, "Coward! stand aside, and see me ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... fight against this horrible lethargy.... Her arm had grown numb.... Strange lights seemed to flash before her eyes—yes—surely—that was Gritzko coming towards her! She gave a gasping cry and tried to pull the trigger, but it was stiff.... The pistol dropped from her nerveless grasp.... She gave one moan.... With a bound ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... had begun to grow very anxious lest the others should take alarm, the bull likewise appeared on the edge of the glade, and stood with outstretched head, scratching his throat against a young tree, which shook violently. I aimed low, behind his shoulder, and pulled trigger. At the crack of the rifle all the bison, without the momentary halt of terror-struck surprise so common among game, turned and raced off at headlong speed. The fringe of young pines beyond and below the glade cracked and swayed as if a whirlwind were passing, and in another moment they ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... brought the sight of the gun to bear upon it, the heron refused to remain still, and the muzzle of the piece described two or three peculiar circles. When at last it was brought steadily to bear upon the mark it was about a hundred yards away, and the trigger was not pulled. ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... Proudfit's coming right back; he's only gone for his horse. There's plenty of time to hear the little I've got to say. John March, I'm ashamed of this reputation you've got for being quick on the trigger. O, you're much admired for it—by both sexes! Ye gods! John, isn't it pitiful to see a fellow like you not able to keep a kindly contempt for the opinion of fools! My dear boy—my dear boy! you'll never be worth powder enough to blow you to the devil till you've learned to let ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... device for unlocking any door fitted with a spring lock is shown in the accompanying sketches. A fairly stiff spring, A, is connected by a flexible wire cord to the knob B. The cord is also fastened to a lever, C, which is pivoted at D and is released by a magnetic trigger, E, made from the armature and magnet of an ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... and Maurice's sentence, they were giving it a preliminary trial. "The trigger's been slipping—not working well," the head fellow explained to the master of ceremonies. Back and forth the terrible guillotine knife hissed and whistled until they pronounced ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon
... loaded cannon up ag'in my head, an' then I'd shoot yer six times afore you could pull ther trigger," boasted Buckhorn. "Black Harry ain't got no license ter live arter this, an' I thinks it's ther duty o' ther citizens o' this yere town ter git tergether an' put him out ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish
... man! It would kill me with a lot of people as thoroughly as if I'd put the muzzle of a gun in my mouth and pulled the trigger." ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... Ulus screamed "Nei bjorn," and hitting up the rifle barrel, brought my finger sufficiently hard on the hair trigger to cause explosion. The shot went Lord knows where. I swore, and when the echoes had finished bellowing, I heard the bear swearing too. Then I began to sweat, for it dawned upon me that I had been within an ace of deliberately potting ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... battle for the first time; and I diwine, from experience, that the ewent gives you some sentiments that are werry original. My adwice to you is, to shut both eyes until the word is given to fire, and then to open them suddenly, as if just awaking from sleep; after which you may present and pull the trigger. Above all, Toast, take care not to kill any of our own friends, most especially not Captain Truck, just at ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... Thithia who was addressed disrespectfully by a younger brother and who, rather than live to have the insult made the topic of common talk, loaded his musket, placed the muzzle at his breast, and pushing the trigger with his toe, shot himself through the heart. He knew a ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... around. Dane was fully alert now. With his gun resting across a fallen log, he trained his eye along the smooth dark barrel. Then as the moose stepped forward and its right side was presented to view, he pulled the trigger. The loud report resounded through the silent forest reaches, and sent the ducks scurrying wildly out of the water. With a snort of pain and surprise the moose threw back its great head, lifted its fore feet from the ground, reeled for an instant, and crashed over on its side, ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody
... exemplified in the recent affair with the elephants. I had entrusted to them my favourite rifles, and had instructed them in their use; each man paid particular regard to the rifle that he carried, and, as several were of the same pattern, they had marked them with small pieces of rag tied round the trigger guards. This esprit de corps was most beneficial to the preservation of the arms, which were kept in admirable order. Mahomet, the dragoman, rode my spare horse, and carried my short double-barrelled rifle, slung across his back, in ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... wrath." With that he sprang quickly round, grasping at something which lay upon a shelf near him, and Phineas saw that he was armed with a pistol. Phineas, who had hitherto been seated, leaped to his legs; but the pistol in a moment was at his head, and the madman pulled at the trigger. But the mechanism of the instrument required that some bolt should be loosed before the hammer would fall upon the nipple, and the unhandy wretch for an instant fumbled over the work so that Phineas, still facing his enemy, had time to leap backwards towards the door. But Kennedy, though ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... survivor might do, provided one of the guns should fail; (for they were determined upon going together;) but forgetting, perhaps, in the perturbation of the moment that the gun was cocked, when he touched trigger with the rod the gun fired, and he fell, and died in a few minutes—and was with George in the eternal world, where the slave is free from his master. But poor Isham was so terrified with this unexpected occurrence and so confounded by the awful contortions of his ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... to open fire so quickly, so was not prepared for defense; but he was just so little behind him in time, that before the man could pull trigger a second time, he fired, and his bullet went straight where aimed, between the eyes of the one he intended to kill, when he dropped his hand upon ...
— Buffalo Bill's Spy Trailer - The Stranger in Camp • Colonel Prentiss Ingraham
... opened it and looked out on the night. There was no hall, the sitting-room is straight on the street. He took a great deep breath and came back again, and then he laughed, "Guess I'm a pretty fool," he said; "I've had them pointed direct at me with the finger on the trigger, too, and never turned a hair, but, by the Lord, to see your flower face close to that grim thing makes me kind of sick." It moved me deeply, Mamma; I ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... they reached the opening in the ilex grove they hovered, preparing to alight, for of us they could see nothing, one at a distance of about fifty and the other of, say, seventy yards away. I took the nearest, got on to it, allowing for the drop and the angle, and touched the trigger of the rifle, which fell to my shoulder very sweetly. The bullet struck that pigeon on the crop, out of which fell a shower of acorns that it had been eating, as it sank to the ground stone dead. Number two pigeon, realizing danger, ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... a cold ring just between the eyes. He did not flinch at the grisly contact. His hand was as firm as a rock. He must depress the muzzle just a trifle—it would make more certain. He began to press the trigger, ever so faintly, then a little more firmly, strangely wondering how much more imperceptible a degree of pressure would be required to produce the roaring, shattering shock which should whirl him into the dark ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... from behind and forced him to the 500-meter level. I was very close to him and quite surprised that he had stopped his twisting; but just as I was about to give him the finishing shots, my machine gun stopped. I had pressed down too hard on the trigger mechanism, in the heat of the battle, and this had jammed. The second Frenchman now attacked me, and I escaped while I could. The second fight took place over our lines. The first Frenchman, as I learned later, had ...
— An Aviator's Field Book - Being the field reports of Oswald Boelcke, from August 1, - 1914 to October 28, 1916 • Oswald Boelcke
... his pistol. The foe is wickedly spurring and yanking the bridle and cursing his horse. Every thrust of the spur into Nat's gaunt flanks pricks Rodney as well. He aims to kill and his finger is on the trigger, when, like a flash of light, he recalls Zeb's words: "Killin' even an enemy is serious, an' not ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... village behind us. What did that mean? It was a mystery to us, but the same idea struck us all, that he had been killed, and that the Prussians were blowing the trumpet to draw us into an ambush. We therefore returned to the cottage, keeping a careful lookout, with our fingers on the trigger and hiding under the branches. But his wife, in spite of our entreaties, rushed on, leaping like a tigress. She thought that she had to avenge her husband, and had fixed the bayonet to her rifle. We lost sight of her at the moment that we heard the trumpet again, and a few moments later ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... the town, I would say, where we had the mutton chops and where we heard the bullfrogs on the bridge. Or that town may be circumstanced in cherry pie, a comical face at the next table, a friendly dog with hair-trigger tail, or some immortal glass of beer on a bench outside a road-inn. These things make that town as a flame in the darkness, a flame on a hillside to overtop my course. Many years can go grinding by without obliterating the pleasant sight of its flare. Or maybe ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... our mizzen. So near was it, I wondered whether it might not be the lighting of a match at our own guns. It went again: and as it did so, my finger, almost without my knowing it, tightened on the trigger of my pistol and it ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... further, it was interesting to see what they would do; for they would sit down and say their prayers, sitting on an old saddle, or their knapsacks, maybe, and then take off their boots and their stockings, and lean their chin on the barrel of their musket. Then they would put their toe on the trigger, and pouf! it was all over, and there was no more marching for those fine old Grenadiers. Oh, it was very rough work up ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... was perfectly cool and collected. He lifted his weapon and aimed with such deliberate care that de Boignes, unable to restrain himself, called out excitedly: "Mais, tirez donc, Monsieur!" With a nod, de Beauvallon pressed the trigger. There was an answering flash and a report; and, as the smoke drifted away, Dujarier reeled and fell, blood gushing from his mouth ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... His manly paunch with such a force, As almost beat him off his horse. He lost his whinyard, and the rein; But, laying fast hold of the mane, Preserv'd his seat; and as a goose 525 In death contracts his talons close, So did the Knight, and with one claw The trigger of his pistol draw. The gun went off: and as it was Still fatal to stout HUDIBRAS, 530 In all his feats of arms, when least He dreamt of it, to prosper best, So now he far'd: the shot, let fly At random 'mong the enemy, Pierc'd TALGOL's ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... atmosphere of beginning that is peculiar to the first hour of daylight. Could he begin again? It seemed impossible. Yet now he felt he could not deprive himself of life. Suicide is a cowardly act, even though a certain kind of courage must prompt the pulling of the trigger, the insertion of the knife, or the pouring between the lips of the poison. Dion had not the courage of that cowardice, or the cowardice of that courage. Perhaps, without knowing it, in deciding to live he was only taking one more step ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... returning back, he met Tubourai Tamaide, near his occasional dwelling, and stopping to spend a little time with him, he suddenly took the gun out of Mr Banks's hand, cocked it, and holding it up in the air, drew the trigger: Fortunately for him it flashed in the pan: Mr Banks immediately took it from him, not a little surprised how he had acquired sufficient knowledge of a gun to discharge it, and reproved him with great severity for what he had done. As it was of infinite importance to keep the Indians ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... he recalled scene after scene out of the years, that voice did not trigger any return from his past. He turned toward its source, dully determined to get over quickly the meeting which lay behind that signal. Only, though he walked on and on, Shann did not appear any closer to the man behind the voice, nor was he able to make out ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... and wriggled the butt home into his shoulder. Dave watched him in silence; Mills was, he knew, a good shot, and he was now preparing, with all the little tricks and graces of the rifle-range, to pull trigger on the man he had risked—nay, almost thrown away—his life to save from the consequences of an ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... in a perfect frenzy of rage at the humiliation the stranger had put upon him, had at last succeeded in drawing the revolver. He had stopped, and now he deliberately raised it to Tarzan's breast and pulled the trigger. The hammer fell with a futile click on an empty chamber—the ape-man's hand shot out like the head of an angry python; there was a quick wrench, and the revolver sailed far out across the ship's rail, and dropped ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... sort of calculation, before his rope (which was short) grew taut—which was good judgment on his part, for his neck was sore; and his feet being tender, he felt his way carefully and painfully over the metal, as if he feared that at any step he might spring some treacherous, air-trigger trap-door which would drop and ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... life, and that, was an owl, of which he took the advantage of daylight and his stocking feet to knock off a tree in the deanery grounds, very early after his arrival. In his trials with John, he sometimes pulled trigger at the same moment with his companion; and as the bird generally fell, he thought he had an equal claim to the honor. He was fond of warring with crows and birds of the larger sort, and invariably went provided with small balls fitted to the bore ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... gather, he was all ready to pull the trigger, looking down into this here frowning muzzle before a mirror; and then something about his whiskers in the mirror must of caught his eye. Anyway, another work of self-destruction was off. So he come in and helped with lunch. Then he told me he'd ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... stripping for battle, for in comes all his light canvas, and up goes his mainsail. The man who commands that ship is a right valiant cavalier, and will put up a good fight; therefore, let no man put match to culverin or finger to trigger until I give the word. Now, let the waits play up 'The brave men ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... Dave Miller wanted to do was commit suicide in peace. He tried, but the things that happened after he'd pulled the trigger were all wrong. Like everyone standing around like statues. No St. Peter, no pearly gate, no pitchforks or halos. He might just as well have saved ...
— The Day Time Stopped Moving • Bradner Buckner
... lapse of a moment followed, when I heard the words "one," "two," "three," in tolerably rapid succession, and, at the utterance of the last, I pulled trigger. My antagonist had done so at the first. His eye was fixed upon mine with deliberate malignity—THAT I clearly saw—but it did not affect my shot. This, I purposely threw away. The skill of my enemy did not correspondend (sic) with his evident ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... face, for he was a man who could be all things to all men; and the blue eyes sometimes went black, and the smooth, shapely hand that was for ever stroking the long flowing beard, liked too well to feel a trigger in the crook of its forefinger. So I laughingly declined his offer—even when, as an extra inducement, he pointed out to me a very handsome young Marshall Island girl, who would do the station honours for me ...
— The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton - 1902 • Louis Becke
... He pulled the trigger. A deafening crash brought the boys to their feet, yelling. The shot was followed by a shout ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Alaska - The Gold Diggers of Taku Pass • Frank Gee Patchin
... 1775, not quite two years after his marriage, "The Rivals" was produced at Covent Garden and a new chapter opened in the history of dramatic literature. It is curious to think that the clumsiness of the player to whom the part of Sir Lucius O'Trigger was given came very near to damning the most brilliant comedy that the English stage had seen for nearly two centuries. The happy substitution of actor Clinch for actor Lee, however, saved the piece and made Sheridan the most popular author in London. How grateful Sheridan felt to Clinch ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... to understand. After he had fired one shot at the constable, Mears, and subsequently chopped at him with his dirk, he went into the house, seized a loaded pistol, and on coming out, said: 'Now, am I not your Saviour?' The words were scarcely out of his mouth, when he pulled the trigger of his pistol, and shot ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... of hitting his brother, he did not therefore fire till he got close up to them, and then, putting the gun to the bear's head, he pulled the trigger. Over rolled the creature, and Rob was set free. He was much hurt, but his thick coat had saved him from a worse wound. The snow was hard, so that they were able to drag the carcase over it to the house. One of the pigs was so much hurt that Rob was obliged to kill it, while the ...
— Taking Tales - Instructive and Entertaining Reading • W.H.G. Kingston
... set his camera down to demonstrate. "Now just stand behind me," he concluded, "and pull the trigger when ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... rifle raised. He was about to pull the trigger when he paused, for he had seen the bushes back of the ...
— Dave Porter At Bear Camp - The Wild Man of Mirror Lake • Edward Stratemeyer
... the act of raising it to his shoulder when the eyes were abruptly withdrawn. The time passed on. He knew that the puma had not departed, and he waited, ready. The eyes reappeared. Up leapt the rifle, but ere his hand had compressed the trigger a sound from behind arrested him. His head turned instantly, and, gazing through the light, drifting fire smoke, he beheld the outline of a monstrous figure bearing down upon the camp in an almost human manner. In size the ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... see," grinned Davy. "I'm loaded with information, like a gun is, to the muzzle; and all you have to do is to pull the trigger." ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... smouldering brown paper. They are remarkable weapons, with single iron barrels some four feet and a half long, about twenty bore and without stocks, but having pistol handles. There are no locks or springs, the hammer and trigger being in one piece, working through the handle on a rivet. The hammers have slits in them as if to hold flints, but which really are intended for the slow-match. Sometimes these men had good bags of ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... at not meeting the widow, whom he had been sent to escort to the Confederate lines. But he treated his sister's jealous suspicions with a dash of scorn: "There was nothing of that kind, but if Cophetua would fool with a loaded gun, he must expect to be hurt. If ever there was a hair-trigger, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... threw the pistol at the bear when you pulled the trigger," laughed Jerry. "Sure as you are born, Blumpo, that pistol will go to pieces if ...
— The Young Oarsmen of Lakeview • Ralph Bonehill
... for a march Section 2. Marching Section 3. Making camp Section 4. Camp services and duties CHAPTER VIII. TARGET PRACTICE Section 1. Preliminary training in marksmanship Section 2. Sight adjustment Section 3. Table of sight corrections Section 4. Aiming Section 5. Battle sight Section 6. Trigger squeeze Section 7. Firing positions Section 8. Calling the shot Section 9. Coordination Section 10. Advice to riflemen Section 11. The course in small-arms firing Section 12. Targets Section 13. Pistol and revolver practice CHAPTER ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department
... organism calculated to act in a definite way in response to certain stimuli. There is no need for, and indeed no place for, anything to come in between the stimulus and the act. The stimulus pulls the trigger of the ready-set nervous system, and the act follows at once. Acts of these reflex and instinctive types do not come properly within the range of volition, hence we ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... ducking-gun upon it an hour or two later, sufficiently to prove this. The birds would wait and watch, all the while glancing from side to side, and dip, dip, dipping their bills in the water with infinite wary quickness of movement, and yet with an air of audacious unconcern; but the pull at the trigger seemed to touch some nerve in them, and by the same act you fired your shot at them and fired them ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... Sterne. Not one has a ruling passion, such as we read of in Pope. Who would not have expected them to be insipid likenesses of each other? No such thing. Harpagon is not more unlike to Jourdain, Joseph Surface is not more unlike to Sir Lucius O'Trigger, than every one of Miss Austen's young divines to all his reverend brethren. And almost all this is done by touches so delicate, that they elude analysis, that they defy the powers of description, and that we know them to exist ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... delighted with the spectacle, and laughs to himself as he sees how remarkably deadly are all Sir Lionel's shots. A man falls every time he pulls trigger; if he rushes at a fellow, so great is the fear his awful presence inspires that the wretched Arab sinks down and actually ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne
... of a tile, whose small wounds are quickly bound up by tender mother or sister, and lamented over,—how shall we feel romantic in the midst of a shower of bullets? Enough done, if our vanity or sense of duty hold us there in any spirit, so that we do the needed trigger-work, and not turn tail and disgrace ourselves. Even the veteran's satisfaction, since the laying aside of steel armor, is not much, to be sure, or is gathered after the battle. There is some savage ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... and were returning across the park, picking up a stray rabbit every now and then in the tufts of long grass and patches of brake. One had just started before Forrester, and he was in the act of pulling the trigger, ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... slaves. In a narrow place, in one of the valleys at the entrance of the forest, a somewhat heavy gallery had been erected. This was made of wood heaped with great stones, and was so arranged that any animal running through it would push aside a stick, which acted as a trigger. This would release a lever, and the heavy logs above would fall, crushing to death anything beneath it. A lookout was always placed to intercept any fugitive slaves who might enter the forest, and to guide them through this trap; which was, of course, not set until after they had passed. This had ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... weight at his side. He found a holster and gun. He recognized neither. Again he watched objectively as his hand pulled the black object out and handled it. His body was evidently familiar with it, though it was strange to his eyes. His finger slipped automatically into the trigger sheaf. His legs were still working under two drives: the manythoughts' urging, and something else, buried in him. A longing. ...
— Cully • Jack Egan
... he drew from his breast a small pistol, which, with the quickness of thought, he held full in the face of his companion, and pulled the trigger. ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... recover his liberty, stepped one pace in his rear, drew the sword with force under his arm and instantly gave him a blow across the skull. His enemy was brave, and though severely wounded, drew a pistol, and, in the same moment that he pulled the trigger, Francisco cut his hand nearly off. The bullet grazed his side. Ben Wand (the man of the house) very ungenerously brought out a musket, and gave it to one of the British soldiers, and told him to make use of that. He mounted ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson
... hyar Injun," continued Seth, without noticing Mr Rawlings' explanatory interruption, "rushed on to me like a mad bull in fly time, and seein' as how he meant bizness; I drawed the trigger again, but missed him, and he flung his tommyhawk, which cotched my fut, and brought me to the ground as slick as greased lightnin', ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... chamber; it is summer, and your windows are open; you are chatting with your wife, and sipping a cup of tea; outside, the assassins are supplied with a short ladder; one ascends to a level with the window, sights you at his ease, presses the trigger, the bullet speeds—" ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... for some days he had been in despair, and desired several different Indians to shoot him; and an Indian boy saw him kill himself in the following manner; he put the muzzle of his gun under his chin, and with his great toe pushed the trigger."[1] ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... his criminal record had so much as pulled trigger in self-defence, was ready now to shoot to kill with the most cold-blooded intent—given one of three targets; while Popinot's creatures, if they worried him, he meant to exterminate with as little compunction as though they were rats in fact ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... along. He had—Morton had—a .44-.40 Marlin, but only one shell. Thrust the muzzle of his rifle right into the bear's mouth. Scared for a minute. Almost fell off his snow-shoes. Hardest thing he ever did, to pull that trigger. Fired. Bear sort of jumped at him, then rolled over, clawing. Great ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... pointed constantly at me. On my suggesting that he might point the weapon in another direction he roughly replied the usual thing: "There is nothing to be afraid of, it is not loaded"—and he proceeded to pull the trigger, the gun pointed straight at me, when I leapt up and snatched it out of his hands. There was a cartridge in the barrel and several cartridges ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... the savages. The distance was too trifling for me to doubt the fatal effects of the discharge; for I was determined to take deadly aim, in hopes that the fall of one man might save the lives of many. But at the very moment, when my hand was on the trigger, and my eye was along the barrel, my purpose was checked by M'Leay, who called to me that another party of blacks had made their appearance upon the left bank of the river. Turning round, I observed four men at the top of their speed. The foremost ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... they were actually coquetting with death itself! Waiting for them to come within range of the rifle requires great patience, for the approach is always more or less slow, and frequently just as they are at the right distance and the finger is on the trigger, off the whole band will streak, looking like horizontal bars of brown and white! I am always so glad when they do this, for it seems so wicked to kill such graceful creatures. It is very seldom that I watch the approach, but when ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... the shining pistol to my head And pulled the trigger hard — I felt no pain, No pain at all; the pistol had missed fire I thought; then, looking at the floor, I saw My huddled body lying there — and awe Swept over me. I trembled — and looked up. About me was — not that, my heart's desire, ...
— Young Adventure - A Book of Poems • Stephen Vincent Benet
... remarked, speaking more to himself than to me. 'There is a slight dent on the top of the window-frame. It is of such a nature as to be made only by the trigger of a pistol falling from the nerveless hand of a suicide. He intended to throw the weapon far out of the window, but had not the strength. It might have fallen into the carriage. As a matter of fact, it bounced away from the line and lies among the grass about ten feet six ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... its long, dark line into the blue distance, its narrow tributaries looking like the monster's many legs. I took it into my head to try to shoot from there into the water of Glen Canyon beneath us, and borrowed Bishop's 44-calibre Remington revolver for the purpose. When I pulled the trigger I was positively startled by the violence of the report, a deafening shock like a thousand thunder-claps in one; then dead silence. Next, from far away there was a rattle as of musketry, and peal after peal of the echoing shot ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... him with eyes that froze his trigger-finger, whilst behind her Rizzio grovelled in his terror, clutching her petticoat. Thus, until suddenly she was seized about the waist and half dragged, half-lifted aside by Darnley, who at the same time spurned Rizzio forward ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... his belt, and his hand reached for it. But the range was already too far for any hope of accurate pistol fire. His hard eyes gazed along the short, black barrel. His steady finger pressed back against the trigger. ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... steady rifle barrel, was saying again, "Pray, pray for me, girl." As the words left his lips, his finger pressed the trigger, and the quiet of the hills was broken by the sharp ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... two shining great pistols ornamented with carven silver, from the carriage holsters. The marquis tossed one upon the table near David's hand. "To the other end of the table," he cried; "even a shepherd may pull a trigger. Few of them attain the honour to die by the weapon ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... questioned, of course, but as soon as they learned who he was and that he had nothing to do with you, they would let him go. But if he were with us, say here, when we were pounced upon, and you had no time to pull the trigger of the pistol pointing into that keg of powder in the cupboard, he would be hurried away with us to one of the fortresses, and the chances are that not a soul would ever know what had become of him. Still it cannot be helped now; he may be useful, and as we give our own lives, so we must not shrink ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... able to decide approximately the whereabouts of his prey by the momentary shaking of a twig. He raised his rifle and covered that twig steadily; his forefinger played tentatively on the trigger; but on second thoughts he refrained. He was keenly conscious of the fact that the beast was doing its work with skill superior to his own. In comparison to his, its movements were almost noiseless. Jack ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... would prefer abandoning the cares and dangers of the ocean for a life of ease and gayety," said the captain. "The hand that has long dallied with a marlinspike may be easily made to feel a trigger, as gracefully as a lady touches the keys of her piano. In short, there is and there is not a great resemblance between the life of a sailor and that of a soldier. There are no gales of wind, nor short allowances, nor reefing topsails, nor shipwrecks, ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... all the merits claimed for it. I certainly never hunted any game better worth my powder; and to a young man with rare holidays and long working hours, its value was enhanced by the fact that one might bring it down at any turn, if only one kept one's eye alert and one's hand on the trigger. ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... longitudinally along its axis and 1-3/8 in. from one end, as shown at A, Fig. 1. A small notch is made with the point of a knife blade at B and notches are cut in the end of the wood as shown at C. Rubber bands are fastened in these notches as shown in Fig. 2. The trigger, whose dimensions are given in Fig. 3, is fastened in the hole A, Fig. 1, by driving a pin through the wood. The assembled parts ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... brought his piece down to an inclination of forty-five degrees, shut his eyes, pulled trigger, and sent a ball clean over the most distant Apaches. The recoil staggered him, but he recovered himself without going over, and instantly roared ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... saw it was no longer safe to do so—till he saw that it was the unalterable determination of the Indian to kill the hunter, and then, his face pale and fixed, he pulled the trigger. ...
— Do and Dare - A Brave Boy's Fight for Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... they have "the gift of the gab"; they rejoice in its possession; they lie in wait for occasions to display it. They have helped to give foreigners the impression that every American is an oratorical revolver, ready with a few remarks whenever any chairman may choose to pull the trigger. And yet there are Americans not a few to whom the making of an after-dinner speech is a most painful ordeal. When the public dinner was given to Charles Dickens in New York, on his first visit to America, Washington Irving was obviously the predestined ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... the opposite of what she really was. Now, you have tried twice within the last hour to murder me. For this I could have forgiven you. What you did to that young woman is, however, a more serious matter. I don't think anything less than pulling this trigger will expiate that." ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... things. I can't escape a severe fine, but what do I care as long as I have their money to pay it with? The killing of that fool boy worries me more than a dozen fines. It was uncalled for, too, but he would butt in, and you fellows were all itching for the chance to finger a trigger. Now the understanding is that you all start ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... "Bungler!" he cried. "Were you in my troop I would dip your trigger-finger in boiling oil to teach you to shoot! But you weary me, dogs. I must teach you a lesson, must I?" And he lifted a pistol and levelled it. The crowd did not know whether it was the one he had discharged or another, but they gave ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... Chris Travers, and shot his whole weight backwards, grasping the service gun, whipping it around and yanking the trigger three times at ...
— Raiders Invisible • Desmond Winter Hall
... nigger, laying 'hind de log— Finger on de trigger and eye on the hawg! Click go de trigger and bang go de gun! Here come de owner ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... with his left hand and settling his forefinger on the trigger, Kirkwood beamed with pure enjoyment. He found the deference of the older man, tempered though it was by his indomitable ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... he led us in silence down the trace, his eye alert to penetrate every corner of the forest, his hand near the trigger of his long Deckard. I followed in boylike imitation, searching every thicket for alien form and color, and yearning for stature and responsibility. As for poor Weldon, he would stride for hours ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... he shouted, at the same time putting his gun to his shoulder and pulling the trigger. The hammer fell with a sharp "click" just as the door was snatched to with a bang. The cap had failed to explode, or the chicken-eating days of the individual in the hen-house would have ended ...
— Two Little Confederates • Thomas Nelson Page
... the forest, a somewhat heavy gallery had been erected. This was made of wood heaped with great stones, and was so arranged that any animal running through it would push aside a stick, which acted as a trigger. This would release a lever, and the heavy logs above would fall, crushing to death anything beneath it. A lookout was always placed to intercept any fugitive slaves who might enter the forest, and to guide them ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... what do I care as long as I have their money to pay it with? The killing of that fool boy worries me more than a dozen fines. It was uncalled for, too, but he would butt in, and you fellows were all itching for the chance to finger a trigger. Now the understanding is that you ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... terrifying oaths Lighthouse Harry thrust a shell into the breech of the quick-firing gun. Without waiting to aim it, he tugged at the trigger. Nothing happened! He threw open the breech and gazed impotently at the base of the shell. It was untouched. The ship was ringing with cries of anger, of hate, with rat-like ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... unconscious, badly wounded, his hand still on the trigger of the gun he had worked with such success. He was carried back to the rest billet and thence to a hospital. Everywhere the story of the boy's heroism ...
— The Children of France • Ruth Royce
... extended on either side of the street of the Faubourg on the kerb of the pavement; the soldiers were stationed at every five paces, with the butts of their muskets resting on their hips, their chests drawn in, their right hand on the trigger, ready to bring to the present, keeping silence in the attitude of expectation. From that point a piece of cannon was stationed at the mouth of each of the side streets which open out of the main road of the Faubourg. Occasionally ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... through lanes, between fields, and stood again upon a hillock of Peckham Rye, and saw the morning break in beauty and in wonder over London. The vision gained from the foolish and romantic days of his boyhood, steadied his finger upon the trigger after all ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... in their direction, cautiously feeling a way through the great bank of mist. It was true that they could pass near without seeing, but chance might bring them straight to the little group. He shifted his fingers to the lock and trigger of his rifle, and looked at the sleeping three whose figures were almost hidden, although they were not a yard away. He felt that they should be awake and ready but in waking, Grosvenor, at least, might make enough noise to draw the ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler
... recruited from the Bowery. I happened to be with Kemp, their surgeon, when sick call sounded, and I never saw such a line of impudent, ruffianly malingerers as filed before Kemp. One, I am convinced, had deliberately shot off his trigger finger; but it couldn't be proven, and he'll get his discharge. Another, a big, hulking brute, all jaw and no forehead, came up and looked ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... the Collar of SS., between MR. J. GOUGH NICHOLS and ARMIGER, is, as Sir Lucius O'Trigger would say, "a mighty pretty quarrel as it stands;" but I have seen no mention by either writer of "the red sindon" for the chamber of Queen Philippa, "beaten throughout with the letter S in gold leaf:" or the throne of Henry V. powdered with the letter S, in an illuminated ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 54, November 9, 1850 • Various
... M'gambi went on to demand that Mrs. Baker might be given to him. 'Drawing my revolver quietly, I held it within two feet of his chest,' Baker writes, 'and looking at him with undisguised contempt, I told him that if I touched the trigger, not all the men could save him: and that it he dared to repeat the insult I would shoot him on the spot. At the same time, I explained to him that in my country such insolence would entail bloodshed; and I looked upon him as an ignorant ...
— Noble Deeds of the World's Heroines • Henry Charles Moore
... Frank who stopped his way, he gave me a violent blow on my stomach. Not being accustomed to put up with such salutations, I returned the compliment with my whip across his naked shoulders. Instantly he took his pistol out of his belt; I jumped off my ass; he retired about two yards, pulled the trigger, fired at my head, singed the hair near my right ear, and killed one of his own soldiers, who, by this time, had come behind me. Finding that he had missed his aim, he took a second pistol; but his own soldiers assailed and ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... costs or large but infrequent I/O operations. See {tune}, {bum}, {hand-hacking}. 2. The active location of a cursor on a bit-map display. "Put the mouse's hot spot on the 'ON' widget and click the left button." 3. A screen region that is sensitive to mouse gestures, which trigger some action. World Wide Web pages now provide the {canonical} examples; WWW browsers present hypertext links as hot spots which, when clicked on, point the browser at another document (these are specifically called {hotlink}s). 4. In a ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... was afraid; and he dodged down behind a barrel of carpet-rags near which he had been standing. It was well that John did not longer remain where he had been; for the revolver contained a solitary load, and the frequent pulling of the trigger discharged this. The bullet passed the very spot where John had a moment before been standing, and lodged itself deep in ...
— How John Became a Man • Isabel C. Byrum
... about the outskirts of the city. Did a leaf rustle, we started; did a shambling shape in the gloom whine for alms, we made ready for onset. Gilles produced from some place of concealment—his jerkin, or his leggings, or somewhere—a brace of pistols, and we walked with finger on trigger, taking care, whenever a rustle in the grass, a shadow in the bushes, seemed to follow us, to talk loud and cheerfully of common things, the little interests of a humble station. Thanks to this diplomacy, or the pistol-barrels shining in the faint ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... his arm and tried to drag the pistol from his grasp. But it was no use; Latimer's long, ill-hung limbs were the stronger. His fixed face did not change, but he wrenched himself free and flung Baird across the room. He set the pistol against his heart and pulled the trigger. He gave something like a leap and ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... indeed, the patent was a very old one. A tube of brass, thickening towards the butt, at which was a square chamber firmly welded to a socket for receiving the pole, formed the gun itself. Within the chamber aforesaid a nipple protruded from the base of the tube, and in line with it. The trigger was simply a flat bit of steel, like a piece of clock spring, which was held down by the hooked end of a steel rod long enough to stick out beyond the muzzle of the gun three or four inches, and held in position by two flanges at the butt and muzzle of the barrel. On the ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... was the son of his father. For the older Devereau had grown up from a handsome, dark-skinned, reticent boy into a moody and cynical skeptic who, at the age of thirty, had put the muzzle of his own revolver against his temple and pulled the trigger, because as he phrased it, "he was tired of the game." The skepticism was already there in Garry Devereau's slow smile. And Caleb often felt that the boy's black eyes were looking through and beyond, rather than at him. The bond of mutual ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... good chance to get me. But he must have flinched when he pulled the trigger. As I dodged down I saw him run through the trees. He had a rifle. I've been expectin' that kind of gun play. I reckon now I'll have to keep a little closer hid myself. These fellers all seem to get chilly ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... his glance pass to the three men seated at the table with cards and poker chips in front of them, The man facing Briscoe was a big, heavy-set, unmistakable ruffian with long, drooping, red mustache, and villainous, fishy eyes. It was observable that the trigger finger of his right hand was missing. Also, there was a nasty scar on his right cheek running from the bridge of the nose halfway to the ear. This gave surplusage to the sinister appearance he already had. To him Briscoe spoke first, attempting a ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... In that box which you have dragged about London and carried on your defenceless shoulders, sleep, at the trigger's mercy, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... men of Muideart,[158] While stream'd their flag its bravery; Their gleaming weapons, blue-dyed,[159] That havock'd on the cavalry. Macalister,[160] Mackinnon, With many a flashing trigger there, The foemen rushing in on, Resistless shew'd their vigour there. May fortune free thee—may we see thee Again in Braun,[161] the turreted, Girt with thy clan! And not a man But will get the scorn he merited. Then wine will ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... snatching a pistol from the pocket of the carriage, levelled it full at the head of the robber. The traveller was an excellent and practised shot,—he was almost within arm's length of his intended victim,—his pistols were the envy of all his Irish friends. He pulled the trigger,—the powder flashed in the pan; and the highwayman, not even changing countenance, drew forth a small ink-bottle, and placing a steel pen in it, handed it to the nobleman, saying, with incomparable sang ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... events. About Neopalia I had learned to reserve my opinion. Such were my reflections as I turned to resume my interrupted crawl to safety. But in an instant I was still again—still, and crouching close under the wall, motionless as an insect that feigns death, holding my breath, my hand on the trigger. For the door of the cottage was flung open, and Constantine and Vlacho appeared ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... under another rock slightly larger than the first. A roundish boulder made a pleasant rest for his captor, who sat cross-legged once more, facing Copper, his rifle across his knee, his hand on the trigger-guard. ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... his crossbow on the low arm of a tree, and as the rider came abreast of him touched the trigger, and the steel-pointed quarrel flew true and strong against the temple of the passing horseman. He fell from his horse like a stone and the well-trained animal at once stood still by the side of ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... stick of the Umbrella. The machine is thus kept expanded during descent. The car is fastened to the centre cord, and the whole attached to the balloon in such a manner that it may be readily and quickly detached, either by cutting a string, or pulling a trigger. Consequently, in the East, where the Umbrella has been from the earliest ages in familiar use, it appears to have been occasionally employed by vaulters, to enable them to jump safely from great heights. Father Loubre, in his ...
— Umbrellas and their History • William Sangster
... Hitchcock saw that he was trapped. These men would show him no mercy. At once the wild beast in him appeared. He stepped to the table, put his hand under the cloak, drew out a revolver, dropped it, pointing towards Rablay's face, and pulled the trigger. A sharp click. That revolver, at any rate, was unloaded. Quick as thought Crocker stepped between Hitchcock and the table. Then ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... vassal thither before his time. If Heaven gives you time to repent, I see no reason why my hand should deprive you of it, which, were we to have a rencontre, would be your fate in the thrust of a sword, or the pulling of a trigger—I therefore prefer to apologise; and I call Desborough, if he has recovered his wits, to bear evidence that I do apologise for having suspected you, who are completely the slave of your own vanity, of any tendency, however slight, towards grace ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... meet him out walking, right here in Philadelphia," said one of the staff. "He'll be disguised, of course, but you could always tell him by the absence of the trigger finger on his right hand. It's missing, you know; shot off when ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... latter ran up to scalp him. The people from the fort then, by firing their rifles, kept his foes at bay until he could be rescued; and he soon recovered from his hurt. Yet another man was overtaken almost under the walls, the Indian punching him in the shoulder with the gun as he pulled the trigger; but the gun snapped, and a hunter ran out of the fort and shot the Indian. The gates were closed, and the whites all ready; so the Indians abandoned their effort and drew off. They had taken five scalps and a number of horses; but they had failed in their main object, ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... want to kill you now it would be easy, wouldn't it?" she reflected, after he had reloaded the gun and laid it in her hand, the muzzle pointing toward himself and her finger resting on the trigger. ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... some quick on the trigger," declared Hippy. "The fellow who was with me ducked, and I heard him chuckling and laughing ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders Among the Kentucky Mountaineers • Jessie Graham Flower
... trigger and fired at the flash. They fired so well that Dick could hear Southern horses neighing with pain, and struggling in the darkness. He felt sure that many men, too, had been hit. At least no charge came. The seven hundred shouted with exultation and, leaping to their feet, prepared to fire a second ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... D and I, retracted from their respective orifices by a single trigger, H h', and provided with two springs, G J, to insure the effective closure of both said orifices, ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... no dinner, we'll pay for it," says Low, wherewith he up with a musket, squinted along the barrel, and pulled the trigger. ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... care sixpence for that; the wine-glass had no pistol in his hand. Take the old German, then; see now, hold your pistol thus,—no finger on the guard there, these two on the trigger. They are not hair-triggers; drop the muzzle a bit; bend your elbow a trifle more; sight your man outside your arm,—outside, mind,—and take him in the hip, and ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... Roger; but the girl threw back her head and laughed with relief and gratitude for the chance of merriment until the virgin morning seemed filled with song. Higgins' hair-trigger laughter rumbled deep accompaniment; and, as always, the engineer's merriment forced itself upon Roger, and he joined in, while the silver of the girl's tones pealed above both, tinkling in the sun-kissed palms above, rolling out ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... the eyes were abruptly withdrawn. The time passed on. He knew that the puma had not departed, and he waited, ready. The eyes reappeared. Up leapt the rifle, but ere his hand had compressed the trigger a sound from behind arrested him. His head turned instantly, and, gazing through the light, drifting fire smoke, he beheld the outline of a monstrous figure bearing down upon the camp in an almost human manner. In size the newcomer dwarfed the trapper; it came slowly ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... I made out a dark, indistinct form slinking in from behind the bushes. I waited till it crossed a belt of light which streamed from the back kitchen below me, and then I took careful aim and pulled the trigger. ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... avenues under the old trees where his aunt used to take him walking in old days; he saw himself a little child, happy and wondering; he remembered the castles he used to build with strips of plane-tree bark... The trigger was pulled. Jean beat the air with his arms and fell forward face to the ground. The men finished him with their bayonets; then the woman danced on the ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France
... surge of mirth overwhelmed Hal's hair-trigger nerves. He began to laugh, with strange, quick catchings of the breath: to laugh tumultuously, ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... had passed out of sight between Bartley and Colonel Clifford, for what the young people heard now was quite enough to make what Sir Lucius O'Trigger calls a very pretty quarrel. Bartley, hitherto known to Mary as a very oily speaker, shouted at the top of his voice in arrogant defiance, "You're not a child, are you? You are old enough to read papers before you ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... down ironically on the four flushed, startled faces that looked up at him. Suspicion was alive in every rustle of the men's clothes. It breathed from the lowering countenances. It itched at the fingers longing for the trigger. The unending terror of a bandit's life is that no man trusts his fellow. Hence one betrays another for fear of betrayal, or stabs him in the ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... said I, "you must not be a drone in the hive; what will ye do for us? You should be a capital Sir Lucius O'Trigger, if we could ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 2 • Charles James Lever
... collected. He lifted his weapon and aimed with such deliberate care that de Boignes, unable to restrain himself, called out excitedly: "Mais, tirez donc, Monsieur!" With a nod, de Beauvallon pressed the trigger. There was an answering flash and a report; and, as the smoke drifted away, Dujarier reeled and fell, blood gushing from his ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... a repeating rifle in my hand; you are in clear view; just before firing the cannon, I shall shoot you, and when I pull trigger, ...
— Up the Forked River - Or, Adventures in South America • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... And is it not often very well known, by style and in other ways, who it was wrote the article? This system is matter of form just as much as loaded pistols are matter of form so long as the wearer is not assailed; but matter of form takes the form of matter in the pulling of a trigger, so soon as the need arises. Editors and contributors who can work together find each other out by elective affinity, so that the common run of events settles down into most articles appearing much as they are written. And there are two safety-valves; that is, when judicious persons come together. ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... the village behind us. What did that mean? It was a mystery to us, but the same idea struck us all, that he had been killed, and that the Prussians were blowing the trumpet to draw us into an ambush. We therefore returned to the cottage, keeping a careful lookout, with our fingers on the trigger and hiding under the branches. But his wife, in spite of our entreaties, rushed on, leaping like a tigress. She thought that she had to avenge her husband, and had fixed the bayonet to her rifle. We lost sight of her at the moment that we heard the trumpet again, and a few moments ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... anemones, and worms, which he taught the sailors the names of—polycheats and sepunculids, I think he called them. He caught various fishes, including sea-perches, garfish, coralfish, and an eel, a small octopus and a quantity of sponges. Trigger-fish were so abundant that many of them were speared from the ship with the greatest of ease, and Rennick harpooned a couple from a boat with an ordinary dinner fork. Lillie, who had recovered from measles, was all about, and ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... was brave. Brave as the bravest. His glance was as keen and his mouth was as silent As a trailer's should be who looks and who listens By day and by night, having no one to talk to. His finger was quick when it handled the trigger, And his eye loved the sights as lightning loves rivers. I've seen him stand up when the odds were against him. Stand up like a man who takes coolly the chances. That proves he was brave as I ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... manner made Larry suspicious, and he glanced around hurriedly. As he did so there was a click of a trigger from ...
— The Campaign of the Jungle - or, Under Lawton through Luzon • Edward Stratemeyer
... is hove up, are manned by twenty or thirty men. When hauled up thus to their position the boats are held fast on the inclined plane on which they rest by a stern chain rove through a hole in the keel called the 'ruffles.' This chain is fastened by a 'trigger,' and when next the lugger is to be launched great flat blocks of wood called 'skids,' which are always well greased, are laid down in front of her stem, her crew climb on board, the mizzen is set, and the trigger is let go. By her own impetus the lugger ...
— Heroes of the Goodwin Sands • Thomas Stanley Treanor
... out their own traditions. They might have succeeded if Doggie had discovered any reserve source of pride from which to draw. But Doggie was hopeless at his work. The mechanism of a rifle filled him with dismay. He could not help shutting his eyes before he pulled the trigger. Inured all his life to lethargic action, he found the smart crisp movements of drill almost impossible to attain. The riding-school was a terror and a torture. Every second he deemed himself in imminent peril of ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... nothing short of a long term in the penitentiary, and still more probable death by lynching at the hands of a cowardly mob. He very bravely determined to protect his life as long as he had breath in his body and strength to draw a hair trigger on his would-be murderers. How well he was justified in that belief is well shown by the newspaper accounts which were given of this transaction. Without a single line of evidence to justify the assertion, the New Orleans ...
— Mob Rule in New Orleans • Ida B. Wells-Barnett
... later the word "fire" came and the two men whirled into position. Dickey's arm went up like a flash, the other's more cruelly deliberate. Two loud reports followed in quick succession, the slim American's nervous finger pressed the trigger first. He had not taken aim. He had located his man's position before turning away, and the whole force of his will was bent on driving the bullet directly toward the spot he had in mind. Kapolski's bullet struck the wall above Dickey's head, his deadly aim spoiled by the quick, reckless shot ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... Duke of Ichar, and Don Fernan Nunez; And is it thus a faithful wife you treat? I wonder in what quarter now the moon is: I praise your vast forbearance not to beat Me also, since the time so opportune is— Oh, valiant man! with sword drawn and cocked trigger, Now, tell me, don't you cut ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... length, 'which is it to be—the revolver, marriage, or the money?' She ominously clicked the trigger, 'I give ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... indications of impatience. He fingered the trigger of his weapon, and then slowly raised it on a line with ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... were Mr. Miller's finger prints all over the gun, that part of Mr. Miller's thumb print, his right thumb was on the trigger, showin' that that's the way he must have pulled the ...
— Death Points a Finger • Will Levinrew
... despairingly at the blaster's trigger. Nothing happened. Before she could realize that she hadn't turned off the safety, Calhoun twisted the weapon from her fingers. He ...
— This World Is Taboo • Murray Leinster
... inches above his coil of springs, was a rattlesnake. The sudden hate in the boy's face was curious—it was instinctive, primitive, deadly. He must shoot off-hand now and he looked down the long barrel, shaded with tin, until the sight caught on one of the beady, unblinking eyes and pulled the trigger. Jack leaped with the sound, in spite of Chad's yell of warning, which was useless, for the ball had gone true and the poison was set loose in the ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... Grigosie lowered the rifle which he had held ready for use, his finger resting lightly on the trigger; but he did not move from his post until Ellerey ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... a cayman of the small species, measuring about five feet in length; I saw it in the same place for months, but could never get a shot at it, for, the moment I thought I was sure of it, it dived under the water before I could pull the trigger. At last I got an Indian with his bow and arrow: he stood up in the canoe with his bow ready bent, and as we drifted past the place he sent his arrow into the cayman's eye, and killed it dead. The skin of this little species is much harder and stronger ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... that exposure and chilling will often produce a cold. This is usually due to the fact that the nerve centers controlling the circulation of the skin are over-sensitive, and exhibit a sort of hair-trigger reaction to exposure, causing a disturbance of the circulation, and of the heat-regulating machinery of the body of which the spongy shelf-like turbinated bones in the nose are an important part. Skin training, then, appears to be the ...
— How to Live - Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science • Irving Fisher and Eugene Fisk
... has no history of any particular interest. But if he lacks history, he has a temper—a temper with which it is useless to argue. The photographer, with courage worthy of a better cause, leapt light-heartedly into the paddock, with the trigger of his hand camera at half cock. With a lightning movement he took aim, but the pigmy was too quick for him. He charged our harmless snapshotter, who, "retiring in confusion," as the war correspondents say, made for the fence and fell over it, camera and all, only half a second before the infuriated ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various
... we walked, I learned some particulars of that terrible device the Lewis gun; how that it could spout bullets at the rate of six hundred per minute; how, by varying pressures of the trigger, it could be fired by single rounds or pour forth its entire magazine in a continuous, shattering volley and how it weighed ...
— Great Britain at War • Jeffery Farnol
... kitchen, like young jackdaws in a row with their mouths a little open, were the three farm boys, seated on a bench gripped to the alcove of the great fire-way, munching bread and cheese. Above their heads a gun was hung, trigger upwards, and two hams were mellowing in the smoke. At the feet of a black-haired girl, who was slicing onions, lay a sheep dog of tremendous age, with nose stretched out on paws, and in his little blue ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... little preliminaries they settled upon Corporal "Wat" Payne, of my company, as their first victim. The reader will remember Payne as one of the two Corporals who pulled the trigger to the scaffold at the ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... up described as an "absolute surmise" the theory of the accidental discharge of the pistol. He asked the jury to take Peace's revolver in their hands and try the trigger, so as to see for themselves whether it was likely to go off accidentally or not. He pointed out that the pistol produced might not have been the pistol used at Banner Cross; at the same time the bullet fired in November, 1876, bore marks such as would have been produced ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... well that he did so, as the heavy rifle cracked a second time, and a plowing bullet caused fine particles of earth to fly over him. Tayoga leveled his pistol at the flash and smoke, but did not pull the trigger. ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... being followed perhaps by a slight "ping" as the strained wire separates. The ensuing silence is almost heart-breaking, for in contrast something else may at any instant be increasing its tension, a sentry's trigger-finger. One stormy night, when in hospital, I had reason to believe that an officer would make an attempt in that part of the camp at a given hour, so had an excellent chance of watching operations, which was not wasted. I ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight
... his revolver at the place where he felt his heart beating, pulled the trigger and rolled to ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... vaulted over the animal in their path. The clatter of pursuing hoofs stopped the runner for an instant, and in that same instant Philip halted and rose in his stirrups to fire. As his finger pressed the trigger there came to his ears a thrilling sound from behind him—the sharp galloping beat of steel upon rock! Billinger was coming—Billinger, with his broken leg ...
— Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • James Oliver Curwood
... losing the case, though that was bad enough. It was losing my infernal hair-trigger of a temper that's been cutting in like a knife. I had the boy where he ought to get well if they followed my precautions a thousand times repeated. This morning his heart was a whole lot stronger; it ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond
... are you thinking to do away with me? To shoot me with the trigger of a gun and to give me shortening ...
— New Irish Comedies • Lady Augusta Gregory
... the gun. But it must have had a double charge in it and been rusted at that. All I know is that after I pulled the trigger I thought the end of the world had come. I heard a clap of thunder, and then I went flying over backward ...
— Tom Swift and his Aerial Warship - or, The Naval Terror of the Seas • Victor Appleton
... of the entrance of any bear that was likely to come that way. The roof was held in this position by a stout lever, which rested across the limb of a convenient tree. A rope led from the other end of the lever, down through a hole in the roof, to the trigger, to which the bait—an ear of corn—was attached. The bear was expected to crawl through the opening and seize the ear of corn; and in so doing, he would spring the trigger, release the lever and the roof would fall down ...
— The Boy Trapper • Harry Castlemon
... as if to relieve it from the cramped position he had complained of. Archdale saw that the muzzle was pointed directly at him and that the hand which held it in apparent carelessness was working almost imperceptibly towards the trigger. That would not be touched quite yet, however, a shot now would alarm the garrison and be inexcusable. The accident would happen in the excitement of landing. Archdale's left hand that he with as great indifference as Edmonson's laid upon the boat's edge was steady. ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various
... construction, experienced a new sensation of fear. Never had she seen her father use a firearm; his ready fists were more to his liking. With a breathless rush she stood by his side, one hand gripping the wrist of the hand that held the trigger guard. ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... again, and the bullet passed through the nest without touching the bird. I then asked the king to allow me to try his Whitworth, to which a little bit of stick, as a charm to secure a correct aim, had been tied below the trigger-guard. This time I broke the bird's leg, and knocked him half out of the nest; so, running up to the king, I pointed to the charm, saying, That has done it—hoping to laugh him out of the folly; but he took my joke ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... to throw up his hands and surrender, when he made a slight movement that aroused Bim. This faithful sentinel sprang up with a loud bark. In the dim light Sheriff Riley had not noticed the dog, and he was so much upset by this unexpected challenge that his finger closed on the hair-trigger of his revolver. Fortunately his aim was so wild that no harm was done by the shot that followed. It was all the signal that the Sheriff's followers needed, and they immediately carried out their part of ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... press the trigger, there was a report from another quarter and the horse and its rider ...
— The Broncho Rider Boys with Funston at Vera Cruz - Or, Upholding the Honor of the Stars and Stripes • Frank Fowler
... mother or sister, and lamented over,—how shall we feel romantic in the midst of a shower of bullets? Enough done, if our vanity or sense of duty hold us there in any spirit, so that we do the needed trigger-work, and not turn tail and disgrace ourselves. Even the veteran's satisfaction, since the laying aside of steel armor, is not much, to be sure, or is gathered after the battle. There is some savage ecstasy, perhaps, when he sees his enemy fall, or when he sees his back; this last, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... himself under this window, which he realized must be almost over Shorty's head. It was but the work of an instant to grasp Pat's gun and stick its nose well through the little half moon of an opening in the shutter, pointed straight over Shorty's head into the woods, and pull the trigger. ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... discredit. Will Jones had a temper that distinguished him from the general run of boys. Will's temper might have been inherited from a Spanish pirate, and yet Will was a boy whom every one loved; but this hair-trigger temper at times terribly spoiled things. It would be tedious to recount his uprisings of anger, and the direful ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... the mangled body of the dead deer; "if I had but made up my mind and pressed the trigger a few seconds earlier, you would have been spared a good deal of terror and suffering. As it is—well, let us get back to the raft, Dick, and send a couple of men to bring in the deer. Its tongue and hind-quarters are untouched, and will afford ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... you, Carlyle," he hissed hatefully. "By God, I don't know why I shouldn't, the devils in hell would laugh if I did—so don't tempt me too far. Get out of here, damn you! Every time I look at you I see her face. If you take a step nearer, I pull the trigger—go!" ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... apelike thug who was holding the shotgun had a chance to pull the trigger once more, but he wasn't aiming very well. The blast merely scored the paint off ...
— That Sweet Little Old Lady • Gordon Randall Garrett (AKA Mark Phillips)
... wire has been stretched to its full tension. I have everything removed from lever, so there can be no meddling or altering. When once the wire is stretched so that no slack remains between lever and trigger, no ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 286 - June 25, 1881 • Various
... could launch the missile Jared Long sent a bullet through him, and then, shifting the muzzle of his Winchester toward the line of dusky figures, he blazed away as fast as he could sight the weapon and pull the trigger. ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... radiation. But in order for radioactive breakdown to occur, time must pass. Even if it's only milliseconds, as in the case of an m.g. gun. There aren't any milliseconds on this world, Margot. There isn't any time. So go ahead and pull the trigger." ...
— Equation of Doom • Gerald Vance
... intervals. And every time it went off it kicked back like a musket. I padded my breast for a few days, but finally took the watch to another watchmaker. He picked it all to pieces, and turned the ruin over and over under his glass; and then he said there appeared to be something the matter with the hair-trigger. He fixed it, and gave it a fresh start. It did well now, except that always at ten minutes to ten the hands would shut together like a pair of scissors, and from that time forth they would travel together. The oldest man in the world could not make head or tail of the time of day by such a watch, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... his hand down to the lock of the gun, and drew back the trigger. Cautiously as it was done, he could not prevent a slight clicking sound, which, perhaps, struck the ear of the Solitary, for he turned his head and moved in the chair. The Indian slunk to the edge of the window, so as to conceal his person from any one within the room, ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... the rumpad was no more. Forgotten the debonair courtesy of Claude Duval! Forgotten the lightning wit, the swift repartee of the incomparable Hind! No longer was the hightoby-gloak a 'gentleman' of the road; he was a butcher, if not a beggar, on horseback; a braggart without the courage to pull a trigger; a swashbuckler, oblivious of that ancient style which converted the misery of surrender into a privilege. Yet Harry Simms, the supreme adventurer of his age, was not without distinction; his lithe form and his hard-ridden horse were the common dread of England; ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... incident was forgotten within a week. I simply mention this to give some idea of the men of that day, willing to back their opinions, even on trivial matters, with their lives. "I'm the quickest man on the trigger that ever came over the trail," said a cowpuncher to me one night in a saloon in Abilene. "You're a blankety blank liar," said a quiet little man, a perfect stranger to both of us, not even casting a glance our way. I wrested a six-shooter from the hand of ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams
... the screw-together. He screws on the heel plate, the guard that protects the trigger, puts in the trigger plate, lets in the pipes to hold the ramrod, puts on the nozzle cap, and all ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... and he doubted, like Fortune, because of its weight. But he held it, arm extended, above his head, and then let it slowly drop forward and down. At the instant Fortune's left breast and the sight flashed into line with his eye, he pulled the trigger. Fortune did not whirl, but gay San Francisco dimmed and faded, and as the sun-bright snow turned black and blacker, he breathed his last malediction on the Chance ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... that around that bend and behind the rice dykes and in the nearby trenches were Filipino insurgents with finger on the trigger ready to begin an assault. But until the first gun of the first battle is fired, battle seems impossible to the ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter
... to do it, Billy. It's to save you torture, old fellow, just to save you useless suffering, Billy." He drew his pistol from his belt, took careful aim just behind the pony's ear, and, turning his head away, pulled the trigger. ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... said this he raised his rifle, and, taking aim as well as the darkness would allow him, pulled trigger ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... shoot," replied the other, "you will have to do it very quickly, for, in the language of the wild and woolly West, I've got the drop on you. In my coat pocket is a cocked revolver with my forefinger on the trigger. If you make a hostile move I can let daylight through you so quickly that you won't know ...
— From Whose Bourne • Robert Barr
... I swung round in the saddle; most happily my horse was accustomed to standing still when I fired from his back, also he was so surprised that he did not know which way to shy. The other savage was almost on me; his outstretched shield reached the muzzle of my gun as I pulled the trigger of the left barrel. It exploded, the warrior sprung high into the air, and fell against my horse dead, his spear passing just in ...
— Allan's Wife • H. Rider Haggard
... Rectus, and I was amazed to see how she had fired so rapidly. But as soon as I had counted seven, I stepped up to her and took her pistol. She explained to me how it worked. It was one of those pistols in which the same pull of the trigger jerks up the hammer and lets it down,—the most unsafe things that any ...
— A Jolly Fellowship • Frank R. Stockton
... placed it behind the hall door until he should want it. A few days later he made up his mind to go out and shoot a rabbit or two, so he shouldered his gun and strode off toward the open country. A mile or two from the town he saw a rabbit; and taking aim, he pulled the trigger. The gun failed to go off. Then he pulled the other trigger, and again the cap snapped. Mr. Fogg used a strong expression of disgust, and then, taking a pin, he picked the nipples of the gun, primed them with a little powder and made a fresh start. Presently he saw another rabbit. He ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... part, But you wun't noways du for me athout a change o' heart: Nothun religion works wal North, but it's ez soft ez spruce, Compared to ourn, for keepin' sound," sez she, "upon the goose; A day's experunce'd prove to ye, ez easy 'z pull a trigger, It takes the Southun pint o' view to raise ten bales a nigger; You'll fin' thet human natur, South, ain't wholesome more 'n skin-deep, An' once't a darkie's took with it, he wun't be wuth his keep." "How shell I git it, Ma'am?" sez I. "Attend the nex' camp-meetin'," Sez she, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... being able to bring down a pigeon on the wing, few could hit the trunk of a tree at fifty paces. The usual method of shooting used to be to cram as much ammunition into the gun as the hand would contain, and then, looking carefully away from the object aimed at, to close both eyes and pull the trigger. Accuracy of aim was not so much considered as loudness of report. As regards their powers of riding, they are still unchanged; and as to the virtue of their women, virtue is so largely a matter of convention ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... understand. After he had fired one shot at the constable, Mears, and subsequently chopped at him with his dirk, he went into the house, seized a loaded pistol, and on coming out, said: 'Now, am I not your Saviour?' The words were scarcely out of his mouth, when he pulled the trigger of his pistol, and shot ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... spoken. Lawler saw the gun in Singleton's hand. He leaped quickly to one side as Singleton pulled the trigger—the smoke streak touching his clothing as he moved. He leaped again as Singleton shot at him a second time. This time he was so close to Singleton that the powder burned his face. And before Singleton could shoot again Lawler struck—with ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... anyway, he hissed," and leveled the pistol at them. But even as his finger trembled on the trigger, Frank's fist, with the force of a sledgehammer, came with a crashing impact against the point of the German's jaw, and the Hun went down, his pistol exploding harmlessly toward the sky. Frank, with the light of battle in his ...
— Army Boys in the French Trenches • Homer Randall
... The piece is not carried with cartridges in either the chamber or the magazine except when specifically ordered. When so loaded, or supposed to be loaded, it is habitually carried locked; that is, with the safety lock turned to the "safe." At all other times it is carried unlocked, with the trigger pulled. ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... in the nick of time, for the Comanche pressed the trigger just then, and the bullet which, had Avon's action been delayed a single moment, would have killed Captain Shirril, was buried in ...
— The Great Cattle Trail • Edward S. Ellis
... your hat, constable," cried the sergeant, giving Waller a comical cock of his eye. "Brown Bess never barks unless we touch the trigger. Yes, sir, I have looked through the dining-room. Beautiful old-fashioned room, too. Excuse me for saying so. No secret passages ...
— The New Forest Spy • George Manville Fenn
... M'Ginnis hoarsely, "get him now—before Hermy comes t' him!" Shuddering, Spike levelled the weapon he held, but at that moment Ravenslee was filling his pipe, and something in this homely action checked the lad, paralysed finger on trigger, and shrinking, he cowered down upon the grass despite the fierce hand that gripped him. "Get him now, Kid—get him now! Aim f'r his chest—y' ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... his rifle to his shoulder, for a scalp, and a signal shot to his comrades. He drew fine bead upon the heart of the leading warrior, pulled trigger—the dampened powder only flashed in ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... to move without thought. He wheeled, crouched, the gun in his hand and finger quivering lightly on the trigger, pointed in the indicated direction. There was nothing unusual to be seen, just an empty field and the control building ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey
... the goods of others without fear or scruple—in a word, to be the foes of all mankind, strangers in their family, men whom any person may slay if he can; in the village they are dangerous neighbours, and in meeting them you must keep your hand on the trigger; but in war ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... poles, from kneeling figures, came the spurting flames of revolver shots. The reports were a sharp rattle. Martin dropped to his knee and raised his arm. The gun in his hand leaped like a live thing as he pulled the trigger. He was given entirely over to the battle lust of the moment. He was cool, he was happy, he laughed aloud, and he shot rapidly, with intent to kill, at the ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... damascened, and the carved handles terminated in flat steel butts which would have cracked the pate of any highwayman if the shot missed fire. As Colwyn anticipated, the pistols were muzzle-loaders. The cock, which laid over considerably, was in the curious form of a twisted snake. When the trigger was pulled the head of the ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... before she noticed the double stamping and breathing of the animals. Her keen senses seemed to make the whole surrounding landscape visible to her without the moving of a muscle. She knew to a nicety exactly how her weapons lay, and what movement would bring her hand to the trigger of her pistol; yet ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill
... and gave them a wholesome respect for our shooting so that they were very shy of exposing themselves. We would also set a rifle to fire exactly into a loophole so that when it opened we had only to pull the trigger to send a bullet through the brain of the man using it. There were other dodges that it is not wise to ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... buck brought up the rear. At the very edge he came to a halt, and looked back, throwing his head up and his nose out so that the heavy fur on his neck stood forward like a ruff. It was a last glimpse of him, so I held my little best, and pulled trigger. ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... 7.35, attacked an L.V.G.; at fifteen meters; just ready to shoot, when a bullet in my fingers made me let go the trigger; reservoir burst, good landing two kilometers from the trenches between two shell-holes. Inventory of the "taxi": one bullet right in the face of my Vickers; one perforative bullet in the motor; the steel stone had gone clear through it as well as the ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux
... the deck. But at the same instant Nott covered him with his rifle. A slight shade of disappointment and surprise had crossed the old man's face, and clouded his small round eyes at the apparition of the Lascar, but his hand was none the less firm upon the trigger as the frightened prisoner sank on his knees, with his hands clasped in the attitude ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte
... round eyes flashing anger, the small black-tipped ears laid back, the great fangs snarling. The beast was not over twelve feet distant. F. immediately fired. His shot, hitting an intervening twig, went wild. With the utmost coolness he immediately pulled the other trigger of his ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... Lord John was standing at gaze with his finger on the trigger of his elephant-gun, his eager hunter's soul shining from his fierce eyes. What would he not give for one such head to place between the two crossed oars above the mantelpiece in his snuggery at ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... declining over the chalk hills and it grew bitter cold. I unfolded my camera, stepped back eight paces, and pressed the trigger. We clambered back into the car and resumed the road to Meaux. As I looked over my shoulder the last things I saw in the enfolding twilight were those little flags still fluttering ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... despair, and desired several different Indians to shoot him; and an Indian boy saw him kill himself in the following manner; he put the muzzle of his gun under his chin, and with his great toe pushed the trigger."[1] ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... should not have time to weaken my moral determination, I hastily opened my waistcoat, felt for the pulsations of my heart, placed the muzzle of a pistol where they were strongest, steadying it on that spot with my left hand. Then I looked straight before me and pulled the trigger. There was the click of the lock, but no report; the cap was bad, and had been crushed without exploding. That was a horrible moment. I snatched up another pistol, which lay cocked to my hand, and thrust the muzzle into my mouth. As before, the sharp noise of the hammer ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... sailor, who four days previous, had stood erect—a pillar of life—with an arm like a royal-mast and a thigh like a windlass. But the slightest conceivable finger-touch of a bit of crooked trigger had eventuated in stretching him out, more helpless than an hour-old babe, with a blasted thigh, utterly drained of its brawn. And who was it that now stood over him like a superior being, and, as if clothed himself with the ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... part of the phalanges shot away," said Milsom philosophically. "That was my trigger-finger—but he shot first. Give ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... but he ran to the edge of the cabin-top and at once opened fire at the dark shapes rushing about the deck. These shots were returned, and a rapid fusillade burst out, reports and flashes, Davidson dodging behind a ventilator and pulling the trigger till his revolver clicked, and then throwing it down to take the other ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... you are," commanded Dick, an' I stuck in my tracks. "No man is allowed to doubt my deal without havin' something to remind him of it. I ain't a-goin' to kill that snake now; but I do intend to remove his trigger fingers." ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... rifles, and had instructed them in their use; each man paid particular regard to the rifle that he carried, and, as several were of the same pattern, they had marked them with small pieces of rag tied round the trigger guards. This esprit de corps was most beneficial to the preservation of the arms, which were kept in admirable order. Mahomet, the dragoman, rode my spare horse, and carried my short double-barrelled rifle, slung across his back, in the place of his pistols and gun, which he had ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... though in the female line! 'Jesus Maria!' I exclaimed, and the angels of the Lord sent to my aid the Bernardine Monk. He put us all to shame; O, he is a glorious monk! While I trembled, while I dared not touch the trigger, he snatched the musket from my hands, aimed, and fired. To shoot between two heads! at a hundred paces! and not to miss! and in the very centre of his jaw! to knock out his teeth so! Gentlemen, long have ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... to view a small spot, denuded of hair, just behind the point of his shoulder; upon this the hunter brings the sight of his rifle to bear; lightly and delicately his finger presses upon the hair-trigger. Quick as thought the spiteful crack of the rifle responds to his slight touch, and instantly in the middle of the bare spot appears a small red dot. The buffalo shivers; death has overtaken him, ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... what quarter it came, I was unable accurately to determine; but there could be no doubt, from its loudness, that it was near, and even in the house. It was no less manifest that the sound arose from the discharge of a pistol. Some hand must have drawn the trigger. I recollected the disappearance of the candle from the room below. Instantly a supposition darted into my mind which made my hair rise and my ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... which were wasting away. Their disintegration is identical with our own. They have their decay, their ruptures, their tumors, their madnesses. A piece of furniture gnawed by worms, a gun with a broken trigger, a warped drawer, or the soul of a violin suddenly out of tune, such are ...
— Romance of the Rabbit • Francis Jammes
... take much," said Ethaniel. "The wrong diplomatic move, or a trigger-happy soldier could set it off. And it wouldn't have to be deliberate. A meteor shower could pass over and their clumsy instruments could interpret it as an all-out ...
— Second Landing • Floyd Wallace
... to the ground and pressed the trigger of his unfamiliar weapon. He felt it vibrate in his hand, and saw the Hadji's head and shoulders turn black and begin to crumble. Before he could take aim at the other men, Barrent's gun was wrenched violently from his hand. ...
— The Status Civilization • Robert Sheckley
... low-toned, but felt as an electric pulse, are the words of Prescott. Warren, by his side, repeats. The words fly through the impatient lines. The eager fingers give back from the waiting trigger. "Steady, men." "Wait until you see the white of the eye." "Not a shot sooner." "Aim at the handsome coats." "Aim at the waistbands." "Pick off the commanders." "Wait for the word, ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 5, May, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... uncalculated; but in an instant he saw that they had strangely bridged the distance between his wife and himself. He felt her close on him, like a panting foe; and her answer was a flash that showed the hand on the trigger. ...
— The Touchstone • Edith Wharton
... the intention of June, and no longer opposed it. The latter thrust the muzzle of the rifle through the loophole; and, taking care to make noise enough to attract attraction, she pulled the trigger. The piece had no sooner been discharged than Mabel reproached her friend for the very act that was intended to ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... "touchiness"—a disease which, in spite of its innocent name, is one of the gravest sources of restlessness in the world. Touchiness, when it becomes chronic, is a morbid condition of the inward disposition. It is self-love inflamed to the acute point; conceit, WITH A HAIR-TRIGGER. The cure is to shift the yoke to some other place; to let men and things touch us through some new and perhaps as yet unused part of our nature; to become meek and lowly in heart while the old sensitiveness is becoming numb ...
— Addresses • Henry Drummond
... hear his gun if he fired it," he said, worried and distressed by what was taking place before his eyes; "and if I did not, I could tell by the way they acted whenever he pulled trigger. ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne
... Two leaves fluttered out from the tree and a grinning vermilion face appeared for an instant with a yell of derision. Quick as a flash Du Lhut brought his musket to his shoulder and pulled the trigger. The man gave a tremendous spring and crashed down through the thick foliage. Some seventy or eighty feet below him a single stout branch shot out, and on to this he fell with the sound of a great stone dropping into a bog, and hung ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
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