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Midstream   Listen
noun
midstream  n.  The middle of a stream; as, don't change horses in midstream.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Midstream" Quotes from Famous Books



... one, was sent. Then they sat down to wait for the coming boat, which crossed the going one about midstream, ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... on the bank, we heard the sound of singing and music. 'Whoever can it be?' we asked ourselves, and then, advancing close to the water's edge, we strained our heads, and saw, perched high on a rock in midstream a few feet to our left, a girl with long yellow hair and a face of the most exquisite beauty. Though I was too young then to trouble my head about girls, I could not help being struck with this one, whilst Hans, who was several years older than I, ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell

... hurried after him to reach the bayou levee. The quarry was already in midstream, wielding an efficient canoe paddle. On impulse Val shouted after him, but he never turned. A rifle lay across his knees and there were some rusty traps in the bottom of the flimsy canoe. Then Val remembered that Pirate's Haven lay upon the fringe of the muskrat ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton

... river flecked with spots of white foam and at the indistinct silhouettes of boats trailing along in midstream. She breathed in deeply the calm that surrounded her and felt a resurgence of ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont

... was finished, the water rising, and three boats below, when, between 7 and 10 A.M. of the 9th, the pressure became so great as to sweep away two of the barges in midstream and the pent-up water poured through. Admiral Porter rode round to the upper falls and ordered the Lexington to pass them at once and try to go through the dam without a stop. Her steam was ready and she went ahead, passing scantly ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan

... jerking and his grubby face perspiring. Then the lock gates opened; and so, in a Babel of shouting, whining of blocks, and creaking of spars, our whole company was split out into the dingy bosom of the Elbe. The Johannes gathered way under wind and tide and headed for midstream. A last shake of the hand, and Bartels reluctantly slipped the head-rope and we drifted apart. 'Gute Reise! Gute Reise!' It was no time for regretful gazing, for the flood-tide was sweeping us up and out, and it was not until we had set the foresail, ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers

... the windlass! Stream both buoys! Easy, astern. Let go, all!" The slip-rope flew out, the two buoys bobbed in the water to mark where anchor and cable had been left, and the flat- iron waddled out into midstream with the white ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling

... few moments Kazan stood with his forefeet planted in the damp sand at the edge of the stream. For a brief interval Sandy allowed the babiche to fall slack. Then with a sudden powerful pull he jerked Kazan out into the water. Instantly he sent the canoe into midstream, swung it quickly down with the current, and began to paddle enough to keep the babiche taut about his victim's neck. In spite of his sickness and injuries Kazan was now compelled to swim to keep his head above water. In the wash of the canoe, and with Sandy's strokes growing ...
— Kazan • James Oliver Curwood

... see. The marsh-ford was glazed with a thin sheet of ice, through which, by the banks, clumps of black frozen reeds protruded. Through this ice, much broken by wheels, dark shallow water showed. On the other side of Thorney the river flowed sluggish and sullen, ice-bound along its banks. Midstream, making slow way to the island, a round clumsy coracle, such as were used by fishermen, was paddling, the only vessel abroad. In it sat two persons, the boatman and Eldris. She sat huddled forlornly in the coracle's bottom, shivering ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor

... disappeared. When he returned Mamie could see him very plainly. He had a stick of dynamite and a fuse. Mamie saw him glance at his watch and measure the fuse. Then, leaping from log to log, he approached the one in midstream which lay passive, blocking the advance of all the others. With splendid skill and daring he adjusted the dynamite upon the small rock which held the log, and lit the fuse. He returned as he had come, and Mamie could hear the cheers of the ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell

... eyeing the opposite bank, and evidently meditating an attempt to gain it. Pause a moment that you interrupt not a consummation so devoutly to be wished; the sheep bounds forward with three or four jumps into midstream, is carried down, and thence on to the opposite bank; immediately that one sheep has entered, let one man get into the river below them, and splash water up at them to keep them from working lower and lower down the stream and getting into a ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler

... married, they no longer belong in a backwater, but find themselves again sailing in midstream. It may be on a slow-moving current, it may be on a swift,—but their barge sails in common with all other craft on ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post

... which led out into the South, rails which even here paralleled the shores of the great river, as though dependent upon it for maintenance and guidance. The mighty flood, unmindful, swept toward the South, its tawny mane far out in midstream wrinkled by the breath ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough

... cataract sank me. As I watched the fall, fascinated, yet scared by it, there came a shooting rush, with shouts of triumph. A four-oared wherry with two passengers shot through the arch over the worst of the water into the quiet of the midstream. They waved to me, evidently very pleased with their exploit. That set me wondering whether the water were really as bad as it looked. My first feat was to back up cautiously almost to the fall, till my boat was dancing ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield

... divine fire kindled in two hearts. It was not a thing she could vouch for by personal experience. It might never touch and warm her, that divine fire. Instinct did now and then warn her that some time it would wrap her like a flame. But in the meantime—Life had her in midstream of its remorseless, drab current, sweeping her along. A foothold offered. Half a loaf, a single slice of bread ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... that he had seen the lone paddler turn a look that was a mingling of surprise and displeasure upon Owen when the canoes passed in midstream, and his former thought that these two had met before, and that the husky lad might even have had to do with the mournful black eye of the aborigine, came back with added force just now; still, he was not the one to ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne

... water-soaked raft to another to capture with spike pole or grappling hook a log that had broken loose. They had not the slightest fear when a raft buckled or broke away from the rest and was swept by swift current to midstream. There were quick and ready hands to the task. Loggers of the Big Sandy kept a cool head and worked with swift decisive movements. But, once their rafts reached the mouth of Big Sandy, there were some in the crew who could neither be persuaded ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas

... and down the river road I saw few water birds beside the herons. Two or three solitary cormorants would be shooting back and forth at a furious rate, or swimming in midstream; and sometimes a few spotted sandpipers and killdeer plovers were feeding along the shore. Once in a great while a single gull or tern made its appearance,—just often enough to keep me wondering why they were not there oftener,—and one day a water ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey

... again, to the dream-cry of some little fluttering creature of the rushes. And well before dawn I was floating midstream, my friend a memory, Rosinante in clover, and my travels, so far as this brief narrative will ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare

... June the two sovereigns met one another on the raft of Tilsit, in the midstream of the river Niemen. The conversation, which is alleged to have been opened by Alexander with an expression of hatred towards England, was heard by no one but the speakers. But whatever the eagerness or the reluctance of the Russian monarch to sever himself from Great Britain, the purpose ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... mistaking the nature of the missile—a regulation Martini-Henry "picket." About five hundred yards away a country-boat was anchored in midstream; and a jet of smoke drifting away from its bows in the still morning air showed me whence the delicate attention had come. Was ever a respectable gentleman in such an impasse? The treacherous sand slope allowed no escape from a spot which I ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling

... incident is told of two boatmen who, on a wager, started to swim across a stream. When one of the men was in midstream his Newfoundland dog plunged in after him and in spite of his struggles brought him back to the shore by his hair. The crowd which had been watching was greatly amused, but the chagrined sailor was able to laugh in turn when the great animal, mistaking the emotion of the onlookers, brought the ...
— Stories Pictures Tell - Book Four • Flora L. Carpenter

... in search of plunder. If he were disturbed, he would dodge away, his greased skin aiding him if anyone attempted to seize him. He was tracked down one evening to Blackfriars, where he backed his boat into midstream and turned at bay with a vicious sheath-knife. Only after a fierce struggle, in which the police did not escape scot free, was he arrested. His exploits cost him ten ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot

... February, 1910, the settlements of Dugmnon and Moncyo were in open hostility. I traveled both by land and water with members of the two unfriendly clans. In traveling by water it was necessary to proceed in midstream with shields protecting the occupants of the canoe against the arrows of their enemies. On the trail it was imperative to travel in bodies with a warrior on each side of the ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan

... cover; then he turned round quickly, and faced the semicircle of interested faces. The sun was sinking rapidly, throwing long shadows of house and trees over the courtyard, but the light lingered yet on the river, where the logs went drifting past in midstream, looking very distinct and black in the pale red glow. The trunks of the trees in the forest on the east bank were lost in gloom while their highest branches swayed gently in the departing sunlight. The air felt heavy and ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad

... from the fire area and tried to cross back on the pontoons were caught and destroyed, a-midstream, by fire floods that roared down the oil-spread Susquehanna. And about 7,000 that escaped at ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett

... downstream this morning. I passed her as I came up from Archer's Hope, awhile ago. She's anchored in midstream off the big ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston

... we will pay you well," added Dora, and then Baxter's not over cleanly hand was clapped over her mouth, and she could say no more. Loring's hand was likewise placed over Nellie's mouth, and then the launch began to tow the rowboat back into midstream once more. ...
— The Rover Boys on the River - The Search for the Missing Houseboat • Arthur Winfield

... attached to the landing of airships has led some to suggest that they should never be brought to earth, but moored in mid-air as large ships anchor in midstream. It is suggested that tall towers be built to the top of which the ship be attached by a cable, so arranged that she will always float to the leeward of the tower. The passengers would be landed by gangplanks, and taken up and down the towers in elevators. Kipling suggests ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot

... was speaking the rush came. They divided like running water when it reaches a big rock in midstream. Some of them poured toward us, the rest made for the bridge. I heard the crack of Sam's rifle, the rattle of small arms, and then the battle was ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine

... pointing out a mistake in the glowing scene. He anchors his yacht in the middle of the Thames—as if the tyrannic authorities of the Port of London would ever allow a yacht, or any other craft, to anchor in midstream! ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton

... cars as people fled from New York—and cars and people were lifted with the bridge. Awful irony was in the rest of the event. The great bridge was simply turned, along its entire length—which remained intact during the miracle—until it was parallel with the river and directly above midstream. Then it was dropped into ...
— Lords of the Stratosphere • Arthur J. Burks

... Yellow River here is shallow, in the main channel only is it four or five feet deep." The Rev. C. Holcombe, who crossed in October, says (p. 65): that "it was nowhere more than 6 feet deep, and on returning, three of the boatmen sprang into the water in midstream and waded ashore, carrying a line from the ferry-boat to prevent us from rapidly drifting down with the current. The water was just up ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... Castleconnell district taken in rotation from below, are: the Prospect or Clareville Fishery, on the Limerick side of the river (this means that the fishery extends to midstream; adjoining it on the Clare side, and immediately opposite, is the Landscape Fishery. Both of these are well-known salmon and peel catches. A few of the best pools in Prospect are Pinnee, Salahoughe, Feemoor, and Commogue. ...
— The Sunny Side of Ireland - How to see it by the Great Southern and Western Railway • John O'Mahony and R. Lloyd Praeger

... said. "The Mary Anne is just hoisting her anchor now, out there in midstream. You will be but just in time, for ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty

... Basra about 2 p.m. and anchored in midstream, the river being eight hundred yards or so wide here. The city of Basra is about three miles away, up a creek, but on the river there is a port and native ...
— Letters from Mesopotamia • Robert Palmer

... and at once began to bale out the puddles with his saucepan. He then drew the boat alongside of the jetty, helped Hortense in and used the one oar which he shipped in a gap in the stern to work her into midstream: ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc

... Pepper and Dick were both anxious to get away from the monotony of the place they had been tied up to for weeks. So with Swiftwater and Gerald poling on one side and Don and Dick on the other, and Pepper at the long steering oar in the rear the boat was pushed off into midstream with a bugle Scout salute from ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Yukon • Ralph Victor

... had stepped behind a river boulder and laid his rifle in rest across the top, still stood there watching the young Oneida in midstream who, in turn, was intently ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers

... filled with shells and explosives which almost blinded me as I stood on the forecastle trying to see my way, for I had never been up the river before. I soon saw that the guns of the forts were all aimed for midstream, so I steered close under the walls of Fort St. Philip; and although our masts and rigging got badly shot through our hull was but little damaged." Small as she was—five hundred tons—and with the scanty top hamper of a schooner, the Cayuga ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan

... the pier at the foot of Fourteenth Street he saw that the steamer was still in midstream and it would be several minutes before she warped in to the dock. He had no pass from the steamship office, but on showing his newspaperman's card the official admitted him to the pier, and he took his stand at the first cabin gangway, trembling a little ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley

... her side making no attempt at conversation. They rested for several hours during midday, arriving at Caub before the red sun set, and now the Countess saw her pinnacled prison lying like an anchored ship in midstream. ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr

... to the windows that gave off over the Drive and the Hudson. The softly arching sky found its color echo in the blue of broad waters and beyond them the Palisades were already beginning to show tenderly green and alluring in spring's resurrection. Out in midstream lay the crouching hulk of a battleship, and its somber gray was the one note that contradicted the softness ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck

... Perkins, "that the enemy's guns were all aimed for midstream, I steered right close under the walls of St. Philip, and although our masts and rigging were badly shot through, the hull was hardly damaged. After passing the last battery, I looked back for some of our vessels, and my heart jumped into my mouth, when I found ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 1, Issue 4 - April, 1884 • Various

... fortification, the walled town—also built by Richard—known as the New or Lesser Andely, while the river itself was doubly barred by a stockade across its bed, close under the foot of the rock, and by a strong tower on an island in midstream just below the town, he was obliged to encamp in the meadows on the opposite shore. The stockade, however, was soon broken down by the daring of a few young Frenchmen; and the waterway being thus cleared for the transport of materials, he was enabled ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various

... Rivers. Interest was kept up by the villages and fields we passed, and it was the decision of the farmers that it was poor land badly worked. More novel to us, was the succession of rafts we met, each covering acres, with masts and houses on them, and men along their sides keeping them in midstream by means of long oars. As we passed up lake St Peter the wind freshened, the clouds came lower and the rain poured. The captain and pilot were in great glee, for they told us if the wind held we would pass up the St Mary's current and anchor off Montreal before dark. Strong as the ...
— The Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825 • Gordon Sellar

... midstream on the Isle of Orleans and one on Point Levis. Landing artillery and stores, intrenching both positions, and mounting siege-guns at the last-named one consumed the first few days of July. Wolfe's skill in erecting and firing batteries had been abundantly ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various

... had been lost as a direct result of the high waters here. Miss Anna Smith, the first victim, drowned in an attempt to reach Newport in a skiff that capsized in midstream. Her three men companions were rescued while swimming ...
— The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado • Logan Marshall

... was not yet opposite me; but, by the rate at which she was moving, I calculated she would be so by the time I could arrive in midstream. ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid

... to the door, opened it, and stood out in the sunshine. It was good to feel the warmth of the sun in his face again and the sweet air of the open day in his lungs. The bateau was free of the shore and drifting steadily towards midstream. Bateese was at the great birchwood rudder sweep, and to David's surprise he nodded in a friendly way, and his wide mouth ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood

... as ideal anchorage for a yacht which wanted to be let alone. So they slowed down into the island's curving shore and dropped anchor in the lee of it, out of sight of the Hunston side of the river and in little evidence from any point in midstream above or below. ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... into the bottom they pulled off; in a few minutes they came under the quarter of a large vessel in midstream; I was hauled up the side, and, more or less dazed with my rough handling, heard without understanding a loud voice giving orders. In two minutes I was lying bound hand and foot in the fore part of the vessel, and there I remained, exposed to the open sky, until ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang

... "The War, the World, and Wilson," says: "In various elections George Washington pleaded for 'united leadership,' and Lincoln specifically urged upon the people the unwisdom of 'swapping horses in midstream.'" ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty

... mature age of nine that he found he could endure this no longer. One day when the big packet came down and stopped at Hannibal, he slipped aboard and crept under one of the boats on the upper deck. Then the signal-bells rang, the steamer backed away and swung into midstream; he was really going at last. He crept from beneath the boat and sat looking out over the water and enjoying the scenery. Then it began to rain—a regular downpour. He crept back under the boat, but his ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine

... the first. The tug, in midstream, gave no sign of drawing to shore. Somehow—but exactly how the boy could never tell—they were racing after her down the immense length of ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... swooped through Bailleul-aux-Hondains, zig-zagging from kerb to kerb. A speckly cock and his platoon of hens were out in midstream, souvenir-hunting. We took them in the rear before they had time to deploy and sent a cloud of fluff-fricassee sky-high. A Tommy was passing the time o' day with the Hebe of the Hotel des Trois Enfants, his mules contentedly browsing the straw frost-packing ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, March 19, 1919 • Various

... rushed towards it with the speed of a dart. Foy and Martin crawled from the hatchway and lay down near the steersman under the shelter of the little bulwarks, watching the enemy's boat, which was in midstream just where the channel was narrowest, and on the hither side of the broken ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard

... pistol fallen? If into one of these, he could not find it again. He had no time to sound them one by one. He moved along the bank, his keen eyes searching the water. The pistol was nowhere visible; it must have gone into midstream, into a pool below a cascade. If so, it might lie there, undiscovered, a thousand years. He stood irresolute. Could he have done so, he would have dragged the stream, but there was now no time to squander. Once more he made certain ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston

... since he had been at St. Marys and he was very old, so he worked up stream carefully, skirting close to the shore in the back water, hugging every point and sheering not at all into the strong current of midstream. Thus for hours the canoe floated like a dry leaf in the unruffled corner of a hidden pool, and in it the ancient pair, dry themselves with the searching seasons ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan

... a good man," said the evangelist, "and will make a good husband," He was seated with Fraser on the gallery, watching a light in midstream dance ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates

... had caused Hatto to jodel all the hay-makers together, and they had fallen on the travellers by the straight path down the crag. "Ach! did not the young Baron spring like a young gemsbock? And in midstream down came their pack-horses and their wares! Some of them took to flight, but, pfui, there were enough for my young lord to show his mettle upon. Such a prize the saints have not sent since the old ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge

... was very much annoyed at our having left without providing ourselves with a boat, for at the grey of dawn, we discovered that some deer had taken the river close to us, and were in midstream. Had we had a boat, we might have procured a good supply of venison. We cast off again and resumed our voyage; and without any serious accident we arrived at the shot-tower, where we remained for the night. Finding a shot-tower in such a lone wilderness ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... across to join them. Out among the rocks he had found a fleck of gold no larger than the head of a pin, and this new sign gave them all fresh enthusiasm. Taking off their boots both Rod and Wabi joined the old pathfinder in midstream. But each succeeding pan added to the depressing conviction that was slowly replacing their hopes. The shadows in the chasm began growing longer and deeper. Far overhead the dense canopies of red pine shut out the last ...
— The Gold Hunters - A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds • James Oliver Curwood

... that navigating their ship interfered with their baccarat we came to anchor. We should have reached Salonika in a day and a half. We arrived after four days. And all of each day and half of each night we were anchored in midstream while the captain took the bank. The hills of Euboea and the mainland formed a giant funnel of snow, through which the wind roared. It swept the ship from bow to stern, turning to ice the woodwork, the velvet cushions, even the blankets. ...
— With the French in France and Salonika • Richard Harding Davis

... plain, from what Watson could hear of the discussion which ensued, that the Vigilants were disgusted. They were ready, indeed, to give up the chase, on the supposition that the three fugitives would either drift down in midstream, or else be capsized and find ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins

... size had started out. This had been designed to reinforce the first party if it had succeeded in gaining a footing. But the utter collapse of the first effort had taught the enemy that the bank was too strongly held and they stopped in midstream and ...
— Army Boys on the Firing Line - or, Holding Back the German Drive • Homer Randall

... river where two knights kept the ford. "How now, kitchen knave? Will ye fight or escape while ye may?" cried the damsel. "I would fight though there were six instead of two," replied Sir Gareth. Therewith he encountered the one knight in midstream and struck him such a blow on the head that he fell, stunned, into the water and was drowned. Then, gaining the land, Gareth cleft in two helmet and head of the other knight, and turned to the damsel, saying, ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)

... diving tower was on the end of the pier and belonged exclusively to the Sharks; it was fifteen feet high, and had seven different diving boards placed at various heights. Besides the diving tower, there was a floating dock anchored out in midstream, having a springboard at either end. There was also a low diving board at the side of the pier for ...
— The Campfire Girls at Camp Keewaydin • Hildegard G. Frey

... placed Flora's trembling and half-unconscious form against a tree. Baptiste quickly joined me; he had escaped from his pursuers, and had seen the whole affair from his hiding-place in the thick timber. Gummidge and his wife were clinging to the bowlders in midstream, and with some difficulty they joined us. But Lavigne had disappeared and poor Moralle lay motionless on the opposite bank, apparently dead. Cuthbert Mackenzie's villainy had cost ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon

... resembling centipedes, scorpions, snakes, and so forth were in myriads on the banks of the stream, but they also made no attempt to use their weapons on his bare legs and feet, as he passed through them into the water.... Presently however, he was confronted in midstream by a hideous monster, of the size of a pony, but resembling in shape—if it resembled anything—a sea crustacean; and then he came to a halt. They stared at one another, the beast with wicked eyes, Maskull with cool and wary ones. While he was staring, ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay

... riding-lanthorn of a ship whose shadowy bulk grew upon me as I gazed, hull and towering masts outlined against the glimmer of stars and the vague light of a young moon. Hereupon I bowed my head, despairing, for this ship lay anchored in midstream, so that no boat might hope to pass unchallenged; thus I began to debate within me whether or no to row ashore and abandon our boat, when ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol

... douche-bath for a well-grown sheep. The victims were panting in their heavy fleeces, and mingling their hoarse, plaintive tremolo with the ripple of the water and the sound of young voices in a frolic. Dorothy had divided her forces for the washing to the best advantage. The two elder boys stood in midstream to receive the sheep, which she, with the help of little Jimmy, caught and ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote

... (about 5 lb.), called in these parts a "kelt grilse." So far had I noted when the left rod, upon which the fly had been replaced by a sand eel, strained for a gallant run. Down on the thwart went book, pencil, and spectacles, and I had an exciting five minutes in midstream with an undoubted "fish." He fought like a Trojan—and then the line fell slack. The fish was off. How do they escape from these triangles? Caught lightly by one hook, I suppose, and, as a result, an ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior

... little photograph in her hand. There was plenty of light to see it by. The little old, red, flat-bottomed boat out in midstream, with Billie standing, barelegged to his knees, straddling from the stem seat to the rear middle one, while he strove persuasively with a big pickerel. Kit was half kneeling in the other end of the boat, bailing for dear life, dressed in ...
— Kit of Greenacre Farm • Izola Forrester

... firs which had marked it at intervals were nearly all fallen and lying in the half-thawed snow; as they passed the island the ice cracked twice without breaking. Charles Eugene trotted smartly toward the house of Charles Lindsay on the other bank. But when the sleigh reached midstream, below the great fall, the horse had perforce to slacken pace by reason of the water which had overflowed the ice and wetted the snow. Very slowly they approached the shore; there remained only some thirty feet to be crossed when the ice began to go up ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon

... Midstream, to starboard, lay a light cruiser of the first class, and 800 yards up the basin, between the two, a small ...
— The Boy Allies Under Two Flags • Ensign Robert L. Drake

... sunshine had filled the Toba River bank full of roily water when Hollister breasted its current again. In midstream it ran full and strong. Watery whisperings arose where swirls boiled over sunken snags. But in the slow eddies and shoal water under each bank the gray canoe moved up-stream under the steady ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... was now about in midstream, and suddenly the group of watchers saw the skiff's occupant change again into the crimson ball. Then it slowly began to move upward, and when it was about parallel with the tops of the trees on the island it disappeared. Next instant the watchers looking across the river saw nothing but the ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various

... struggle in the boat, but both were fearful to fire for fear of wounding friend as well as foe—for the very fact of the struggle proved that there were men of both armies in the boat. Gradually the fire of both sides slackened, as the troops peered intently toward the fighting figures in midstream. ...
— The Boy Allies in the Trenches - Midst Shot and Shell Along the Aisne • Clair Wallace Hayes

... he ordered, and the oars flashed in rhythm, driving the boat out into midstream where she could set her sails free from the blanketing influence of ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle

... one in the afternoon, a great sight was to be seen in the middle of the Niemen. A raft had been placed midstream in plain view from both banks of the river. All the rich stuffs that could be found in the little town of Tilsitt had been taken to make a pavilion on a part of this raft for the reception of the Emperors of France and Russia. From one bank Napoleon embarked with Murat, ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand

... the bank. Our surroundings had changed somewhat, the shores being no longer steep, and overhung with rocks, but only slightly uplifted, and covered with dense, dark woods, somber and silent. Their shadows nearly met in midstream, giving to the scene a look of desolation and gloom, the water sweeping on in sullen flow, without sparkle, or gaiety. Our boat clung close to the west shore, and I could look long distances through the aisles of trees into the silent gloom beyond. Not a leaf rustled, ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish

... have been Diego's last but that his two followers lifted him to his feet and, picking him up like a child, ran for his canoe with him. With a few rapid strokes they were in midstream and paddling up the river with powerful strokes while Sikaso raged impotently ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton

... trembled and every window on the waterfront was broken. The retreating Belgian army had blown up that pontoon bridge and with it what then seemed the last hope of escape for the few remaining survivors. For a few moments wreckage writhed in midstream like a great sea ...
— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green

... momentarily diminishing in the night's illusory perspective; presently it was little more than a fugitive blot, gliding swiftly in midstream. And then, it was gone entirely, engulfed ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance

... down into the ravine in the headlong fashion he had learned from months of hill riding. He cantered along it, splashing through shallow pools and ploughing into tangled brush. When he came within sight of the river the cattle were emerging from it upon a sandy bar that formed an island in midstream. ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine

... green waters of the great river were divided at this ancient ford by two midstream islands, which accounted for the selection of the spot for the daring essay of a bridgeless and boatless crossing. There was something mockingly relentless in the strong rippling current, which cut off more than a guess at the actual depth. There was no ferry, no boat nor means of making ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough

... for brand. They worked through a long vaulted tunnel, turned at right angles, and came into what their torch showed to have been an ancient chapel. In a niche stood a broken statue, on the wall spread a painting of St. Christopher in midstream. ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston

... slightest motion of the water. From her windows Sidonie could see the restaurants on the beach, silent through the week, but filled to overflowing on Sunday with a motley, noisy crowd, whose shouts of laughter, mingled with the dull splash of oars, came from both banks to meet in midstream in that current of vague murmurs, shouts, calls, laughter, and singing that floats without ceasing up and down the Seine on holidays for a ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet

... was only four miles away, on the other side of the Plains, in a boat on the St Lawrence, where he was taking his last look at what he then called the Foulon and what the world now calls Wolfe's Cove. His boat was just turning to drift up in midstream, off Sillery Point, which is only half a mile above the Foulon. He wanted to examine the Cove well through his telescope at dead low tide, as he intended to land his army there at the next low tide. Close beside him sat young Robison, who ...
— The Winning of Canada: A Chronicle of Wolf • William Wood

... who were watching Fort Pillow, had their head-quarters on board the steamer John H. Dickey, which was anchored in midstream. At the time of the approach of the Rebel gun-boats, the Dickey was lying without sufficient steam to move her wheels, and the prospect was good that she might be captured or destroyed. Her commander, Captain Mussleman, declared he was not ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox

... when it was down, if it could look any sicker and sorrier. They said it was a dangerous stream to cross, now, because its quicksands were liable to swallow up horses, coach and passengers if an attempt was made to ford it. But the mails had to go, and we made the attempt. Once or twice in midstream the wheels sunk into the yielding sands so threateningly that we half believed we had dreaded and avoided the sea all our lives to be shipwrecked in a "mud-wagon" in the middle of a desert at last. But we dragged through and sped ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... all was ready for crossing. Swimmers carried a long rope to an island midway, while another was retained on the shore. By means of these the boat was pulled back and forth. The first trip was entirely successful, but on the second attempt the affair was, by the weight of the ropes, upset in midstream. ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh

... successful. The object is to give the mob a lead, and when sheep get a lead they will follow it blindly, no matter where it will lead them to. When the river is too deep for wading, men on horseback ford or swim over, carrying sheep on their saddles, and drop them in midstream till the required lead is obtained. As soon as the mob understand they have to go, a panic seems to take them, and they make such frantic efforts to rush on that to prevent them hurting each other is sometimes impossible. An unfortunate ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth

... in time to see the last boat go out. Already the river was "throwing ice," and every day the jagged edges of it crept further towards midstream. An immense and melancholy mob stood on the wharf as the little steamer backed off into the channel. There were uproarious souls on board, and many women of the town screaming farewells to their friends. On the boat all was excited, ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service

... not cross. Seeing a small boat, the Master said: "Let us engage that boat to take us across." While crossing the river in it, they discovered that it was a boat sent by the Demon of Blackwater River to entrap them in midstream, and the Master would have been slain had not Sun and the Western ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner

... and the boat shot off into midstream. Jeremiah looked after it a few minutes, and then turned back toward the house. "She knows what she's about!" he ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards

... never wait your turn?" he rumbled in a deep angry voice. "Can you not see that we are warping the Rose of Guienne into midstream for the ebb-tide? Is this a time to break in upon us? Your goods will go aboard in due season, I promise you; so ride back into the town and find such pleasure as you may, while I and my mates do our work without let ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle

... anchor along the shore. Water Street, below him, was swarming with activity, but not the activity that Chris had previously known. Men dressed in the same sort of clothes as those laid out for him pushed at cotton bales, rolled hogsheads along to the docks, or rowed out to ships anchored in midstream. Most of the stevedores were hatless, and Chris snickered at the sight of the short braid of hair at the napes of their necks. Many wore brilliant scarves tied around their heads, red, or mustard-yellow or green, and the sound of deep voices swearing, laughing, or rising in unfamiliar sea chanteys ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson

... helped us carry our cargo, by an intricate official route, over coils of rope and chains, over lines of shafting, and along dizzy walks overhanging the yawning basin; while the Doctor, directed to a certain chute in midstream, took unladen Pilgrim over the great dam, with a wild swoop which made our eyes swim to witness from ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites

... little amazed when, just as he found himself midstream in those tariff studies to which Richard had invited him, that volatile individual arose in the utmost excitement and said that ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis

... when the great city was asleep and the busy wharves along the waterfront were, for the night's brief interval, dark and lonesome, two tug-boats, like a pair of sturdy little Davids, sidled up to the great steel Goliath and slowly she moved out into midstream and turned her towering prow toward where the Goddess of Liberty held aloft her beckoning light ...
— Tom Slade with the Colors • Percy K. Fitzhugh

... determine the actual discharge at the place of the cross-section, owing to the irregularity in the depth and current, the latter being in the deep channel at the east side, when I tried it in September, approximately 4.8 miles per hour; while on the bar in midstream it was not more than 2.5 miles per hour; and between the bar and the westerly shore there was ...
— Klondyke Nuggets - A Brief Description of the Great Gold Regions in the Northwest • Joseph Ladue

... thirty pounds, while the ordinary load of the tea-carrier is two hundred. At our heels came the soldier carrying Jack, whose short legs could hardly have made headway against the strong current forcing him out into midstream. ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall

... far wrong either—they halted at the street end of one of the smaller piers and from there watched a grimy little foreign boat that carried no wireless masts and that might have taken them to any one of half a dozen obscure banana ports of South America—watched her while she hiccoughed out into midstream and straightened down the river for the open bay—watched her out of sight and then fled again to their newest hiding place in the lower East Side in a cold sweat, with the feeling that every casual eye glance from every chance passer-by carried suspicion ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb

... Wisconsin side. The seeds germinated, the clump flourished. It cut the highway and reached down the banks into the Mississippi, waiting. And while it waited it built up greater bulk for itself, behind and beside. Each day it pushed a little farther toward midstream, drowning its own foremost runners so those behind might have solidity ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore

... at present on board his own steamer in midstream opposite La Dorada. Fully armed and alone. Crew have left, and peons in revolt. A detachment of police proceeds by train to Taco to-night. Join them ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan

... under his breath as they stood on a little concrete quay, and watched the Zaire beating out to midstream. ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace

... around the wooded bank. The river was full of surprises to-day. In midstream he saw what looked to him like a big raft ...
— David Dunne - A Romance of the Middle West • Belle Kanaris Maniates

... alligators, and water serpents. Our destination was a point on this coast situated about twenty miles below Shimuni, and a short distance from the mouth of the Anana, one of the channels just alluded to as connected with the Japura. After travelling for three hours in midstream we steered for the land, and brought to under a steeply-inclined bank of crumbly earth, shaped into a succession of steps or terraces, marking the various halts which the waters of the river make in the course of subsidence. The coast line was nearly straight ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates

... he has robbed my uncle of a fortune, snatched it from him here in this very room, and now he has threatened to move his ships into midstream, and to open fire on the town! And Mademoiselle, he means to do it. I thought once—but he means to do ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand

... keep on for midstream," he said. "We know what direction that is, and, out in open water, we'd have one advantage even over their numbers. Theirs are only light canoes, while ours is a big strong boat that will shelter us from any bullet. Pull away, boys! I'll help Sol ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler

... in conversation with the Babu when the little flotilla came in sight of Patli. Its approach was observed. A boat put off from the ghat, and awaited the arrival of Desmond's boat in midstream. As it came alongside an official ordered the men to cease rowing and demanded to know who was the owner of the goods on board and to see the dastaks. The Babu, to whom Desmond had intrusted the papers, showed them to the man; he ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang

... was an eventful moment in the career of the young fireman. There was a blinding glow, a rain of fire swayed through the locomotive cab, then, just as they cleared the bridge, the structure went down to midstream. ...
— Ralph on the Engine - The Young Fireman of the Limited Mail • Allen Chapman

... lashed together with chains. The sun, already working around to the south, gilded the barque's top-gallant masts and yards, and flung a stream of gold along the raft already finished and moored in midstream. But the great hull lay as yet in the cool shadow of the hillside over ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... the water's edge, studied the black whirling mass, shrugged and stepped in. The prince came after him, unhesitatingly. Both shivered. The water was intensely cold. But the bed was shallow, and the river never mounted above the waist. However, in midstream it rushed strongly and wildly along, and all but carried them off their feet. They arrived in safety at the opposite shore, weak and cold in body, but warm in spirit. They lay on the grass for several moments, ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath

... escaped over her shoulder. It was very hot in the lee of the bluff, and very quiet in that still air. So quiet that she heard two distinct reports, following each other quickly, but very faint and far. She glanced mechanically towards the sea. Two merchant-men in midstream were shaking out their wings for a long flight, a pilot boat and coasting schooner were rounding the point, but there was no smoke from their decks. She bent over her work again, and in another moment had forgotten ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... Irish. It was particularly soft, low, and vibrant. It made the commonplace question she asked sound as though she had sung it. I told her the name of the building, and that farther uptown, as she would see when we moved into midstream, there was another still taller. She listened, regarding me brightly, as though interested; but before her I was embarrassed, and, fearing I intruded, I again made a movement to go away. With another question she ...
— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis

... when we took the trolley car and the train; and the watch was still going as our laden craft nosed gently against the bank of the river-island that was to be our home for two weeks. It was late afternoon, and the shadows of the steep woods on the western bank had already turned the rocks in midstream from silver to gray, and dimmed the brightness of the swift water, almost to the ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge

... rushing down the first straight reach with a slight fall here and there. Then curving to the right, and breaking in foam against the rocky wall of Akeanlinna—a mighty fortress of stone rising straight up in midstream, with a clump of bushes like a helmet plume on its top. The river then divides, the left arm racing in spate down to the mill, the right turning off through a channel blasted out of the rock for the passage of timber going down. A wild piece of water this; ...
— The Song Of The Blood-Red Flower • Johannes Linnankoski

... Stanton, "I am starving for a full talk with somebody posted, not merely pitted for Lincoln...." The persistent cry of the Liberator and the Antislavery Standard to re-elect Lincoln and not to swap horses in midstream did not ring true to her. "We read no more of the good old doctrine 'of two evils choose neither,'" she wrote Anna E. Dickinson. She confessed to Anna, "It is only safe to seek and act the truth and to profess confidence in Lincoln would be a ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz

... of us lay the superbly lovely junction of the Crocodile with the Koomati River, and appropriately enough I then saw in midstream, clinging to a rock, a real crocodile, though, like the two Boer Republics, as dead as a door nail. Immediately beyond ran a ridge of hills which served as the boundary between the Transvaal and the Portuguese territory. Along that ridge floated a line of Portuguese flags, and within just a few yards ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry

... humanity gathered in one room became a nuisance. We resorted to all kinds of subterfuge to escape from each other; and the one who finished breakfast first generally managed to make off with the dingy. The others were then at liberty to view him in the distance, in midstream, lying on his back in the bottom of the boat; and it was almost more than we could stand. The only way to bring him back was to bribe the boy into saying that he wanted to go across to the village for bacon or black lead or sardines. ...
— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie

... in low murmurs. The hot weather had dried the river up to a stream in the middle, and, in midstream, about fifty yards from the foot of the bridge, was a pile of broken masonry, which had once been the upper part of Bolt and Little's chimney. It had fallen into water twelve feet deep; but now the water was not above five ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade

... safely now upon an even keel; nor did she leak, for she was well calked with fiber and tarry pitch. We rigged up a single short mast and light sail, fastened planking down over the ballast to form a deck, worked her out into midstream with a couple of sweeps, and dropped our primitive stone anchor to await the turn of the tide that would ...
— Pellucidar • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... dancing through my brain. Now there was going to be an adventure! But there wasn't. We had reached the Caw River, where there were Indians to ferry us across. They were real and red and terrifying, but I never flinched. If they brought out tomahawks in midstream, I would be as brave as a pioneer's daughter should be. But would you believe me, those Indians were as tame as pet canaries, and just shot us across the river without glancing at us, and held out their big hands with a grunt, for the coins! That was ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... are all born to be saved, and the raft that carries them unharmed through the perilous torrent of tenement life is the child's unconscious aspiration for the best. But there must be lighthouses to guide him midstream. ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin

... small cabins Ali had arranged the much-discussed company accounts ready for his lord's attention, and there was every promise of a happy and a profitable day when Yoka rang the engines "ahead," and the Wiggle jerked her way to midstream. ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace



Words linked to "Midstream" :   watercourse, heart, stream, eye, middle, centre, center



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