"Rifle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... on thy quiet shore There are no monuments of other times, No records of the past—its woes or crimes. The roar of cannon and the clang of arms Have never shook thy bosom with alarms, And never has thy calm and peaceful flood Been stained to crimson with a brother's blood. The sportsman's rifle only hast thou heard Scaring the rabbit and the timid bird; Or may be in the savage days of yore The wolf and bear have bled upon thy shore. But rural peace and beauty reign to-night; The harvest moon illumes with holy light Each wave that ...
— Canadian Wild Flowers • Helen M. Johnson
... there is no other. Were it not idle to wish, I could rather wish that I were a poet or a saint, to serve the same Lord by the gentler weapons of the spirit. There are anarchists who never made a speech and never carried a rifle, whom we know as our brothers, though perhaps they know not us. Two I will name who live for ever, Shelley, the first of poets, were it not that there is one greater than he, the mystic William Blake. We are thought of as men of blood; we are hounded over the face of the globe. And ...
— A Modern Symposium • G. Lowes Dickinson
... my twenty-two rifle—that island's just swarming with rabbits, and I think I heard some quail when we were there the ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson
... said his father, 'Dulce et, &c. is our motto. Didn't you know what a nest of heroes we have here to receive you? Let me introduce you to Captain Ernescliffe, of the Dorset Volunteer Rifle Corps; Private Thomas May, of the Cambridge University Corps; and Mr. Aubrey Spencer May, for whom I have found a rifle, and am expected to find a uniform as soon as the wise heads have settled what colour will ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the banner! For our freedom fight! 'Neath the banner, 'neath the banner, Riflemen unite! Graybeard in the Storting Gives his vote for right and truth, Rifle-voice supporting Of our armd youth. Music runeful Ring out tuneful Bullets sent point-blank, Fiery coursing, Freedom forcing Way to royal rank; They from silent valleys To the Storting's rallies ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... throw wood upon the fire, and woke up Harry, who I verily believe was capable of sleeping happily through the crack of doom. He was a little scared at first, but presently the excitement of the position came home to him, and he grew quite anxious to see his majesty face to face. I got my rifle handy and gave Harry his—a Westley Richards falling block, which is a very useful gun for a youth, being light and yet a good killing rifle, ...
— A Tale of Three Lions • H. Rider Haggard
... a man of quick temper, and had never been in the habit of curbing it. He was provoked by the independent tone of the speaker, and without pausing to think of the imprudence of his actions, he raised his rifle and pointing at Fred shot ...
— Cast Upon the Breakers • Horatio Alger
... I bound up my hand; for the pain was fast becoming intolerable. After that, it seemed easier, and I crossed the room, to the rifle stand. There, I selected a heavy rifle—an old and tried weapon; and, having procured ammunition, I made my way up into one of the small towers, with which ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... that. If he had decreed that cruelty to animals indicates a lack of character and then proceeded to denominate as cruelty to animals such innocent diversions as shooting woodpeckers in a cherry-tree with a Flobert rifle, or smoking chipmunks out from a hollow log, or tying a strip of red flannel to a hen's tail to take her mind off the task of trying to hatch a door-knob, or tying a tin can to a dog's tail to encourage him in his laudable enterprise of demonstrating ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... sentry; and then, seeing that the man was a foreigner and imperfectly acquainted with English, he made signs to explain his remark, still carrying his bayonet-tipped rifle at shoulder-arms. The stranger, whose sharp gleam of eye gave the soldier an odd sensation, nodded ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... while cleaning the rifle of Commander Peary, had the misfortune to have the piece explode while in his hands. From some unknown cause a cartridge was discharged, the projectile pierced two thick partitions of inch-and-a-half pine, and penetrated the cabin ...
— A Negro Explorer at the North Pole • Matthew A. Henson
... Christian was one sort of animal and the Pagan another. It might as well be assumed, as indeed it generally is assumed by implication, that a murder committed with a poisoned arrow is different to a murder committed with a Mauser rifle. All such notions are illusions. Go back to the first syllable of recorded time, and there you will find your Christian and your Pagan, your yokel and your poet, helot and hero, Don Quixote and Sancho, ...
— Caesar and Cleopatra • George Bernard Shaw
... army of South Africa. The telegrams, however, which we receive from Great Britain of the national feeling, of the bye-election, of Lord Rosebery's speech, are full of encouragement and confidence. 'At last,' says the British colonist, as he shoulders his rifle and marches out to fight, no less bravely than any soldier (witness the casualty lists), for the ties which bind South Africa to the Empire—'at last they have made up ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... distinction in wider fields, Major White and Colour-Sergeant Hector Macdonald. White carried a ridge at the head of a body of 50 Highlanders. When the enemy fled to a second ridge, he resolved to spare the lives of his men by taking a rifle and stalking the enemy alone, until he suddenly appeared on their flank. Believing that his men were at his back, the Afghans ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... a rifle over thar, and yer's my navy revolver. When I've emptied them, and want you to bear a hand, I'll call ye. Just now your lay is to turn in. It's ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... immediate front. The stone fence, like those still common in New England, was two or three feet high, with set posts and two rails; in all, about five feet high, the top rail giving a rest for a rifle. A zigzag "stake and rider fence" was put in front, the meadow division-fences being stripped for the purpose. The fresh-mown hay filled the interval between the fences. This line was nearly two hundred yards in rear of the face ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 5, May, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... character and form of bear and lynx, gluttonous and voracious, and strong and fearless, a beast descended almost unchanged from the time of the earliest cave-men, the horror of the bravest dog, and end his too uncivilized career with a rifle-shot at thoughtful distance? ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo
... speaking with difficulty through a large mouthful of fish, "that's it. They don't agree. One says his rifle is thirty feet long, another forty feet, an' so on. There's no gittin' at truth in ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... bird of Paradise, all cinnamon, metallic green and buff, with its loose plumage and long wire-shafted feathers. In another case a series of the lesser bird. Then Lane found a few of the beautiful metallic rifle bird, all glossy purply green. The standard wing with its elongated tufts of green upon its breast, and from each shoulder a pair of long, gracefully curved, white willow-leaved feathers standing almost straight out at times, while at others ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... by three feet of solid concrete. No thief could tunnel or mine you without first getting through the District Railway on the one hand, or the main drainage system of London on the other. No thief could rifle you by means of duplicate keys, for no vault and no safe could be opened except in the presence of the head guardian, who possessed a key without which the renter's key was useless. No tricks could be played with the gas, because there was no gas, and the electric light ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett
... looked, after all, and how lonely in the toes of the long, thin stockings! She could have cried, as she stood there looking at them; but what was the use of crying? Tears wouldn't bring Willie the air-rifle for which he sighed, nor Ernest the fine new sled and knife that he had so innocently mentioned in his prayers. No, crying wouldn't help the matter any; so she smiled instead, as she went back to the sitting-room; but it was a wan, lifeless ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... of escaping from civilization. He had pictured himself upon some tropic island, where bananas and cocoanuts grew; or again in some Northern wilderness, where he might hunt and fish, and live like the pioneers. And now—why not do it? He had an axe and a rifle and a fishing-rod; and only a few days previously he had heard a man telling of a lake in the Adirondacks, where not a dozen people went in the ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... against the greatest disadvantages. The country south of the Rappahannock was against him. The fact of Lee's acting ever on the defensive was against him. The woods and the rivers were against him. All Virginia, from the Rapidan to Richmond, was a rifle-pit and an earthwork. The Confederates knew every hill and ravine as though they were the orchard and the fishing creek of their own homes. The battlefield was theirs, to begin with; it must be taken from them or remain theirs forever. ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various
... with delight. He knew that he was dicing with Death, but that was the very essence of his ideal; and he knew that if Death won the throw, his ideal was crowned and consummated, for ever safe from the withering touch of time, or accidental soilure. If it had been given to Swinburne to fall, rifle in hand, on, say, the field of Mentana, we should have been the poorer by many splendid verses, but the richer by a heroic life-story. And would his lot have been the less enviable? Nay, surely, much the more. That is the thought which may well bring solace to those who loved Alan ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... propounding arithmetical problems. In his maturity he carried anatomy further than Delia Torre; he invented machinery for water-mills and aqueducts; he devised engines of war, discovered the secret of conical rifle-bullets, adapted paddle-wheels to boats, projected new systems of siege artillery, investigated the principles of optics, designed buildings, made plans for piercing mountains, raising churches, connecting rivers, draining marshes, ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... curious implement, simply a slim, smooth-shaved sapling, with a bunch of twisted roots at the end. This he learned to throw so skilfully that he could readily kill birds, rabbits, and small game with it. A little later, however, his father gave him a rifle, and he became an expert marksman, able to provide his mother with plenty of ...
— Historic Boyhoods • Rupert Sargent Holland
... of this angle with hardly a misstep, but the advance for a part of the way was a climb, and de Spain, turning once to speak to Nan, asked her for her rifle, that he might carry it with his own. What their story might have been had she given it to him, none can tell. But Nan, holding back, refused to let him relieve her. The dreaded angle which had haunted ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... twirling the end in his fingers. Below him lay town and fjord in the mild October sunlight; the rumble of traffic, the noises from workshops and harbour, came up to him through the rust-brown luminous haze. There he sat, while the sentry on the wall above marched back and forth, with his rifle ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer
... was, and then Mr. Dare had been out in the yard perhaps five minutes. During this time Mrs. Dare had been on the anxious seat, so to speak. She had been listening eagerly and anxiously, fearing she might hear rifle-shots, or the sound of a struggle, but no such sounds had come to her hearing. Still, she was not feeling very much reassured when the boys entered the room, and she told them about the coming of Abe Boggs and some more of the neighbors, and how ...
— The Dare Boys of 1776 • Stephen Angus Cox
... nature with no implement but an axe! Those of us who require so many luxuries and who know how to maintain existence only by the use of so many curious and powerful pieces of mechanism would think ourselves helpless indeed in the center of a wilderness with nothing but an axe or a rifle! ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... easily. The house contained a single dirty room. There was no furniture, except one or two old chairs. The four corners of the room were filled with hemlock branches, which must once have served as beds. A rusty rifle leaned against the wall. Beside it lay a box half filled with cartridges. An old iron pot rested on some burned-out ashes. The place did not appear to have been occupied for some time. The other lodge was furnished in ...
— Madge Morton's Secret • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... themselves together in the friendly shelter of some scrub, and as the woman sought safety among them, the Maluka's rifle rang out, and a charging bull went down before it. Then out of the thick of the uproar Sambo came full gallop, with a bull at his horse's heels, and Dan full gallop behind the bull, bringing his rifle to his shoulder as he galloped, and as ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... brush, were vertical cliffs, in which, directly in front of us, was a narrow opening. Into that we ran, finding ourselves in a cavern about as large as an ordinary room in a house. Here for a time we were safe: a single man with a repeating rifle could defend the entrance against all the Apaches in the land. But against hunger and thirst we had no defense. Courage we still had, but hope was ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... remembered driving through it one grey morning, on one of my Southern journeys; the dull little place, that looked as if it had fallen asleep some hundred or two years ago and never waked up. Now it was waked up with rifle shots; but its slave pen was emptied. I was glad of that. And Thorold was safe in Washington, drilling raw soldiers, in the saddle all day, and very happy, he wrote me. I had begun to be uneasy about his writing to me. It was without leave from my father ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... is sufficiently behind the scenes with me —with what feelings I penned these words; yet any thing was better than the attack I looked forward to: and I should rather have changed into the Cape Rifle Corps, or any other army of martyrs, than meet my mess with all the ridicule my late proceedings exposed me to. Having disburthened my conscience of this dread, I finished my breakfast, and set out on a ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 2 • Charles James Lever
... propping the rifle up between the rocks, and adjusted the telescopic sights. The distant doorway sprang into sharp focus. Grunting with satisfaction, he settled down to his vigil. The rifle-barrel had been dulled down against detection by reflection, ...
— This Crowded Earth • Robert Bloch
... still crown the mountains of Otsego, the bear, the wolf, and the panther are nearly strangers to them. Even the innocent deer is rarely seen bounding beneath their arches; for the rifle and the activity of the settlers hare driven them to other haunts. To this change (which in some particulars is melancholy to one who knew the country in its infancy), it may be added that the Otsego is beginning to be ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... bare catalogue of what this vast camp contained: "Sleeping and mess quarters for those belonging to the new armies; sixteen hospitals with twenty-one thousand beds" (and this shows now what it was to be near the front); "rifle ranges; training camps; a vast laundry, worked by French women under British organization, which washes for all the hospitals thirty thousand pieces a day; recreation huts of every possible kind; a cinema ...
— The War on All Fronts: England's Effort - Letters to an American Friend • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... mind. It was not to wound and make merely helpless. It was to kill. It was not difficult to prove this. Careful not to expose a part of his arm or shoulder, he drew a white handkerchief from his pocket, fastened it to the end of his rifle, and held the flag of surrender three feet above the rock. And then, with equal caution, he slowly thrust up a flat piece of shale, which at a distance of a hundred yards might appear as his shoulder or even his head. Scarcely was it four inches ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood
... under any other circumstances. Consequently a person who aims at equable temperature, should wear light colours. Light colours are far the best for sporting purposes, as they are usually much less conspicuous than black or rifle-green. Almost all wild beasts are tawny or fawn-coloured, or tabby, or of some nondescript hue and pattern: if an animal were born with a more decided colour, he would soon perish for want of ability ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... away. On coming to the end of a lane, into which I had turned to seek the cabin, I found to my surprise that the bars had been put up during my brief parley. They were too high to leap, and I therefore dismounted to pull them down. As I touched the top rail, I heard a rifle, and at the same instant felt a blow on both arms, which fell helpless. I staggered to my horse and tried to mount; but, as I could use neither arm, the effort was vain, and I therefore stood still, awaiting my fate. I am only conscious that I saw about me several graybacks, for I must ...
— The Autobiography of a Quack And The Case Of George Dedlow • S. Weir Mitchell
... resembled a dried skeleton, which it only touched at points, like a reel in a bottle, strivin', of course, to show off a good figure; she then winked both eyes, as if she was meetin' a cloud o' dust, and agin shuttin' one, as if she was coverin' me wid a rifle, whispered, 'You'll find me generous maybe, if you desarve it. I'll increase your ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... that one day when at my worst I could not work nor concentrate my mind on anything. I chanced to be in Topeka, Kansas, and passed a shooting gallery. I was a good rifle shot and I had been taking long walks and shooting Kansas jack rabbits. I went in, picked up one of the rifles, and started firing at the biggest target. I rang the bell twice on that target in succession, and then aimed at the finest target there and ...
— How to Eat - A Cure for "Nerves" • Thomas Clark Hinkle
... previously, a Russian gentleman (an officer, I think, but am not certain of this) and his mistress had occupied this large front room. The man had spent all day at a rifle competition, combined with some sort of merry-making, and had returned home very late—at one-thirty A.M., in fact—very much the worse for drink. He had opened the door very carefully, trusting he should find the lady asleep; ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... told me this tale I should not have recognized him, and then he might have gone after and slain you. If he is a friend and no enemy, then no harm has been done, bwana; but if he proves to be an enemy, I should like very much to have a rifle and some ammunition." ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... old smooth-bore rifle higher under his arm and continued his journey. Sacobie had tramped many miles—all the way from ice-imprisoned Fox Harbor. His papoose was sick. His squaw was hungry. Sacobie's ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... electric torch we ravenously ate our bread and herrings. I enjoyed that simple meal as much as the finest dinner I have ever had placed before me. Whilst eating, a messenger came and warned us to be prepared for an attack. Heavy rifle-fire was taking place, both on the right and ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... to bless Philander with what you must some time or other sacrifice to some hated, loathed object, (for Sylvia can never love again;) and are those treasures for the dull conjugal lover to rifle? Was the beauty of divine shape created for the cold matrimonial embrace? And shall the eternal joys that Sylvia can dispense, be returned by the clumsy husband's careless, forced, insipid duties? Oh, my Sylvia, shall a husband (whose ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... Injuns,' said a tall man to himself as he pushed his way through the brushwood. It was Jim Carlton, the celebrated detective. 'I know them,' he added; 'they are Apaches.' just then ten Indians in full war-paint appeared. Carlton raised his rifle and fired, and slinging their scalps on his arm he hastened towards the humble log hut where resided his affianced bride, Annie Ridgway, sometimes known as the Flower of ...
— The Story of the Treasure Seekers • E. Nesbit
... greediness, as the Spaniards had done, until they had overcome resistance, they dispersed almost immediately into by-streets, and entered warehouses to search for plunder. They seemed actuated by a fear that they should not have time to rifle the city before additional troops should be sent by Anjou to share in the spoil. They were less used to the sacking of Netherland cities than were the Spaniards, whom long practice had made perfect in the art of methodically butchering a population at first, before attention should be diverted ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... based on the model of the Swiss Rifle Clubs, and the obligatory part of its service relates to rifle-practice at the targets, but there the similarity ends. There is no room to question the efficiency of the Swiss marksmen, and the tests applied are very severe. But in Holland the practice is very different. ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... the human beings who were there. At a certain moment a royal Bengal tiger appeared swimming towards it, reached it, and lay panting like a dog upon the ground in the midst of the people, still possessed by such an agony of terror that one of the Englishmen could calmly step up with a rifle and blow out its brains. The tiger's habitual ferocity was temporarily quelled by the emotion of fear, which became sovereign, and formed a new centre for ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... No wonder the captain stared, then laughed. But I did not laugh in return, and being the strongest man in the band and the surest with my rifle, he did not trifle long, but listened to my plans and in part consented to them, so that I retreated to my post at the gateway with something like confidence, while he, approaching the door, lifted the knocker and let it fall with a resounding clang that must have rung like ...
— The Old Stone House and Other Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... principle by the story of the maiden in the boat, holding her hand in the water while she toyed with a string of pearls until the string snapped and the treasure sank into the abyss. The miner interprets opportunity lost through him who, for a rifle and a blanket, traded a rich copper mine that has since paid its owner millions. The historian interprets it by Napoleon's bitter signal to his General, tardy at Waterloo, "Too late! the critical hour has passed." Froude interprets it ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... however, only one consequence of their development. The practicability of aggressive war in settled countries now is entirely dependent on the use of elaborate artillery on land and warships at sea. Were there only rifles in the world, were an ordinary rifle the largest kind of gun permitted, and were ships specifically made for war not so made, then it would be impossible to invade any country defended by a patriotic and spirited population with any hopes of success because of the enormous defensive capacity of entrenched ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... a Winchester rifle descended on my head and I fell to the ground. Rough hands seized me and angry men bore me away, and I ...
— The Red Record - Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States • Ida B. Wells-Barnett
... smoke now, they heard the yelling charge ahead, the rifle fire raging, swelling to a terrific roar; and they marched forward, playing "Garryowen"—not very well, for Connor's jaw was half gone, and Bradley's horse was down; and the bandmaster, reeling in the saddle, parried blow on blow from a clubbed rifle, until a stunning crack ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... shortly. "I have sent all who can ride or manage a rifle." He came a little closer and regarded the commander steadily. "Did Ward write anything about ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... accomplished fencer and boxer. And so the two were soon fast friends, and worked hard together over their books, and would then repair for an hour or two every day to the plantation to fence and box and practise with pistol and rifle at the target. He also took to the humbler task of teaching the rest of us with considerable zeal, and succeeded in rousing a certain enthusiasm in us. We were, he told us, grossly ignorant—simply young barbarians; but he had penetrated beneath the thick crust that covered ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... through. I warned Nelka that she probably would have trouble, but she said there was no time for this now and that she would find a way to get through. Of course we arrived just about the time the train was pulling out and dashed towards the platform. A soldier stood at the entrance with his rifle and when Nelka plunged headlong towards him, he thrust his rifle horizontally in front of her to stop her. Without a moments hesitation she ducked low and slipped under the extended rifle, and was on the moving train before the sentry knew what it ...
— Nelka - Mrs. Helen de Smirnoff Moukhanoff, 1878-1963, a Biographical Sketch • Michael Moukhanoff
... Telegraphy reported that it could do little or nothing, as it is easy to rap out a dot but not possable to rap a dash. We therfore gave it up for The Study of the Rifle ...
— Bab: A Sub-Deb • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... marched to le Bizet, a little village a mile north of the town, and stayed there in billets for the night. During the evening we stood outside our billets, gazed at the continuous line of flares and listened to the rifle fire, imagining in our innocence that there must be a terrific battle with ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... known, that the extreme range of an English percussion musket is nearer one mile than 150 yards (which latter distance, he says, they do not exceed) and he would not have been so astonished at the range of the Zuendnadel guns being 800 yards, if he had seen, as I have, a plain English two-grooved rifle range 1200 yards, with a proper elevation for the distance, and a conical projectile ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 • Various
... with his feet bandaged and resting in a chair, whom somebody addressed by the name of Lies.[1] Lies! thought I, that must be the man who came across the country from Kentucky to Monterey while we lay there in the Pilgrim in 1835, and made a passage in the Alert, when he used to shoot with his rifle bottles hung from the top-gallant studding-sail-boom-ends. He married the beautiful Doa Rosala Vallejo, sister of Don Guadalupe. There were the old high features and sandy hair. I put my chair beside him, and began conversation, as ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... were armed with a smooth-bore musket, and a small force known as the "Rifle Brigade" was the ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... of them, and of faint, far cries from the Palisades, with a futile spatter of pistol-and rifle-fire, the Master frowned. This intrusion of disorder lay quite outside his plans. He had hoped for a swift and quiet getaway. Complications had been introduced. Under his breath he muttered something ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... testimonial of the complete restoration of his sympathy, the miller asked me if I was fond of hunting, took down from a hook over his mantelpiece a long, rusty tube, that made me think of Leather Stocking's rifle, and laid it into my hands, while boasting of the murderous qualities of that instrument. I acknowledged his kindness with an outward appearance of lively satisfaction, never having had the heart ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet
... which only apparently precedes and prophesies of the storm, is perhaps more awful than the storm itself; for, indeed, the calm is but the wrapper and envelope of the storm; and contains it in itself, as the seemingly harmless rifle holds the fatal powder, and the ball, and the explosion; so the graceful repose of the line, as it silently serpentines about the oarsmen before being brought into actual play—this is a thing which carries more of true terror than any other aspect of ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... a Tabiroo (Mycteria) and a rifle bird. The morning was cloudy, but very hot. Numerous heavy cumuli formed ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... written by some one who was in that party. Symmes might have been there, but he was a genius deserving the fame of a Chatterton if he really did this. Three of that party I personally knew—one (Sawyer) was a cousin of my grandfather. His sleight of hand, his skill with rifle, his being a 'votary of chance,' are ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... some of the savages might be lying in wait, and might catch him. My ear watched for the sound of his footsteps. Five—ten minutes—a quarter of an hour passed away. At last I thought I heard the breathing of a person toiling up a hill. It might be a savage, though. I kept my rifle ready, in case it should prove an enemy. To my great satisfaction it proved to be Ben. He came loaded with bread-fruits and cocoa-nuts, and what was undoubtedly the hind quarters of a pig, while a calabash ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... of) had been borne principally by the cavalry, but now the "doughboys" with their "long toms" were being pushed to the front. "Wait till Emma Jane gets her eye on ould Squattin' Bull," said an Irish private, patting the butt of his rifle, as with head and shoulders half-way out of the car window he confidentially addressed the crowd. "It'll be the last spache he'll ever ax ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... instructed Campbell and Allison to proceed to Clifton Creek and encamp, accompanied by Fisherman, I went two miles and a half west, and made our latitude by observation of the sun 19 degrees 31 minutes 35 seconds. Jemmy I had sent back for my rifle, which was left behind. At 12.45 started to camp; at 1.47 made two miles and a half east-north-east to Camp 18 Outward and ...
— Journal of Landsborough's Expedition from Carpentaria - In search of Burke and Wills • William Landsborough
... fire into it from all sides, that the command was driven back. Reaching a fence, Creighton stopped, and facing the foe, waited for his command to reach the opposite side. While in this position he fell, pierced through the body with a rifle bullet. His last words were: "Oh, my dear wife!" and he expired almost immediately. The brigade now fell rapidly back, carrying the remains of its ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... for the few words that come from her lips are but partially characteristic; we have only too little chance to learn her manners and customs. In the fourth chapter, while she is making sure with her dagger that all those on the field of battle whom she wishes to rifle are really dead, an officer of the hussars, who has been watching her lucrative progress, unfeelingly puts a brace of bullets into the lady's brain, just as she raises her hand to smite him to the heart. Perhaps it is as well that she is thus removed before our disappointment at the non-fulfilment ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... officers was convened by order of the Secretary of War, of which he was made president, for the purpose of reporting a plan for the organization and instruction of the militia of the United States, a system of tactics for the artillery, a system of cavalry tactics, and a system of infantry and rifle tactics. The reports on the plan for the organization and instruction of the militia and that on the system of infantry and rifle tactics were written wholly by General Scott, and adopted by the board. Under a resolution of Congress ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... Tsung-li Yamen, from whom a message came inviting to a conference, which was declined. Correspondence, however, ensued and a sort of armistice was agreed upon, which stopped the bombardment and lessened the rifle fire for a time. Even then no protection whatever was afforded, nor any aid given, save to send to the legations a small supply of fruit ...
— Messages and Papers of William McKinley V.2. • William McKinley
... draw an audible breath, the little group watched the movements of their unwelcome guest. Imagine their horror when they beheld him take from his girdle a hunting-knife, and deliberately proceed to try its edge. After this his tomahawk and rifle ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... of dynamite—a dozen sticks securely wrapped, an afterthought that Pete put into effect between poker game and supper-time—the packs contained only the barest necessities, with water kegs, to be filled later. The four friends were riding light; but each carried a canteen at the saddle horn, and a rifle. ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... developed this gift of his that his charger would lie down on the ground at a word from him, and remain lying, as though dead, without ever injuring or displacing his saddle, until given the word to rise; and this even though his neck were used as a gun-rest, and Dick's rifle ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... went again with the best horses, outfit, and men the Doyles could provide. And this time I did not ask any questions. But I rode horses—some of them too wild for me—and packed a rifle many a hundred miles, riding sometimes thirty and forty miles a day, and I climbed in and out of the deep canyons, desperately staying at the heels of one of those long-legged Texans. I learned the life of those backwoodsmen, but I did not get the story of the Pleasant ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... the Slave States, and force them into a miserable subservience to its fanatical dominion. And it is worthy of note, that the shooting of Sheriff Jones and others in Kansas, occurred immediately after the arrival of the New Haven Emigrant Rifle Company! This, too, calls to mind forcibly the very delectable conversational speechifying that took place at the New Haven Rifle Meeting, among the pious villains who figured most conspicuously. As it is short, ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... background, and moss and ferns underfoot. A set in the foreground. To the left is a tent, about ten feet square, with a fly. The front and sides are rolled up, showing a rubber blanket spread, with bedding upon it; a rough stand, with books and some canned goods, a rifle, a fishing-rod, etc. Toward centre is a trench with the remains of a fire smoldering in it, and a frying pan and some soiled dishes beside it. There is a log, used as a seat, and near it are several books, a bound volume of music lying open, and a violin case ...
— Prince Hagen • Upton Sinclair
... blue! It's a trifle; But trifling in stockings won't do; For love has an eye like a rifle (His ...
— More Songs From Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey
... high place which it has ever since retained. In the autumn of the same year Yule's attention was momentarily turned in a very different direction by a local insurrection, followed by severe reprisals, and the bombardment of Palermo by the Italian Fleet. His sick wife was for some time under rifle as well as shell fire; but cheerfully remarking that "every bullet has its billet," she remained perfectly serene and undisturbed. It was the year of the last war with Austria, and also of the suppression of the Monastic Orders in Sicily; two events ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... African stories has no pretentious purpose. It is merely the record of a most delightful hunting trip into those fascinating regions along the Equator, where one may still have "thrilling adventures" and live in a story-book atmosphere, where the "roar of the lion" and the "crack of the rifle" are part of the every-day life, and where in a few months one may store up enough material to keep the memory pleasantly occupied all the rest of a lifetime. The stories are descriptive of a four-and-a-half months' trip ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... pronounce it an uninteresting view. But what I consider splendid is this: with the exception of the nearest barn, which is about three hundred yards off in a straight line, there is no shelter better than that of a molehill for one of the enemy's skirmishers. Far as a rifle-ball can range, we are monarchs of the plain below; only there is a thicket in the way yonder—a plantation, I believe, of ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... Lescure returned on foot from the battle to the chateau of Clisson. Henri still had the red scarf round his neck and waist, and stuck in the latter he had three or four pistols, of various sizes, all of which had been used in the recent engagement. On his shoulder he held a rifle, which he carried like a fowling-piece, and he walked home with the air and look of a man returning from a day's sport, well contented with ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... the goal where both would be, and there was none to dispute with them the doubtful honor. Even those who had stampeded at the first yell of alarm were now reining back in broad, sweeping circle, unslinging the ready rifle and pouring in a long-range fire on the distant rank of cavalry, just bursting into the triumph of the charge. Here, there, and everywhere across the plain little puffs of blue-white smoke were shooting up, telling of the leaden missiles ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... I am pretty safe now from the regilators, and, saving my trouble of mind, well enough, and nothing to complain about. Your animal goes as slick as grease, and carried me in no time out of reach of rifle-shot—so you see it's only right to thank God, and you, lawyer, for if you hadn't lent me the nag, I guess it would have been a sore chance for me in the hands of them savages and beasts ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... a guard of young men, with their rifles loaded and cocked, stood guard over the surrounding thickets while the girls picked the fruit. It was not safe for a man to stoop over a spring to drink unless some one else was on the watch with his rifle in his arms; and when half a dozen men stood together, in conversation, they turned their backs to each other, all facing different ways, to ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... spiritual freedom. In early life he had steadfastly refused to pay the United States taxes because he would not give tribute to a government which believed in war. When the collector came he would lay down his purse, saying, "I shall not voluntarily pay these taxes; if thee wants to rifle my pocket-book, thee can do so." But he lived to do all in his power to support the Union in its struggle for the abolition of slavery and, although too old to go to the front himself, his two sons enlisted at the very beginning of ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... extreme edge of the slope. Then it parted to disclose the hideous visage of a Sioux Indian in war paint. His dark, piercing, malignant glance was fixed upon the St. Vrain and Laramie Trail. His half- naked body rested at ease; a rifle lay ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... saw their arms glinting among the trees, the brilliant beams of the sun dancing on the polished steel of saber hilt and rifle barrel. A minute more, and three hundred Union horsemen emerged from the forest and rode, in beautiful order, down to the ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler
... drove the skirmishers back upon their main forces, which were strongly posted between two swamps. The position was admirably chosen; their right rested upon a low, slight earthwork, protected by rifle-pits, their center was defended by an impassable swamp, and on their left was a cavalry force drawn up on a small elevation behind the shelter of a grove of pines. Their camp was intersected by the railroad, on which was placed a battery capable of operating against the center ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... woollen material—the so-called Jaeger clothing; a lighter and a heavier woollen outer suit; two pair of waterproof and two pair of lighter boots; two cork helmets, and one waterproof overcoat. In weapons every member received a repeating-rifle of the best construction for twelve shots, a pocket revolver, and an American bowie-knife. In addition, there were provided a hundred sporting guns of different calibres, from the elephant-guns, which shot two-ounce explosive bullets, to the lightest fowling-pieces; ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... the country around was rare with jasmine and jonquils and patches of violets in the warming grass. Afterward he remembered especially one afternoon of such a fresh and magic glamour that as he stood in the rifle-pit marking targets he recited "Atalanta in Calydon" to an uncomprehending Pole, his voice mingling with the rip, sing, and splatter of the ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... used his rifle to procure meat, except when it was absolutely necessary, or could be done with perfect safety. On occasions when he had no beaver, upon which he generally subsisted, he ventured to kill a deer, and after refreshing his empty stomach ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... exclaimed, 'Devil take the birds, there are more of them in the market.' He then loaded his gun, and wishing to show me that he was a marksman, fired at one of the pins on his easel. This he smashed to pieces, and afterward put a rifle bullet exactly through the hole into ...
— John James Audubon • John Burroughs
... to his room to don for Virginia that glorious but useless full dress,—the high bearskin rat, the red pigeon-tailed coat, the light blue trousers, and the gorgeous, priceless shackle. Indeed, the boy looked stunning. He held his big rifle like a veteran, and his face was set with a high resolve there was no mistaking. The high color of her pride was on the cheek of the girl as he brought his piece to the salute of her, his mistress. And yet, when he was gone, and she sat alone amid the roses ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Bailey had no clear impression of anything going on in his mind during that vast period, except a vague wonder at his inability to throw the second medicine bottle. Suddenly the Malay glanced over his shoulder. There was the crack of a rifle. He flung up his arms and came down upon the couch. Mrs Green began a dismal shriek that seemed likely to last until Doomsday. Bailey stared at the brown body with its shoulder blade driven in, that writhed painfully across his legs and rapidly ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... or boy carried a rifle or shotgun, and killed plenty of game. Deer and antelope were always in sight after they crossed the Missouri River, and the meat was broiled or roasted over the coals of their campfire. Wild turkeys and prairie-chicken tasted much better ...
— Stories of California • Ella M. Sexton
... than when he began. Feeling that the Southern planters had robbed him of the legitimate reward of his invention, Whitney came North and gave himself to the study of firearms. He invented what is now known as the Colt's revolver, the Remington rifle and the modern machine gun. Beginning with the feeling that he had been robbed of his just rights by Southern planters, Whitney ended by inventing the very weapons that deprived the planters of their slaves and preserved ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis
... ago," she replied, pleased that at last she had won his genuine admiration. "I've two medals for shooting. My brothers are both crack shots and they taught me. I usually shoot with a rifle, however." ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson
... heavy, dark form of a mountain-hawk, as it swept swiftly through the air, and poising itself for an instant, marked where a gentle wood dove was perched upon a projecting bough in the valley. Komel laid her hand with nervous energy upon Aphiz's arm. The hawk was beyond the reach of his rifle, and realizing this he dropped its breach once more to his side. A moment more and the bolder bird was bearing its prey to its mountain nest, there to feed upon it innocent body. Neither Komel nor Aphiz uttered one word, but ...
— The Circassian Slave; or, The Sultan's Favorite - A Story of Constantinople and the Caucasus • Lieutenant Maturin Murray
... led up to a private door in the colonel's quarters, where a private in uniform, with a rifle on his shoulder, made a formal parade when the colonel was within, and accessible to the military world for the transaction of business. This sentinel was not on duty now, the return of the colonel being unlooked-for, and nobody was the wiser in that household when the master of ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... than one. In the first place, stags are not hunted with horses and hounds. In the second place, the sport is not free. A gentleman here told Jone that if a man wanted to shoot a stag on these moors it would cost him one rifle cartridge and six five pound notes; and when Jone did not understand what that meant, the man went on and told him about how the deer-stalking was carried on here. He said that some of the big proprietors ...
— Pomona's Travels - A Series of Letters to the Mistress of Rudder Grange from her Former - Handmaiden • Frank R. Stockton
... fair Fidele's grassy tomb Soft maids and village hinds shall bring Each opening sweet of earliest bloom, And rifle all ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins |
