"Rifle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... seriously. Landor, who sat for the thunderous and kindly Boythorn, had more reason to be satisfied. Besides these one may mention Joe, the outcast; and Mr. Turveydrop, the beau of the school of the Regency—how horrified he would have been at the juxtaposition—and George, the keeper of the rifle gallery, a fine soldierly figure; and Mr. Bucket, the detective—though Dickens had a tendency to idealize the abilities of the police force. As to Sir Leicester Dedlock, I think he is, on the whole, "mine author's" best study of the aristocracy, a direction in which Dickens' forte did not lie, ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... his rifle, and, pointing it straight in the air, fired two shots, and then, after a brief interval, ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Long Lake - Bessie King in Summer Camp • Jane L. Stewart
... yell rent the forest. The voice above us shouted "Halt!" but the echo was lost in the deafening report of a rifle. ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... berries were red on her ash, The blackbird would rifle them rough, Till the ground underneath looked a gash, And her rogue grew the round of a chough. The squirrel cocked ear o'er his hoop, Up the spruce, quick as eye, trailing brush. She knew any tit of the troop All as well as ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... failure of the socialists to appreciate his kindly intentions towards them, that he now regards them as his most bitter enemies, and practically calls upon every soldier who joins the army to be prepared to use his rifle, not only against the enemies from without, but also against the enemies within—that is, ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... boys were standing on the bench that served instead of dining-chairs, each with a plate and a pancake on the table in front of them. Jack held a hammer and spike, Scott Burton a hatchet, Geoffrey a saw, and Philip a rifle. Bell was nothing if not intuitive. No elaborate explanations ever were needed to show her a fact. Without a word she flung the plate of flapjacks she held as far into a thicket as she had force to fling it, and then dropped on ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the barbed-wire fence, and was hunting for the latch (as no padlock was in evidence) when a scared voice cried loudly "Qu'est ce que vous faites la!" and I found myself stupidly looking into a rifle. B., Fritz, Harree, Pompom, Monsieur Auguste, The Bear, and the last but not least Count de Bragard immediately informed the trembling planton that I was a Nouveau who had just returned from the douches ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... quieted. She wanted to talk. She was full of reminiscences of former "croppers" in the lives of the various members of her family. She wanted to tell how Jim was dragged by the buffalo bull he was taming; how Pa caught the young grizzly by his paws, and held him until George came with the rifle; how Brown Billy ran away with her when she was six years old, and how she held on by his mane till he lay down and rolled in the creek, and then swam ashore. Her brain was feverishly excited, and it was not till late in the evening that ...
— Three Margarets • Laura E. Richards
... but no horse. The man had a belt over his shoulders and he drew in the shafts; the son worked by traces tied to the end of the shafts and assisted his father to draw the cart; the son's wife rode in the cart, and the old woman was walking, carrying a rifle, and driving a cow."[8] This example, ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... owned a .303 gauge big game rifle, but it was heavy and ammunition for it added greatly to the weight to be carried in the airship. With the complete approval of Colonel Howell, he bought a new .22 long improved rifle, which he figured was all they needed in addition ...
— On the Edge of the Arctic - An Aeroplane in Snowland • Harry Lincoln Sayler
... impressive figure, his head clean-shaven except for the defiant scalp lock which stood aloft intertwined with small eagle feathers, a gorgeous red blanket from some Canadian trading post thrown carelessly about his shoulders after the fashion of a toga, a fine long-barreled Kentucky rifle lying in the hollow of his arm, and a tomahawk and knife at ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler
... when he had been a scout, and army life, contrary to its reputation, had not spruced and straightened him up at all. He was about as awkward looking as a piece of field artillery, and he was just about as reliable and effective. He was not built on the lines of a rifle, but rather on the lines of a cannon, or perhaps of a tank. His mouth was long and his lips set tight, but it twitched nervously at one end, especially when he waited at the street crossing just before he reached the bank building, watching ...
— Tom Slade at Black Lake • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... much younger man, slender, graceful in the saddle, rather handsome in a swarthy, defiant way. He ranged up beside the spokesman as if to take full share in whatever was to come. Both of them were armed with revolvers, the elder of the two with a rifle in addition, which he carried in a leather scabbard black and slick with age, slung on his ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... within, called by the Sioux some wild combination of almost unpronounceable syllables, which, freely translated, gave us Warrior Gap, and there at last accounts, strengthened by detachments from Frayne and Reno, the little command of fort builders worked away, ax in hand, rifle at hand, subjected every hour to alarm from the vedettes and pickets posted thickly all about them, pickets who were sometimes found stone dead at their posts, transfixed with arrows, scalped and mutilated, and ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... on the 4th of June, 1875, the sound-producing powers of four different kinds of powder were determined. In the order of the size of their grains they bear the names respectively of Fine-grain (F.G.), Large-grain (L.G.), Rifle Large-grain (R.L.G.), and Pebble-powder (P.) (See annexed figures.) The charge in each case amounted to 4.5 lbs. four 24-lb. howitzers being employed to fire the ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... the famous saying about the Chassepot rifle may be applied to the Chickering Piano; it is doing wonders at Rome. Everybody talks to me of it, and wants to see and hear it. One of my archeological friends calls it "the ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... poison may colour a tempting grain or berry, frost may deaden his energies and lull him to the sleep that knows no waking. He has but little aid from science: beyond food and medicine he carries little more than a watch, a compass, a rifle, and a cartridge belt. Beyond all instruments and weapons are his skill, agility, gumption, diplomacy. And these resources in no mean measure are shared by the man for whom he prepares the way, the ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: Explorers • Various
... bushes: the yellow spikes of wild mignonette flourished on the very hedge, and even half way down the precipices. From the ledge above, the eye could see into these and into the recesses between the brushwood. The squire's son, Mr. Martin, used to come here with his rook-rifle, for he could always get a shot at a rabbit in the hollow. They could not see him approach; and the ball, if it missed, did no damage, being caught as in a bowl. Rifles in England, even when their range is but a hundred yards or so, are not to be used without caution. Some one may ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... after, this old Indian chief came "a long way" to see the Virginia officer at whom he fired a rifle fifteen times without hitting him, during the Monongahela fight. Washington never ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... and commanded them to follow him. Soon the dusky forests resounded far and near with the blast of horns, the report of guns, and the calling and shouting of men. The affrighted stag crossed and recrossed the path of the hunters, but not a rifle was leveled at its head. Toward morning—it was before the sun had yet risen—Lage, weary and stunned, stood leaning up against a huge fir. Then suddenly a fierce, wild laugh rang through the forest. Lage shuddered, raised his hand slowly and pressed it hard against his forehead, ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... 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 to undeceive people who think they are doing something ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet
... before—just after you left. I reckon he was waitin' for you to go. I'm glad you went first." The man looked up at the rifle resting on the pegs above the fireplace. "Laban, don't!" she cried. "I looked at it when he was walkin' away, and I ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... overcame all obstacles and, later, he built a sky racer, in which he made the quickest trip on record. After that, with his electric rifle, he went after elephants in the interior of Africa and was successful in rescuing some missionaries from the terrible ...
— Tom Swift in Captivity • Victor Appleton
... street of booths there are the roundabouts, the swings, the rifle galleries—like shooting into the mouth of a great trumpet—the shows, the cakes and brown nuts and gingerbread, the ale-barrels in a row, the rude forms and trestle tables; just the same, the very same, we saw at our first ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... they were not wholly freed from danger. The militia, who had been treading on their rear, were no longer seen, but every house, every wall, and every tree the troops had to pass, sent forth upon them bullets and rifle shots; the Americans taking care not to expose their own persons to danger. When they reached Boston they had left behind them sixty killed, and forty-nine missing, in addition to which they had one hundred and thirty-six wounded. The provincials had about fifty ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... of fallen logs, and Merrifield, who was leading, passed by the upright stem of a great pine. As soon as he was by it, he sank suddenly on one knee, turning half round, his face fairly aflame with excitement; and as I strode past him, with my rifle at the ready, there, not ten steps off, was the great bear, slowly rising from his bed among the young spruces. He had heard us, but apparently hardly knew exactly where or what we were, for he reared up on his ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... Quebec, on the line of the Trout River. On arrival at a chosen position which possessed great advantages for a successful defence, they began throwing up entrenchments, and prepared to make a determined stand. A whole day was spent in the work of constructing rifle pits and breastworks, but being no doubt discouraged by the news of O'Neil's defeat at Eccles' Hill, they abandoned their position on the 26th and returned to their camp on the American side of the line. While there they evidently ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald
... own, and if there be either young women or aged men, use them nobly, which is ever the nature of a generous disposition. To conclude, if you surprise him, or enter perforce, you may stow the men, rifle, pillage, or sack, and cry ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... of the charge, twice above the din, I caught the clear notes of an artillery bugle. It was dim daylight now. Rifle-smoke and clouds of dust and gray mist shot through with flashes of powder, and the awful rage, as if all the demons of Hell were crying vengeance, are all in that picture burned into my memory with a white-hot brand. And above all ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... the lad, "it's all as quiet as——" But he did not finish the sentence; at that moment there was a crack of a rifle and a bullet passed through the poor ...
— Tommy • Joseph Hocking
... enough to discover the age of Adams, and the benevolence visible in his countenance, she suspected he had used her as some very honest men have used their country; and had rescued her out of the hands of one rifler in order to rifle her himself. Such were the suspicions she drew from his silence; but indeed they were ill-grounded. He stood over his vanquished enemy, wisely weighing in his mind the objections which might be made to either of the two methods of proceeding mentioned in the last chapter, his judgment sometimes ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... boy stood beside him, holding out at him the point of what in the semi-darkness Mr. Jones took to be a loaded rifle. William mistook his action ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton
... beheld the mayor and the general on the stairs he saluted nervously. "They're getting ready to use sledge-hammers, sir. Shall I hand 'em the rifle-fire first or let loose with ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... of an idea of the worth of a rifle as any one else has; suppose you were going to buy one for your boy, what would ...
— A Man of Samples • Wm. H. Maher
... that trail—utterly invisible to the untrained eye—as surely as a blood-hound follows the scent, ten or twenty, or a hundred miles, whose eye and hand are so well practised that they can drive a nail, or snuff a candle, with the long, heavy western rifle. Such men, educated for years, or even generations, in that hard school of necessity, where every one's hand and wood-man's skill must keep his head; where incessant pressing necessities required ever a prompt and sufficient answer in deeds; and where words ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... insufferable as Nap if he weren't," rejoined the Major gloomily. "I can't think what the County are coming to. They will accept anybody nowadays, it seems to me. I even met that little bounder at the Rifle Club the other day. Heaven knows how he got in. Dollars again, I ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... the squirrels, raccoons, and even wild-cats (it is said), that he could find in that region. As he grew older, his courage increased, and then we find him amusing himself with higher game. Other lads in the neighborhood were soon taught by him the use of the rifle, and were then able to join him in his adventures. On one occasion, they all started out for a hunt, and, after amusing themselves till it was almost dark, were returning homeward, when suddenly a wild cry was heard in the woods. The ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley
... the 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, ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... notice which we have of rifles is in the year 1498, nearly 120 years after the invention of gunpowder was known to Europe. The Chinese, I believe, claim the invention 3000 years before the Creation. The first rifle-maker was one Zugler, in Germany, and his original object appears to have been merely to make the balls more ragged, so as to inflict more serious wounds; a result produced before that time by biting and hacking the balls. ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... You may be sure I always pointed these out to our visitors, and one of my chief pleasures was to dress one of my schoolmates in the Indian war bonnet, and then scalp him with a carving knife. The duelling pistols were even a greater delight to me. They were equipped with rifle barrels and hair triggers, and were inlaid richly with silver, and more than once had been used on the field of honor. Whenever my grandfather went out for a walk, or to play whist at the house of a neighbor, I would get ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... allowed the Germans to come in to well within point-blank range, remaining silent, holding their fire and not showing a light meanwhile. Then, as the enemy got within point-blank range, searchlights were suddenly switched on and a ceaseless fusillade of Maxim and rifle-fire from the Russians literally mowed the Germans down by hundreds, breaking up their masses and paralysing the attack. Our illustration shows one of the combats just at the critical moment.—[Drawn by Frederic ...
— The Illustrated War News, Number 21, Dec. 30, 1914 • Various
... the people came pouring in from all directions, while the greatest excitement prevailed. The town had eighty muskets, belonging to its Home Guard, and I took one of them, which I afterward exchanged for a good French rifle; and having put on the military equipments, and supplied myself with a blanket and canteen, I was ready for marching orders. The volunteers who rallied at Centreville were shipped to Indianapolis, and were about seven ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... keeper-as to peculiarities of heredity in certain noisy members of the crowd, a riot seemed inevitable. I stationed my two soldiers in the narrow doorway to defend the only entrance and entertain the uninitiated with stories of their prowess with the rifle and of the weapon's deadliness. Boys climbed like monkeys to the overhead beams to get a glimpse of me as I fed, and incidentally ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... now became so exasperated at the cheek of the 'foreign white devils' that it could no more keep within bounds, and a wild attack was made on the pirates. Showers of stones were thrown, and the infuriated natives made a rush upon them; but, helas! their attack was met by a volley of rifle-shots. Frightened out of their lives by the murderous effects of these strange weapons, they fell back for a time, only to return by-and-by with fresh ardour to the attack. The body-snatchers, having little confidence in the ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... mysterious signs and rudely limned weapons of war and chase. Right over the stone marker, a long-shafted war-lance was carved—the blade pointing down. MacRae's seat, stone-marker, and aboriginal spearhead; the three lined up like the sights of a modern rifle. The conclusion, in the light of what we knew from Rutter, was obvious, even to a ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... he works, so that the product, as a whole, is visible to the mental eye, as a new creation or construction, he has an immense advantage over all critics of his performance. Refined reasonings are impotent to overthrow it; epigrams glance off from it, as rifle-bullets rebound when aimed at a granite wall; and it stands erect long after the reasonings and the epigrams are forgotten. Even when its symmetry is destroyed by a long and destructive siege, a pile of stones still remains, as at Fort Sumter, to attest what power of resistance it opposed ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... changed his first impression of savage character. When he traveled in the wilderness he carried the Word and the Cross; but he was also armed with a gun and two good pistols, not to mention a dangerous knife. The rumor prevailed that Father Beret could drive a nail at sixty yards with his rifle, and at twenty snuff a candle with either one ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... shakedowns, on one of which I slept under a bearskin. A rough stone chimney was reared outside, and the fireplace was as long as my father was tall. There was a crane in it, and a bake kettle; and over it great buckhorns held my father's rifle when it was not in use. On other horns hung jerked bear's meat and venison hams, and gourds for drinking cups, and bags of seed, and my father's best hunting shirt; also, in a neglected corner, several articles of woman's attire from pegs. These once belonged to ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... babies were about a month old, she took them out to the woods and gradually roamed farther and farther from the shanty in search of acorns and roots. One afternoon we heard a rifle-shot, a very noticeable thing, as we had no near neighbors, as yet. We thought it must have been fired by an Indian on the trail that followed the right bank of the Fox River between Portage and Packwaukee Lake and passed our shanty at a distance ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... were armed with shotguns and they also took along Mr. Dodge's rifle, as they had done before, and the trusty pistol belonging to Doctor Reed. Their snowshoes were placed on the tops of the loads, and they put on their well-sharpened skates as soon as the river front ...
— Guns And Snowshoes • Captain Ralph Bonehill
... across their intercourse. As the term of that respite drew to an end his anxiety increased, until at last it even trenched upon his well-earned sleep. He had some idea of buying a revolver. At last he compromised upon a small and very foul and dirty rook rifle which he purchased in Lammam under a pretext of bird scaring, and loaded carefully and concealed under his bed from the plump ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... for, anyway. When he reached. the patient sorrel pony a minute or two later (it had taken him half an hour or more to climb from the pony to the peak, but climbing, of course, is much slower than coming down—even without the acceleration of singing rifle bullets) he was perspiring rather freely and ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... attack, one regiment made a shameful retreat. The rest were rallied by Warner and Francis,[25] behind trees, in copses, or wherever a vantage-ground could be had. As the combat took place in the woods, the British were forced to adopt the same tactics. Musket and rifle were soon doing deadly work in their ranks, every foot of ground was obstinately disputed, and when they thought the battle already won they found the Americans had only just ...
— Burgoyne's Invasion of 1777 - With an outline sketch of the American Invasion of Canada, 1775-76. • Samuel Adams Drake
... was, for some time, a banker in Dumfries: his eldest son, a fine, high-spirited youth, fell by a rifle-ball in America, when leading the troops to ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... the hunting than in his present business, became half wild with excitement at the sight of these izzards. It was the largest herd he had seen that year, and, with many a sacre, he bemoaned his fate that he should be without his rifle; though I endeavoured to convince him that there was nothing to regret, as he could not at the same time hunt izzards and conduct me ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 456 - Volume 18, New Series, September 25, 1852 • Various
... hall, hung the bell rope. The bell swung in the cupola on the roof of the office building. The guard dropped his rifle and sprang to seize this rope. He slipped his foot in the loop and began to toll the bell ...
— Navy Boys Behind the Big Guns - Sinking the German U-Boats • Halsey Davidson
... was followed almost instantly by the whip-like crack of a rifle. A stinging sensation on the cheek, together with the whistle of a deadly bullet, warned Dyke Darrel of ...
— Dyke Darrel the Railroad Detective - Or, The Crime of the Midnight Express • Frank Pinkerton
... position at Chattanooga, after the battle, the Army of the Cumberland, between the rebel troops in front and the forces of Nature in the rear, was practically in a state of siege. The lines around the town were held by our troops behind extensive rifle-pits, strengthened with heavy earthworks covering all approaches on the front. Bragg's army moved up immediately, and invested our lines, throwing up rifle-pits within a short distance of those of our army. To the rear of these Bragg threw up two other lines of intrenchments and on the right ...
— The Army of the Cumberland • Henry M. Cist
... been so stupid as not to think of it before? Paul was only dark, while Indians were red, but then it was easy enough for him to have been a half-breed; Paul was very straight, as Indians always were in books; Paul was a splendid shot with a rifle, as all Indians are; Paul had no parents—well, the tableau made by Paul's own friend Mr. Morton, who knew all about him, explained plainly enough how Indian boys came to be without fathers ...
— Harper's Young People, October 26, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... boat into the sea and imitated him. The boy sat still and went on singing. Vere felt disappointed. Was not he going to dive too? She wanted him to dive. If she were that boy she would go in, she felt sure of it, before the men. It must be lovely to sink down into the underworld of the sea, to rifle from the rocks their fruit, that grew thick as fruit on the trees. But the boy—he was lazy, good for nothing but singing. She was half ashamed of him. Whimsically, and laughing to herself at her own absurdity, she lifted her two hands, brown with ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... Comelina coelestis, and fain would she have robbed it of its kiss, but she consoled herself with the thought that she would rifle it of its sweets as soon as ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... conclude, as we shall see presently, with the prophecy of its total extinction as far as the present world is concerned,—by clothing in a "properly scientific garb," our innocent impression that there is some difference between the blow of a rifle stock and a rifle ball; he prepares for the scientific toilet by telling us in italics that "the something which the rifle ball possesses in contradistinction to the rifle stock is clearly the power of overcoming resistance," since "it can penetrate through oak-wood or through water—or ...
— The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century - Two Lectures delivered at the London Institution February - 4th and 11th, 1884 • John Ruskin
... she was saying. "But I never realised she was a sister of your old Oxford friend. I wish I had. It would have been so pleasant to talk about you and about home in that far country! Her husband is in the Rifle Brigade, and she really is a nice, dear woman. I saw a great deal of her while ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... the ridge, with his blanket rolled and tied behind the cantle. His frying-pan hung behind his leg, and his rifle lay across the saddle in front of him. He was going home boldly enough and recklessly enough, but he was by no means disposed to walk deliberately into a trap. He kept his eye peeled, as he would have expressed it. Also, ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... did any bullet find its billet in the body of any of the besieged. But one ball knocked a splinter from a rock and drove it against the knuckles of Binney's right hand, making it difficult for him to use his rifle. ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... Geographie de Paris, Honorary Member of the Geographical Societies of Paris, Berlin, Italy, and America, Author of "The Albert N'yanza Great Basin of the Nile," "The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia," "Eight Years' Wanderings in Ceylon," "The Rifle and Hound ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... Your handwriting, usually so firm and easy, quavers a little, and exhibits more of the influence of the biceps muscle than of your accustomed light play of the wrist and fingers. But, you think, it's the rifle that does it, and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... as though they were in a real camp, and as though they were not being watched by hundreds of eyes. They talked among themselves, washed their dishes after the dinner and then shot at a target with a small rifle, which sent ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in a Great City • Laura Lee Hope
... troops hear the thunder of thousands of horses' hoofs, galloping—galloping to this last charge which must be irresistible. And sturdy, wearied hands, black with powder and stained with blood, grasp more firmly still the bayonet, the rifle or the carbine, and they wait—those exhausted, intrepid, valiant men! they wait for that thundering charge, with wide-open eyes fixed upon the crest of the hill—they wait for the charge—they are ready for death—but they are not ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... as a soldier takes care of his rifle or a musician of his violin. But do they allow us any purpose or freedom of our own? Will they lend us to one another? Can the strongest man escape from them when once he is appropriated? They tremble when we are in danger, and ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... came to this country with Libby's mother. Here they lived in a common-law marriage relationship for many years, and two children (one of them Libby) were born to them. The man continued to be a terrible drunkard and was probably insane at times. He once bought a rifle to kill his family. He was notorious for his great changeableness of disposition. Sometimes he would be very pleasant, and then quickly be seized by some impulse when he would grind his teeth, become very angry, and ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... childhood he is said to have perplexed his teachers by 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, clearing harbours.[238] There ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... for the fortieth time drew them from hiding to reread into their guarded or unguarded lines meanings never dreamed by their writers, you could not have laughed without a feeling of tears, or felt the tears without smiling. Many a chap's epistle was scrawled, many a one even rhymed, in a rifle-pit with the enemy's shells bursting over. Many a one was feebly dictated to some blessed, unskilled volunteer nurse in a barn or smoke-house or in some cannon-shattered church. From the like of that who with a woman's heart could withhold ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... exposed, simply laid out in the fields, and so close to the roadside—I mean to the main roads built by Europeans near their settlements—that you can almost touch them with the end of your walking-stick as you pass. The stench from such coffins became so offensive last year at the rifle range that the European authorities had to enter complaint to the Chinese Mandarin. I was, like all others, at first much shocked at the sight of these evidences of mortality. One day I stood and counted ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... first crack of a rifle, however, the animals immediately aroused, and then during the fusillade which followed there occurred what might be called an orderly scramble for the water. In the first place the young ones were hustled to the edge of the ice-pan, and there, apparently under the protection of the mother's flipper, ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... years 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 ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... third, Bloomfield, waiting with gun in hand, was wounded at the first shot and killed at the second. The crowd retreated, but bullets rained upon the house, Charles all the while keeping watch in every direction from four different windows. Every now and then he thrust his rifle through one of the shattered windowpanes and fired, working with incredible rapidity. He succeeded in killing two more of his assailants and wounding two. At last he realized that the house was on fire, and ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... chosen for the post of honor in guarding that strip of plain, and that the lives of those near by depended on your alertness? If they had picked you out for that difficult and important post, do you think that you would go and stand your rifle up against a tree and look for some soft nice mossy bank on which to lie down and go ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... Lights appear in the tents, and a glow, red or white, shines through the canvas. One after another these are extinguished. The "Last Post" sounds from a dozen bugles. The multitudinous noises of camp life die away. The rifle-fire which has crackled all day on the ranges has long ceased. The spluttering of machine guns in the training camps vexes the ear no more. The heavy explosions of shell testing are over for another day. Save for the sharp challenge of a sentry here and there, and the distant shriek of a railway ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham
... free as air; who has traveled hundreds of miles beyond the Mississippi to reach a place where title-deeds are not registered and sheriffs make no levies; who neither fears God nor regards man; to whom the rule of the rifle is the supremest law; and yet who, with all his detestation of the safeguards which society has erected for its security, has a moral code and a rough wild ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... across the shoulders. His belt was heavy with little leather pockets; a pair of prismatic field-glasses, suspended from a strap around his neck, swung across his chest; in the crook of his left arm he carried a light rifle. ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... killed, those they leave press forward again. In France the Americans "never gave up an inch." We Americans of to-day, looking back, may be proud not only of the part played by our blood in the World War, but likewise of the part it played in the days when, rifle in hand, we were hewing the peace trail in our ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... grease. His tomahawk which he always wore on the right side, and the hunting knife which he carried on the left with his powder horn and bullet pouch, he laid carefully aside. He inspected his trusty flintlock rifle.... He had slept under cliffs, wrapped in his buffalo blanket with his dog, with leaves and brush for a pillow. His thick club of hair had not been untied in weeks. The chute bark with which it was fastened was full of chinks. There was something worse. "What are you scratching for?" Rebecca would ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... answered, because there is nothing in intimidation by violence which would make it a good cause for exclusion, more than that other kind of intimidation, which is social or financial. If, in ascertaining the state of the vote, it be lawful to inquire whether certain voters were frightened by a rifle-club to stay away from the polls, or to vote as the club dictated, it must also be lawful to inquire whether the same number of voters were induced to vote or not to vote by fear that their discounts might be lessened at the village bank, or their employment discontinued at the neighboring factory. ...
— The Electoral Votes of 1876 - Who Should Count Them, What Should Be Counted, and the Remedy for a Wrong Count • David Dudley Field
... Hooper's in time to see a man stand out in the brush, evidently for the purpose of challenging the horseman. Artie paid him not the slightest attention, but swept by magnificently, the great stallion leaping high in his restrained vitality. The outpost promptly levelled his rifle. We saw the vivid flash in the half light. Brower reeled in his saddle, half fell, caught himself by the stallion's mane and clung, swinging to and fro. The horse, freed of control, tossed his head, laid back his ears, and ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... whose brown, oily surface now shone clearly beneath them, Roy especially busied himself with the many attractions of the stream. Animal life was plentiful and, despite Norman's renewed protests, his companion insisted now and then in fruitlessly discharging his rifle at small game. ...
— On the Edge of the Arctic - An Aeroplane in Snowland • Harry Lincoln Sayler
... gymnasium for them, and so they never learn the use of their limbs; they cannot row, though they have a splendid river to row upon; they cannot fence, box, wrestle, play single-stick, or shoot with the rifle; they do not, as a rule, join the Volunteer corps; they do not run, leap, or practise athletics of any kind; they cannot swim; they cannot sing in parts, unless, which is naturally rare, they belong to a church choir; they cannot play any kind of instrument—to be sure the public schoolboy ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant
... bisons—roamed over the North American prairies at the time we write of in countless thousands; for the Indians, although extremely wasteful of animal life, could not keep their numbers down, and the aggressive white-man, with his deadly gun and rifle, had only just begun to depopulate the plains. Therefore the hunters had not to travel far before coming ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... Without his rifle, the little chap stumbled towards him, and, dark as it was, Dick could see that his face was livid and his ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... peril that surrounded him; indeed, he could not be ignorant of it; for almost every day brought some new memento, either of his savage foe, or of the prowling beast of prey. He ploughed, and sowed, and reaped, and gathered, with the rifle slung over his shoulders; and, at every turn, he halted, listening, with his ear turned toward his home; for well he knew that, any moment, the scream of his wife, or the wail of his children, might tell of the up-lifted ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... the line, and three frigates, manned in the ordinary manner; whereas the fleet in Cadiz mustered thirty-three ships of the line, and seven frigates; and, besides the usual crews, carried 4000 troops, chiefly rifle-men. The result was the most glorious day in the proud annals of the English Marine. The combined fleets sailed from Cadiz on the 19th of October, and on the morning of the 21st—the very day after Mack surrendered at Ulm—they came in sight of the ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... his little family, crossed the almost pathless Alleghanies. Father, mother, and children trudged along through the rugged defiles and over the rocky cliffs, on foot. Probably a single pack-horse conveyed their few household goods. The hatchet and the rifle were the only means of obtaining food, shelter, and even clothing. With the hatchet, in an hour or two, a comfortable camp could be constructed, which would protect them from wind and rain. The camp-fire, cheering the darkness of the night, drying their often ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... however, were not for him. He dreamed his trusty steel was as long as a cross-cut saw, and nightly he skewered British soldiers on it after the fashion of kidneys and bacon en brochette. For two months he had been saving his money toward a passage home to Ireland and the purchase of a rifle and two thousand rounds of ammunition—soft-nose bullets preferred—with the pious intention of starting with "th' bhoys" at the very beginning and going through with them to ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... sorcerer had invested these protectors of the ancient Pharaohs with their powers, but another equally potent magician could elude their vigilance, paralyze their energies, if not for ever, at least for a sufficient length of time to ferret out the treasure and rifle the mummy. The cupidity of the fellahin, highly inflamed by the stories which they were accustomed to hear, gained the mastery over their terror, and emboldened them to risk their lives in these well-guarded tombs. How many pyramids had been already rifled at the beginning ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... refused, but that he felt somewhat nettled at the guide's last remark, so he took a rifle from a pile of arms that stood close by. To this the baron would fain have added a knapsack, and Isidore seemed by no means disinclined to take one, as it would enable him to carry with him some articles ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach
... vulcanized India Rubber used in cushioning billiard tables, balls often rebound from it without producing a score. This difficulty may, however, be obviated—according to Sir SAMUEL BAKER—by firing half-pound shells from the shoulder, with a rifle of proportionate size, and if the Sporting Bulletins of that enterprising traveller are not shots with the long bow, he carried the war into Africa to some purpose, not unfrequently bagging his Baker's dozen of Rhinoceroses in the course of forty-eight hours. The ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 15, July 9, 1870 • Various
... equal horizontal bands of green (top), black, and yellow with a red isosceles triangle based on the hoist side; the black band is edged in white; centered in the triangle is a yellow five-pointed star bearing a crossed rifle and hoe in black superimposed on an ...
— The 1996 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... never had a chance. They could not see the ball. The Rube wrapped it around their necks and between their wrists and straight over the plate with such incredible speed that they might just as well have tried to bat rifle bullets. ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... a flake of slate at the crest of the ridge may alter the entire destinies of the mountain form. It may turn the little rivulet of water to the right or left, and that little turn will be to the future direction of the gathering stream what the touch of a finger on the barrel of a rifle would be to the direction of the bullet. Each succeeding year increases the importance of every determined form, and arranges in masses yet more and more harmonious, the promontories shaped by the ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... the secretary's door and wrenched it free. It opened down to form a sort of desk, and disclosed an array of cubby-holes and two small doors, both locked. These latter Kitchell smashed in with the axe-head. Then he seated himself in the swivel chair and began to rifle their contents systematically, Wilbur ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... and has a handsome face, and black hair dangling down on his shoulders, and is beautiful to look at; and nobody is braver than he is, and nobody is stronger, except myself. Yes, a person that doubts that he is fine to see should see him in his beaded buck-skins, on my back and his rifle peeping above his shoulder, chasing a hostile trail, with me going like the wind and his hair streaming out behind from the shelter of his broad slouch. Yes, he is a sight to look at then—and I'm part of ...
— A Horse's Tale • Mark Twain
... the men around the fire snatched at his rifle. Next scattering the embers of the fire, the fellow threw himself down flat, peering ...
— The Young Engineers in Mexico • H. Irving Hancock
... showed up, aint it, Jake?" said one as he carefully rested his rifle against the log and bit off a big piece of long green ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright
... den and without hesitation approached the farther wall and took from its pegs Will Morrison's fine hunting rifle. In the stock was a hollow chamber for cartridges, for the rifle was of the type known as a "repeater." Sliding back the steel plate that hid this cavity, Sarah drew from it a folded paper of a yellow tint and calmly spread it ...
— Mary Louise • Edith van Dyne (one of L. Frank Baum's pen names)
... an outside view of a cannon foundry, a rifle factory, the workmen being natives. Through a fine garden we reach the governor's house, with a capricious assemblage of bridges, kiosks, fountains and doors like vases. There are more pavilions and upturned roofs than there are trees and shady ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne
... that the stalk had been accomplished. By peering over one of the boulders, he could see both stags quietly feeding at something like seventy yards' distance. It was going to be an easy shot in every way; himself in ample concealment; a rock on which to rest his rifle; the deer without thought of danger. He would take his time and calm ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... understood, was surrounded, during his candidacy, with the cordon sanitaire of a vigilance committee. No prisoner in Spielberg was ever more cautiously deprived of writing materials. The soot was scraped carefully from the chimney-places; outposts of expert rifle-shooters rendered it sure death for any goose (who came clad in feathers) to approach within a certain limited distance of North Bend; and all domestic fowls about the premises were reduced to the condition of Plato's original man. By these precautions the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... the toe of his boot kicked the nearest stake clear of the loose soil. He stooped, picked it up, and cast it contemptuously from him. It landed three feet in front of the man who had planted it, and he jumped and shifted the rifle significantly upon his arm, so that the butt of it caressed ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... none should be allowed to speak who cannot shoulder a rifle, for the written word seems so monstrously useless, so overwhelmingly trivial, in front of this mighty drama which shall for a long time, it may be for ever, free mankind from the scourge of war: the one scourge among all that cannot be excused, that cannot be explained, ...
— The Wrack of the Storm • Maurice Maeterlinck
... judgment and his will, he was involved in war almost before he knew it. The English had guns enough, while but few of the Indians were well armed and were without resources when their present supply was exhausted. The rifle, though not in general use, had been invented many years before, and for hunters and backwoodsmen was an effective weapon, though it was regarded as "a slow firing gun" compared with the smooth-bore. Many of the ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... "Why, this is gay. Who would ever have thought of a domestic couple like you going on such a lark as this. We just heard about it from old John, and we came down to see what you are up to. You've got everything very nice. I think I'd like this myself. Why, you might have a rifle-range out here. You could cut down those bushes on the other side of the creek, and put up your target over there on that hill. Then you could lie down here on the grass and bang away all day. If you'll do that, I'll ...
— Rudder Grange • Frank R. Stockton
... being shot over after two years of peace and the memory of the little chips of flying woodwork flicked from the bows of the dingy as he had pulled out into the river was distinctly discouraging. Whoever fired the shots had a pretty knack with a rifle. It was the whirr of a bullet just over his head persuaded him to put back to port. After that the firing ceased. As he dragged the almost foundering dingy on to the mud a fast motor launch went scurrying down stream with a man on deck who shouted, ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... quicker than sound. This can be perceived by merely watching distant hammering, or by noticing that the flash of a pistol is seen before its report is heard, or by listening to the noise of a flash of lightning. Sound takes five seconds to travel a mile—it has about the same speed as a rifle bullet; but light is much quicker ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... The man beside the fire picked up a rifle lying at his feet and dropped a bullet a few yards in ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... dull thudding of the artillery was heard above the roar of rifle volleys and the snarling rattle of the machine guns; and when this ceased there was a hurried sound, mingled with wailing, within the walls of the Emir's house; two of the guards passed quickly by the windows of the Hakim's quarters, and the ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... fancy creations in which flitting shadows of beauty serve only to heighten the shuddering, gruesome horror. The sweet sun and air, the hand of man, and the growth of the ages, have all but swept such from the upper plains of the earth. What hunter's bow has twanged, what adventurer's rifle has cracked in those leagues of mountain-waste, vaster than all the upper world can show, where the beasts of the ocean "graze the sea-weed, their pasture"! Diana of the silver bow herself, when she descends into the interlunar ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... hand a long, single barrel, rifle-bored duelling pistol—of the type used by gentlemen at the beginning of the century. Where he had got it she did not know, but always it ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... guns are posted on their elephants in any open spot where a good view of the beast can be obtained when he breaks cover. I have explained elsewhere how I personally always preferred an ordinary shot-gun loaded with a lead ball, to a rifle for either tigers or bears. The reason being that both these animals are usually shot at very close quarters whilst they are moving rapidly. Time is lost in getting the sights of a rifle on to a swift-moving objective, and there is so little time to lose, ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... the tiles of the operating theatre. He may (but I never met one who did) elect to sit snugly on a stool at a desk filling-in army forms or conducting a card index; and lo, at a whisper from some unseen Nabob in the War Office, he finds himself hooked willy-nilly off his stool and dumped into the Rifle Brigade. This is what it means to be in khaki, and it is hardly the place of persons not in khaki to bandy sneers about the comfortableness of the Linseed Lancers whose initials, when not standing for Rob All My Comrades, can be interpreted to mean ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir
... recommendation of the Secretary that the three-battalion organization be adopted for the infantry. The adoption of a smokeless powder and of a modern rifle equal in range, precision, and rapidity of fire to the best now in use will, I hope, not ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... Fire Cloud, because my rifle was the best they ever saw. And Black Hawk was as good a friend as a fellow would want; saved my life more than once, and taught me just what will be useful if I go back. They are down on their luck, now, and I'd like to ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... clothed in a kimono and lay upon the sidewalk near the curb. His back was toward me. He was trying to wrench a ring from her finger and he held her right wrist in his left hand. A soldier suddenly approached. He held a rifle thrust forward and his eyes were ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... decision. The achievements of will-power are almost beyond computation. Scarcely anything seems impossible to the man who can will strongly enough and long enough. One talent with a will behind it will accomplish more than ten without it, as a thimbleful of powder in a rifle, the bore of whose barrel will give it direction, will do greater execution than a carload ...
— An Iron Will • Orison Swett Marden
... his last directions, tightened the last cinch, and slipped his rifle into the saddle scabbard. "There's just one thing more—the choice of horses," he said. "Miss Tremont, of course you can take your pick." His tone was trustful. "Of course that will be all right with the other gentlemen—for you to have the ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... are volunteers. There are four ex-Rangers among you. They will tell you what to do. But I'm going to tell you one thing first; don't shoot high or low when you have to shoot. Draw plumb center, and don't quit as long as you can feel to pull a trigger. For any man that isn't outfitted there's a rifle and fifty rounds ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... captive balloon out of action one must either riddle the envelope, causing it to leak like a sieve, blow the vessel to pieces, or ignite the highly inflammable gas with which it is inflated. Individual rifle fire will inflict no tangible damage. A bullet, if it finds its billet, will merely pass through the envelope and leave two small punctures. True, these vents will allow the gas to escape, but this action will proceed so slowly as to permit the vessel to remain aloft long enough ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... and a big ivory-handled pistol. In May, shearing going on, he drove his flock to the shearing-shed, and spent the night at the ranch. In the morning he came into the store laughing. What about? Oh, he had had a little monte over-night, and horse, saddle, rifle, revolver, all were gone. He had been shorn of half a year's growth. But there was still a large deposit at his ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... found him in the West where his greatest pleasure was hunting. He hunted all over his ranch and through the Rocky Mountains beyond. Frequently he would go off alone with only a slicker, some hardtack, and salt behind his saddle, and his horse and rifle as his only companions. Once he had no water to drink for twenty-four hours and then had to use some from a muddy pool. But such adventures were sport for him, and he liked to see how much exposure he could stand. Then he would return to ...
— Modern Americans - A Biographical School Reader for the Upper Grades • Chester Sanford
... righteous man will not plunder the defenceful - Not if he be alone and unarmed—for his conscience will smite him; He will not rob a she-bear of her cubs, nor an eagle of her eaglets - Unless he have a rifle to purge him from the fear of sin: Then may he shoot rejoicing in innocency—from ambush or a safe distance; Or he will beguile them, lay poison for them, keep no faith with them; For what faith is there with that which cannot reckon hereafter, Neither by itself, nor ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... knew that the young man had a private's rifle dragged along for his own use, and had sacrificed all his savings for special field-glasses in order to be quite on the safe side and know exactly how many enemy lives he had snuffed out. Since they had come within close ...
— Men in War • Andreas Latzko
... command, and cleared a passage six feet wide to the path; then the landing began in earnest. The guns were first put on shore, and carried bodily to the path; the rest of the marines and the bluejackets then landed, each carrying, in addition to his arms and ammunition, a gun cartridge, or a box of rifle ammunition, and a couple of empty sacks. As fast as they landed they proceeded up the path. Dick Balderson led the way, and the men were directed to step as closely as they could to each other. As they arrived near the pool, each deposited his burden, and then ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... the looks of his companion. And after a week out, when the fellow suggested their heading for Lake Superior and dividing their cargo, Hill became alarmed. The man was persistent and inclined to be quarrelsome. Each man had a knife and a rifle. Hill waited until they reached a high ridge. The snow lay dazzling white as far as the eye could reach. The nearest habitation was fifty ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... fifty yards but I was too greedy and ran around some rocks to get nearer and he heard me and dived. I shot a macaw, one of those overgrown parrots with tail feathers three feet from tip to tip. I got him with a rifle and as Griscom had got his with a shotgun I came out all right as a marksman although I was very sore at missing the wild cat. We sleep in hats and we sleep precious little for the dogs and pigs and insects all help to keep ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... the dying man. From the blood which covered him, and from the surrounding circumstances, he appeared to be murdered; and the count had no doubt that the men he beheld were the murderers. The horror of the scene entirely overcame him; he stood rooted to the spot, and saw the assassins rifle the pockets of the dying person, who, in a voice scarcely articulate, but which despair seemed to aid, supplicated for mercy. The ruffians answered him only with execrations, and continued their plunder. His groans and his sufferings served only to aggravate their cruelty. They were proceeding ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... Wray Palliser—Waterford Militia—he was born in Dublin in 1830, and was therefore only fifty-two years of age. He was educated successively at Rugby, at Trinity College, Dublin, and at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and, finally passing through the Staff College at Sandhurst, he entered the Rifle Brigade in 1855, and was transferred to the Eighteenth Hussars in 1858. He remained in the service to the end of 1871, when he retired by the sale of his commission. At the general election of 1880, Sir William Palliser was returned as ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 324, March 18, 1882 • Various
... not disputed their passage; it maintained the silence and the immobility of marble; nothing but the snarl of the surging flood re-echoed from its face. But with the suddenness of a rifle-shot there came a detonation, louder, sharper than any blast of powder. The Norwegian cursed; the helmsman dropped his eyes to the white face in ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... not to let slip this advantage, but clapping between them and their boats, deprive them of the capacity of ever returning to plague the island: I know, said he, there is but on objection you can make, which is, that these creatures, living like beasts in the wood, may make excursions, rifle the plantations, and destroy the tame goats; but then, consider, we had better to do with an hundred men whom we can kill, or make slaves of at leisure, than with an hundred nations, whom it is impossible ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... peace and purity, and we moved happily along the dank roads, enjoying not such privacy as the day leaves when it withdraws, but such as it has not profaned. It was solitude with light; which is better than darkness. But anon, the sound of the mower's rifle was heard in the fields, and this, too, mingled ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... the fugitive, but always under circumstances disadvantageous to themselves. Three of them stood one day talking with a rancher, who only two hours before had furnished the man, under protest, with a hearty dinner and a fine rifle. The rancher pointed out the direction in which he had gone, over a rocky road leading down a steep, rough ravine; as he did so, his guest appeared on the other side of the ravine, within good rifle range. A mutual recognition followed; the men started ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... planter, they have a little money. Although every planter keeps his own store, the natives, as a rule, prefer to buy from his neighbour, from vague if not quite unjustified suspicion. They rarely engage for any length of time, except when driven by the desire to buy some valuable object, generally a rifle, without which no native likes to be seen in Santo to-day. In that case several men work together for one, who afterwards indemnifies them for their help in native fashion by giving them pigs or rendering them other services. On the ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... Johnny's heart. Johnny dropped to the floor and begged for mercy. Now it requires some courage to shoot a fellow-being down in cold blood, although the punishment may be well deserved, so Peter lowered his rifle. ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)
... drew his revolver and fired a swift shot through the top of Tom Osby's wagon. Tom came up, rifle in hand, like a jack-in-the-box, and bent ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... Dorking and Lewes and Canterbury. Those Surrey people are not properly English at all. They are strenuous. You have to get on or get out. They drill their gardeners, lecture very fast on agricultural efficiency, and have miniature rifle ranges in every village. It's a county of new notice-boards and barbed-wire fences; there's always a policeman round the corner. They dress for dinner. They dress for everything. If a man gets up in the night to look for ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... the student of nature could weave a story out of the marks discovered. It was so in the days of the Indian, when old Leatherstocking and his long-barreled rifle were leading factors in the life of the wilds. Daniel Boone and his pioneers used to read such signs as easily as any boy might the pages of this book. And the deeper any lad dips into such fascinating studies the ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... 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 ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson |
