"Spoor" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... following the blood-trail, and as he had rested several times I felt sure that he had been badly wounded. In the end, however, my hunt proved fruitless, for after a time the traces of blood ceased and the surface of the ground became rocky, so that I was no longer able to follow the spoor. ...
— The Man-eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures • J. H. Patterson
... plantation things were still easier, for every detail of the movements of the four of us could be traced. Moreover, on the back drive was the spoor of the horses and the marks of the wheels of the carriage that had been brought for the purposes of the abduction. Also my great good fortune, for this seemed to prove my theory, we found a parcel wrapped in native linen that appeared to have fallen ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... hunted thing moving even as silently as the lion a hundred paces ahead of the tawny carnivore, for instead of skirting the moon-splashed natural clearings it passed directly across them, and by the tortuous record of its spoor it might indeed be guessed that it sought these avenues of least resistance, as well it might, since, unlike its grim stalker, it walked erect upon two feet—it walked upon two feet and was hairless ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... when he heard the voice of a great ape and, circling quickly until he was down wind from the trap, he sniffed at the air in search of the scent spoor of the prisoner. Nor was it long before there came to those delicate nostrils the familiar odor that told Tarzan the identity of the captive as unerringly as though he had looked upon Taug with his eyes. Yes, it was ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... had authority over souls of men. It was made, the captain told me, with great subtlety by the secret craft of a family of six who lived in a hut on the mountains of Hian Min. Once in these mountains, he said, he followed the spoor of a bear, and he came suddenly on a man of that family who had hunted the same bear, and he was at the end of a narrow way with precipice all about him, and his spear was sticking in the bear, and the wound not fatal, and he had no ...
— Tales of Three Hemispheres • Lord Dunsany
... come, they said, to lay on the floor of the banqueting-hall, sweet, fresh rushes from the meadows, and to clear away all trace of the feasting overnight. But the two-and-thirty knights who, in full armour, had lain down to sleep were all gone, and on the floor was the spoor of something foul and noisome, and on the walls and on the trampled rushes were great and terrible smears of ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... year of unusual drought we saw herds of elands and flocks of ostriches crowding to the Zouga from the Desert, and very many of the latter were killed in pitfalls on the banks. As long as there is any sap in the pasturage they seldom need water. But should a traveler see the "spoor" of a rhinoceros, or buffalo, or zebra, he would at once follow it up, well assured that before he had gone many miles ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... must consider the "form" of the runner, as well as his speed and steadiness. The distinguishing marks of good "form" are an easy balance without dependence on the sticks (see below), an erect position, except on steep slopes, and a narrow single spoor in soft snow. ...
— Ski-running • Katharine Symonds Furse
... roving lion's spoor across the copper- coloured plain, Reach out and hale him by the mane and bid him ...
— Poems • Oscar Wilde
... we followed the spoor through high dried grass and thorny bush, until we at length arrived at a dense jungle of kittar—the most formidable of the hooked thorn mimosas. Here the tracks appeared to wander, some elephants having travelled straight ahead, while others had strayed to the right and left. ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... According to our friend Furayj, the name means "Sons of the Heel" ('Akab) because, in the early wars and conquests of El-Islm, they fought during the day by the Moslems' side; and at night, when going over to the Nazarenes, they lost the "spoor" by wearing their sandals heel foremost, and by shoeing their horses the wrong way. All this they indignantly deny; and they are borne out by the written genealogies, who derive them from "Ukbah, the son of Maghrabah, son of Heram," of the Kahtniyyah (Joctanite) Arabs, ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... tirelessly in the broad and careless spoor of Jake Kloon, his narrow, pointed head alert, and every fear-sharpened instinct tensely observant, the ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... ten-foot-deep drift and taking short cuts by buried fences is worth the ankle-ache. The man from the West interpreted to me the signs on the snow, showed how a fox (this section of the country is full of foxes, and men shoot them because riding is impossible) leaves one kind of spoor, walking with circumspection as becomes a thief, and a dog, who has nothing to be ashamed of, but widens his four legs and plunges, another; how coons go to sleep for the winter and squirrels too, and how ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... said, grinning like a kid, "that'll fool him. The Sage of Redfield will undoubtedly follow a false spoor and the criminals will win a good start. But I'm afraid it's rather easy to follow a ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley
... much that is this eye don't light on. The little lady up at Djen-anne-whatever you may call it is following up a spoor; and I'm the big game at the end of it. She's out to bring me down, my boy. Well, that's all right, only don't you two take me for too much of an innocent little thing, ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... seemed, was not the grizzly bear, of which I had read, but an animal quaintly called the "high-behind," which lurks about camping-places such as ours and is often known to attack man in its search for tinned milk of which it is inordinately fond. The spoor of one of these beasts had been detected near our campfire by the cow-person called Buck, and he now told us of it, though having at first resolved to be ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... upon the Globigerina. It is the spoor of the game we are tracking. If we can learn what it is and what are the conditions of its existence, we shall see our way to the origin and ...
— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... beast would stop with high-held nose, sniffing searchingly. At other times a quick, brief incursion into the branches above delayed it momentarily in its steady journey toward the east. To its sensitive nostrils came the subtle unseen spoor of many a tender four-footed creature, bringing the slaver of hunger ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... And what he stole he ate with an inelegant voracity. His great hand would come over garden walls; he would covet the very bread in the bakers' carts. Cheeses went from Marlow's store loft, and never a pig trough was safe from him. Some farmer walking over his field of swedes would find the great spoor of his feet and the evidence of his nibbling hunger—a root picked here, a root picked there, and the holes, with childish cunning, heavily erased. He ate a swede as one devours a radish. He would ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... The spoor left by his horse the night before was clear in the starlight. He told Daddy John to follow it and drew up beside the track to let the wagon pass him. Motionless he watched the girl's approaching figure, and saw her rein her horse ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... been riding for nearly two hours, when one of my companions noticed marks on the ground evidently made by a man dragging himself along. We followed this spoor down the rocky slope where ferns and little shrubs divided the stones. It wound about, choosing the smoothest places, covering altogether a distance of about a mile; it led us at last to the shade of a mimosa ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... previous night, and which they now saw had been formed into a tiny bit of beach through the breaking down of the bank by the animals which evidently came to that particular spot to drink. They had no difficulty in finding the spoor of the lost jaguar, indeed it was the first thing to attract their attention upon stepping ashore, and as Earle gazed down upon the deep indentations in the plastic mud he execrated the thieving alligator afresh, for the prints were ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... well-mounted party, went off to follow the spoor, being advised to return before dark. This he did not do. He remained for the night beyond the Shangani River, and by daylight reached ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... with something like a twinkle in his brown eyes, "it is very hard fortune for a man to have to follow on Good's 'spoor.' Indeed if it were not for that running giraffe which, as you will remember, Curtis, we saw Good bowl over with a Martini rifle at three hundred yards, I should almost have said that this was an ...
— Maiwa's Revenge - The War of the Little Hand • H. Rider Haggard
... cabin the jungle commenced, and into it Tarzan of the Apes plunged, wary and noiseless—once more a savage beast hunting its food. For a time he kept to the ground, but finally, discovering no spoor indicative of nearby meat, he took to the trees. With the first dizzy swing from tree to tree all the old joy of living swept over him. Vain regrets and dull heartache were forgotten. Now was he living. Now, indeed, was the true happiness of perfect ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the ship had sunk, and at first thought whoever had been in it had drowned. Then one of the dogs found your trail, but lost it again in the swamps during the night. They had a fine time with the mud and the snow and didn't have any luck at all in finding the spoor again. By the next afternoon they were ready to send for more help when they heard your firing. Just made it, from what I hear. Lucky one of them was a talker and could tell the wild dogs to clear out. Would have had to kill ...
— Deathworld • Harry Harrison
... had often followed the spoor of wild elephants through the jungles of Bengal, and knew everything about their way of travelling. He was therefore able to tell the others that the rogue had not been browsing as he went—for the leaves and twigs showed no signs of his teeth—but on the contrary, he had moved forward rapidly, ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... first opportunity that would give Baree and himself fresh meat. The white sand bars and gravelly shores of the stream were covered with the tracks of the wild dwellers of the valley and the adjoining ranges, and Baree sniffed hungrily whenever he came to the warm scent of the last night's spoor. He was hungry. He had been hungry all the way over the mountains. Three times that day David saw a caribou at a distance. In the afternoon he saw a grizzly on a green slope. Toward evening he ran into luck. ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood |
