"At close range" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in a disturbed ant-hill." At length they seemed to realise the situation, and, descending from the high ground, took up a position near Bedford Hill in General Meiklejohn's front, and opened a heavy fire at close range. But the troops were now deployed and able to bring their numbers to bear. Without wasting time in firing, they advanced with the bayonet. The leading company of the Guides stormed the hill in their front ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... was closer and the charge had less distance to travel, he had overestimated the sun's effect. He gritted his teeth. The next shot would be at close range. ...
— Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet • Blake Savage
... You will expect to hear that I was present, and perhaps acted as usher, or even as best man. Nothing of the sort was the case, however; I was absent at the time in the East. Nor are you to imagine me as continually following, at close range, the vicissitudes, major and minor, which made up his life, or made up Raymond's. An exact, perpetual attendance of fifty years is completely out of the ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... Round and round, up and up, steadily, surely, the beautiful mustang led the train; there were sounds of rattling stones, and click of hoofs, and scrape of pack. On one side towered the iron-stained cliff, not smooth or glistening at close range, but of dull, dead, rotting rock. The trail changed to a zigzag along a seamed and cracked buttress where ledges leaned outward waiting to fall. Then a steeper incline, where the burros crept upward warily, led to a level ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... the struggle in which they were about to engage. That the true nature of a war should be realised by contemporaries as clearly as it comes to be seen afterwards in the fuller light of history is seldom to be expected. At close range accidental factors will force themselves into undue prominence and tend to obscure the true horizon. Such error can scarcely ever be eliminated, but by theoretical study we can reduce it, nor by any other means can we hope to approach the clearness of vision with which posterity ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett
... confused clamor followed, as the demoralized flock disappeared in the direction of the next ice-house, from which, a few seconds later, a double volley told that Davies and Creamer had been passed, at close range, by the ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... varieties are lovely beyond description. At a little distance the difference between the doubles and singles will not be very noticeable, but at close range the beauty of the former will be apparent. Their extra petals give them an airy grace, a feathery lightness, which the shorter-spiked kinds do not have. By all means have a rosy-purple double variety, and a double white. No ...
— Amateur Gardencraft - A Book for the Home-Maker and Garden Lover • Eben E. Rexford
... maddening excitement of a hand-to-hand tussle with the black villains, pistol shot, sword cut and pike thrust coming in turn into play, amid a babel of hoarse shouts of rage and cheers and savage yells—mingled with the swish of blows from capstan bars, the loud reports of revolvers fired off at close range and the heavy thud of falling bodies as they tumbled headlong on the deck ever and anon, accompanied by some cry of agony or groan of pain too ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... name was Cambridge, christened from the little Indiana town of Cambridge City) was a good-souled, easy-going man, handicapped for life by a shortness of vision no spectacle lens could overcome. It might have been disfiguring to any other man, but Cam's clear eye at close range, and his comical squint and tilt of the head to study out what lay farther away, were good-natured and unique. He was in Kansas for the fun of it, while his wife, Dollie, kept tavern from pure love of cooking more good things to eat than opportunity afforded in a home. She was a Martha whose kitchen ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... its wide white hat, long coat, leather breeches and doublet, and girdle with alchemy buttons, appeared standing in the doorway. Then, passing calmly through it, George Fox drew up scarce three paces from his assailant—his body making a large target at close range that it would be impossible to miss. The frightened people paused in their flight to watch. Were they going to see the Quaker slain? The stranger raised his pistol; he aimed carefully. Not a muscle of Fox's countenance quivered. Not an ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... come upon the Mexican President when the latter was separated from the larger part of his forces. Determined to win or die, Houston destroyed a bridge which afforded the only retreat for his men or escape for the enemy. The Texans delivered one volley at close range, and then clubbed their rifles or drew their bowie-knives, with the cry—"Remember the Alamo!" In fifteen minutes the Mexicans were in flight, pursued by the yelling Texans. "Me no Alamo! Me no Alamo!" cried the terrified ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... and showed them three bullet holes in the back, in the left shoulder blade. They were so close together that their ragged edges touched one another, and a silver dollar would have covered all of them. Apparently, the man had been shot at close range and the bullets had gone through ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... time Janina saw the theater at close range and the actors off stage. The theater seemed to her like a Grecian temple and those people, whose profiles she had before her, and whose eloquent voices sounded in her ears, seemed like true ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... gathered about a large tent where the royalties had their refreshments. It was an intense curiosity, not so much to see their sovereign eat and drink, as to improve the opportunity to reverently gaze upon her at close range. The queen called various people whom she knew from this circle of onlookers for a ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... to Dresden. The order to drive slowly was soon rescinded, for I was burning to see a riot at close range. "Plein carriere," I commanded, and my fast Carrossiers went at a tremendous rate for two miles. The moment I saw, in the distance, knots of people standing round or moving in the direction of the palace, I cried: ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... absorbed in Agatha, but in her liberation from her hypochondria, she began also to make a comparative study of the American swells, in the light of her late experience with the German highhotes. It is true that none of the swells gave her the opportunity of examining them at close range, as the highhotes had done. They kept to their, state-rooms mostly, where, after he thought she could bear it, March told her how near he had come to making her their equal by an outlay of six hundred dollars. She now shuddered at the thought; but ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... and above his personal satisfaction he felt the thrill of the agent whom some powerful negotiator has charged with a delicate mission: he might have been an eager young Jesuit carrying compromising papers to his superior. It had been stimulating to work with Moffatt, and to study at close range the large ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... "roughing it," knocking around the world, I have nibbed against the high and low and have had ample opportunity of studying, at close range, many different peoples, their ideals, political and otherwise, their hopes and principles. Through this elbow rubbing, and not from reading, I have become convinced of the nobility, truth, and justice of the Allies' cause, and know their fight to be our fight, because it espouses ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey
... accomplished with nitrate in South America. J.H. Rosseter, the Grace manager, who later became well known as director of operations of the United States Shipping Board during the war, undertook an extended trip to Central America in 1912 to study the situation at close range. There was only one product of Central America that was available in cargo quantities, namely coffee; and naturally his attention was drawn to the possibility of carrying coffee to San Francisco to provide return cargoes for ships ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... at the news. His antidetection gear had evidently worked perfectly in a showdown test with the enemy, even at close range. Moreover, if the second sub was returning to the South Atlantic, it seemed likely that the enemy, too, had not yet located the precious missile with its data ...
— Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung • Victor Appleton
... applauded, sighed to think that the play was over, and then joyfully adjourned to the dining-room to eat Mrs. Chapin's ice and examine the actors at close range. All these speedily appeared, except Helen, who had crept up-stairs quite unnoticed the moment her part was finished, and Eleanor, who, hunting up Betty, explained that she had a dreadful headache and begged Betty to look after her guests and not for anything to let them come ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... the United States they are in full swing. As China has now become a Republic, not in name only but in fact, it will be well for her statesmen and politicians to examine the American constitution, and to study its workings. To do this at close range it will be necessary for the student to visit Washington, the Capital of the United States of America. Here he will find the President, or the chief of the nation. With the co-operation of his Cabinet and a large staff of assistants, the President administers the affairs of the Federal ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... to serve Hamilton until he found his wife, I was not particularly anxious to exchange civilities at close range with a man from a smallpox tent; so I quickly retraced my way to the gorge and hurried homeward with The Mute. My old school-fellow's sudden change towards me when he received the letter written on Citadel paper, and the big squaw's suspicion of my every movement, now came back to ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... attempted to help him. He lay as he had fallen, with a thin stream of blood running slowly from one trouser-leg. For this was Corsican work—that is to say, dirty work—from behind a rock, in the back, at close range, without warning or mercy, as honest men would be ashamed to shoot the merest beast of the forest. It was as likely as not a charge of buck-shot low down in the body, leaving the ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... The Indians fly in all directions, the militia after them, and the regulars are left alone. This is the opportune moment. As the regulars cross the ford and climb the opposite bank, the painted and terrible warriors of the Miami chief arise from their hiding places and fire at close range. Wyllys falls, his officers fall, all but a handful are remorselessly mowed down, scalped and mutilated, and the day is won. Thus for the second time has the cunning Little Turtle ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... had disappeared around the corner of the cabin after the hen. He routed her out from behind the haystack, herded her swiftly across the clearing to the lean-to stable, and corralled her, so to speak, in a manger. Just as Annersley caught up with him, Pete leveled and fired—at close range. What was left of the hen—which was chiefly feathers, he gathered up and held by the remaining leg. "I ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... tossed a bit of gravel up against her window. His signal met with no response and, caching his rifle under the kitchen porch, he stepped around to the front of the house, where, screened by a bit of shrubbery, he could peer at close range into the living-room. ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... I have been persona grata to Muffles. Since that time, too, I have studied him at close range: on snowy days—for I like my tramps in winter, with the Bronx a ribbon of white, even though it may be too cold to paint—as well as my outings on Sunday summer mornings when I sit down with his other friends to ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... of troops exchanged blows in the manner of a pair of boxers. The fast angry firings went back and forth. The men in blue were intent with the despair of their circumstances and they seized upon the revenge to be had at close range. Their thunder swelled loud and valiant. Their curving front bristled with flashes and the place resounded with the clangor of their ramrods. The youth ducked and dodged for a time and achieved a few unsatisfactory views of the enemy. There appeared to be many of them and they ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... you ever seen at close range the rapt, listening, inspired look of the head of a wild bird in flight? Has anything fine and pure ever come to you from a deep look into the luminous eyes of a bird fresh ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... Brer Rabbit, atter lookin' de groun' over, promise hisse'f dat he'd fetch a basket de nex' time he come, an' make one trip do fer two. He ain't been dar long 'fo' he had a good chance fer ter hear Brer Bull-Frog at close range. He hear him, he did, an' he shake his head an' say dat a mighty little bit er dat music would go a long ways, kaze dey ain't nobody what kin stan' flat-footed an' say dat Brer Bull-Frog is a better singer ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... west. By their sudden irruption they were able to overrun and surprise a large proportion of the French troops billeted behind the front line in this area and to bring some of the French guns as well as our own under a hot rifle fire at close range. ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... record sight records, but do so in this instance because the water shrew is so distinctive that it can be readily recognized and because the occurrence extends the known range approximately 80 miles southward in Utah. This individual was observed at close range while swimming and foraging in North Creek, and there can be ...
— Additional Records and Extensions of Known Ranges of Mammals from Utah • Stephen D. Durrant
... jib, which increased her sail area by nearly half. Her head came off the wind again and she went bowing along over the swells to the southward faster than one would have imagined possible. Bonnet had figured on crossing her at close range, but as she swept onward he realized that he would go by too far astern to hail her if he kept his present direction. Herriot himself took the tiller. As quickly as he could, without loss of headway, he eased the Royal James over till she was running nearly parallel ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... impossible; and even in defence, when access to the ammunition reserve is likely to be far easier than in an attack, withholding fire until close range is reached is generally more effective than opening at a longer range. The tactical value of a withering fire at close range from a hitherto passive defender has again and again been proved in battle. On the Heights of Abraham (September 13, 1759) General Wolfe had assembled his troops and he awaited Montcalm's attack. Not a shot was ...
— Lectures on Land Warfare; A tactical Manual for the Use of Infantry Officers • Anonymous
... crowning it. All blue-white. Glittering. Seemingly fragile; from a distance, a toy—a sample of the ultra-skill of some master confectioner, as though the whole thing were a toy of sugar for children to admire. But at close range—solid; in the cold of this terrible region, as solid as though constructed of blocks ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... fingers covered with flour. The Princess Galitzin vanished inside and the door was closed. Her call lasted ten minutes while Peggy cooled her heels. But whether the visit had been prompted by goodness of heart or whether by a curiosity to study the lady of Peter's choice at close range, no one will ever know. Beth was very polite to her and though she identified her without difficulty as the heliotrope-envelope lady, she offered her some of the "cookies" that she had made for Peter, and expressed the warmest thanks for her kind wishes. She saw Anastasie Galitzin ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg's sneer concerning the "voice of the piazza having prevailed" revealed not merely pique, but also a complete misunderstanding, a Teutonic misapprehension of the underlying motives that led to an inevitable step. No one who witnessed, as I did at close range, the swift unfolding of the drama which ended on May 23 in a declaration of war, can accept such a base or trivial reading of the matter. Like all things human the psychology of Italy's action was complex, ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... tall, with sloping shoulders and a carefully acquired English manner, whom one sees in scores on Fifth Avenue late in the afternoon. His face, which on the stage was forceful and attractive, was not prepossessing at close range. Indeed it showed too evident marks of excesses, both physical and moral, and his hand was none too steady. Still, he was an interesting ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... lined up. You wouldn't have suspected it of some of them dignified old scouts, either. Back of 'em, fillin' every corner of the long room and spillin' out into the big hall, was the top crust of our local smart set, come to hear Farrar at close range. ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... cried; "fire, since you can't hit it otherwise. Oh, for an asbestos suit, and I would have styed." They fired pistol and gun with no effect, till the lawyer, out in the skiff with Bill, got his rifle sighted to the point in the blue flame, where he thought the preventing ridge ought to be. He fired at close range, the ball hit the rock projection, and at once the great block slid away into the lake, with a splash that damped the flames with a column of spray, and revealed an awful corridor of fire. No living creature was there, ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... earth. The form of orbit which Jupiter had impressed required, as we have said, its return in about five and a half years; but soon after 1770 it had the misfortune a second time to encounter Jupiter at close range, and he, as if dissatisfied with the leniency of the sun, or indignant at the stranger's familiarity, seized the comet and hurled it out of the system, or at any rate so far away that it has never since been able to rejoin the family circle that basks in the immediate rays of the solar hearth. ...
— Curiosities of the Sky • Garrett Serviss
... was gone from sight we built a tiny fire in the scrub—for it was twilight, at which time keen eyes are needed to detect either smoke or fire, except at close range—and cooked our supper. That done, we smothered what few embers remained and laid us down to sleep. That wasn't much of a success, however. We had got into action again, with more of a chance to bring about certain desired results, ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... possess their souls in peace, life on ship-board in pleasant weather is restful, and may be thoroughly enjoyed. A little world is here compactly put together, and human nature may be studied at close range. From the elegant apartments of the saloon to the ill-smelling quarters of the steerage, there is variety enough. Representatives are here from nearly "every nation under heaven:" every creed, every color; every grade of intelligence and worldly ...
— Story of Chester Lawrence • Nephi Anderson
... at the victim was enough to show the healer that his presence could be dispensed with. The man had been horribly injured. Lying across his chest was a curious weapon, a shotgun with the barrel sawed off a foot in front of the triggers. It was clear that this had been fired at close range and that he had received the whole charge in the face, blowing his head almost to pieces. The triggers had been wired together, so as to make the simultaneous discharge ...
— The Valley of Fear • Arthur Conan Doyle
... raked Her huge beams through and through. Ay, as she heeled To leeward still, her own grim cannon belched Their lava skyward, wounding the void air, And, as by miracle, the ships of Drake Were gone. Along the Spanish rear they swept From North to South, raking them as they went At close range, hardly a pistol-shot away, With volley on volley. Never Spain had seen Seamen or marksmen like to these who sailed Two knots against her one. They came and went, Suddenly neared or sheered away at will As if by magic, pouring flame and iron In four full broadsides thro' some Spanish hulk ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... base, unmanned remote-control "observer" units with television "eyes" or other transmitters would be sent down to survey the planet at close range. If it then seemed fairly safe, a manned unit could be released to ...
— The Flying Saucers are Real • Donald Keyhoe
... we are utterly unable to arrive at any definite conclusion or make a definite plan. There is a menace in this, undeniably. Mr. Thurston and Mr. Riley have been good enough to report to me. They have seen one machine at close range. It was occupied by a monster so incredible that the report would receive no attention from me did I not ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... of his first slaughter, sprang away towards the wounded leader, which, sunk to the earth, was shaking its great horns to and fro. When at close range, he raised his gun to fire again, but the moose rose suddenly, and with a wild bellowing sound rushed at Gregory, who knew full well that a straight stroke from those hoofs would end his moose-hunting days. He fired, but to no effect. He could not, like a toreador, jump aside, for those ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... beast came very near falling into the fire itself, and there ensued a wild, confused scramble, out of which the brothers singled their enemy, Waldo opening fire with a revolver, at close range, each shot causing the lion to yell and snarl ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... shelled out of its quarters at Ypres, and his horses killed, instead of retiring he took a rifle and ammunition, and found his way four miles down into the trenches at the salient, where his comrades were battling with the Huns at close range. He was there wounded, gassed, and taken prisoner. His name was Lickers, and he certainly displayed all the ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie
... sitting in the billiard-room one night after dinner, watching his rival play a hundred up with the silent Hargate, that Jimmy came definitely to this conclusion. He had stopped there to watch, more because he wished to study his man at close range than because the game was anything out of the common as an exposition of billiards. As a matter of fact, it would have been hard to imagine a worse game. Lord Dreever, who was conceding twenty, was poor, and his opponent an obvious beginner. Again, as he looked on, Jimmy ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... of the burning bush appeared to Moses alone; the other shepherds with him saw nothing of it. He took five steps in the direction of the bush, to view it at close range, and when God beheld the countenance of Moses distorted by grief and anxiety over Israel's suffering, He spake, "This one is worthy of the ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... fire at close range at the transports on the road and at the shadows of the trees cast by the moon, as the case might be, soon exhausted the drums of ammunition. Each aviator did his level best to get results, all the time trying to avoid landing on the ...
— Night Bombing with the Bedouins • Robert Henry Reece
... creoles were beginning a noise of jubilation. The rumor of what was going to be done had passed from mouth to mouth, until every soul in the town knew and thrilled with expectancy. Men, women and children came swarming to see the sight, and to hear at close range the crash of the cannon. They shouted, in a scattering way at first, then the tumult grew swiftly to a solid rolling tide that seemed beyond all comparison with the population of Vincennes. Hamilton ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... entanglement is not to stop completely the advance of the enemy, but to delay him at close range under machine gun, auto rifle and rifle fire, and within range of grenades and bombs. Entanglements should be concealed as much as possible from the enemy's trenches and from aerial observation. If possible, they should be placed on a reverse slope or in a dead angle. They should be ...
— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker
... martin is the Rough-winged Swallow (Stelgidopteryx serripennis), not to be distinguished from its companion on the wing, but easily recognized by its dull-gray throat and the absence of the brown breast-band when seen at close range. ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... not laud the expertness of the Manbo as a bowman. Here and there one meets a really good shot, but the average man can not score 50 per cent at close range. ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... during the afternoon whilst reconnoitring near La Brayelle Farm. Thinking, apparently, that the coast was clear, he was walking across the open with his batman when a Boche machine gun suddenly opened fire on them at close range, killing them both instantaneously. C Company then came under the command of Lieut. A. Bedford. The casualties that day in other ranks, were seven ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... starts out on its errand a whole lot like a bullet. It doesn't commence to scatter till it gets just so far away from the muzzle of the gun; depending on the size of the bore, and the way the barrel is choked. I've known a charge of shot to tear a hole right through a board when fired at close range. At a distance it would only have scattered out, and peppered the whole fence. And, Toby, we might feel rather bad if we found we'd killed a man, even if ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... looked like a fierce snake on a rail fence. By and by he gave the trick away. The snake was nothing but a garden worm wound around some little sticks and toothpicks, and the picture had been snapped at close range." ...
— Out with Gun and Camera • Ralph Bonehill
... might have covered us both," she said, pulling off her gloves. He recognized the voice. At close range it was even more delightful than ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... empty place of churchyard gloom and incidentally justifying Luck in quitting so early. Big Medicine was swabbing paint from his eyebrows and bellowing his opinion of a man that will keep a-comin', by cripes, after he's shot the third time at close range, and then kick because he takes so much killing off. This was aimed at the Native Son, who had evidently died hard, and who meant to retaliate as soon as he got that dab of paint out of his eye. But ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... that the battle was to be one at close range, Hull ordered the firing to cease, in order that the fullest preparation could be made for the next broadside. He knew the skill of his men in marksmanship, and determined to hold his fire until the most ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis
... you just the same. Don't you dare to drop a hand toward the pistols in your belt. If you do I'll blow your head off. I'm covering you with a double-barreled shotgun. Each barrel contains about twenty buckshot, and at close range their blast would be so terrific that you'd ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... time, but at the flash of the explosion he stopped. His revolver dropped from nerveless fingers. For a moment he staggered drunkenly. Deliberately Malbihn put two more bullets into his friend's body at close range. Even in the midst of the excitement and her terror Meriem found herself wondering at the tenacity of life which the hit man displayed. His eyes were closed, his head dropped forward upon his breast, his hands hung limply before him. Yet still he ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... conclusions with its quiet little cousin, the natural remedy is to improve its interior in the same manner. This has been done, and with marvelous effect in some respects. But the rifled cannon, though extensively used both on sea and land, throwing shot and shell five miles, and at close range through iron plates a foot thick, cannot be yet styled a perfected weapon. It may be in a very few years, thanks to the ardent anxiety, on the part of the several peoples composing "the parliament of man, the federation of the world," to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... dislodged them before they could get into position. For hours the rebels vainly endeavored to break the lines of the Union forces, but in every instance they were repulsed with frightful loss, the canister mowing them down at close range. About 5 o'clock the rebels succeeded in flanking Gen. Prentiss and took part of his force prisoners. The battery was immediately withdrawn to an elevation near the Tennessee river, and it was not long before firing again commenced and kept up for half ...
— Reminiscences of Pioneer Days in St. Paul • Frank Moore
... absolute authenticity. Never was a more magnificent self-reliance displayed than by the man who not only undertook the passage of the Colorado River, but won his way. And after viewing a fraction of the scene at close range, one cannot hold it to the discredit of three of Major Powell's companions that they abandoned the undertaking not far below this point. The fact that those who persisted got through alive is hardly more ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting
... target gun," said Forrest. "It's for instantaneous work at close range. One could probably hit a tossed coin with it, but one must have more weight and inches to the barrel and ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... can be hard as well as soggy; some of those that reached Penrod were of no inconsiderable weight and substance, and they made him grunt despite himself. Finally, one, at close range, struck him in the pit of the stomach, whereupon he clasped himself about the middle silently, and executed some steps in seeming imitation ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... saw from the threshold of the lighted room was Bayard Shaynon still in death upon the floor, one temple shattered by a shot fired at close range from a revolver that lay with butt close to his right hand—carefully disposed with evident intent to indicate a case of ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... first view of an ocean-going steamer at close range and everything about it interested him. He wished he might have gone aboard and looked the vessel over. He would like to know about the engines and see the cabins, and especially the steerage about which he had read so much. But perhaps there would be an opportunity ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... followed by A.P. Hill. Rhodes then fell like an avalanche upon the unexpectant and now thoroughly disorganized divisions of the retreating enemy. Volley after volley was poured into the seething mass of advancing and receding columns. Not much use could be made of artillery at close range, so that arm of the service was mainly occupied in shelling their trains and the woods in rear. Until late in the night did the battle rage in all its fury. Darkness only added to its intensity, and the fire was kept up until a shot through mistake lay the ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... out a gun, a shotgun with a sawed off barrel. The shortening of the barrel served a double purpose. It made it possible for the gun to be hidden in the barrel, and it made of it, also, at close range, a far more dangerous and formidable weapon than it had been in ...
— The Belgians to the Front • Colonel James Fiske
... their incantations and alleged witchcraft. There is evidence that their propaganda had been going on for months, if not for years, before any one had heard of it. Yuan Shih-kai had the priceless opportunity of studying them at close range and soon made up his mind about certain things. When the storm burst, pretending to see nothing but mad fanatics in those who, realizing the plight of their country, had adopted the war-cry "Blot out the Manchus and the foreigner," he struck at them fiercely, driving the whole savage horde ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... whose billiard players have the almost unique privilege between masse shots of regarding at close range the tombstones of an aristocratic cemetery, Helen and her uncle were comfortably lingering over their demi-tasses before Mr. Osgood's guest gave speech to the ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... same I wish we were plowing corn, 'stead of looking for them. That plowing job is awful nice. I watched a man the other day, the grandest big bunch of bone and muscle, driving a team it took a gladiator to handle. First time I ever saw it done at close range and it got me. He looked like a man you'd want to tie to and stick 'til the war is over. If he ever has a case he is going to bring it to you. But where he'll get a case out there ten miles from anybody, with the bluest sky you ever saw over his head, and black fields under ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... intonation, but young Keenan looked at her with a dumb appealing humility that did not altogether fail of its effect, for she busied herself to help his plate with an air of proprietorship as if he were a child, and returned it with a smile very radiant and sufficient at close range. She then addressed herself to her own meal. The young dogs under the table ceased to beg, and gambolled and gnawed and tugged at her stout little shoes, the sound of their callow mirthful growls rising occasionally above the talk. ...
— The Phantoms Of The Foot-Bridge - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... 1896 was on both sides lively, violent and unscrupulous. The Conservatives had two sets of arguments; and so had the Liberals. Those of us who watched the campaign in Quebec at close range know that not much was said there by the Liberals about the high crime of coercing a province. Instead, stress was laid upon the futility and inadequacy of the proposed remedial legislation; upon the high probability ...
— Laurier: A Study in Canadian Politics • J. W. Dafoe
... that these men had committed the atrocities reported at Termonde and Roosbeek, at Malines and Louvain. At close range it was easy to see that the prevalent conception of the "barbarians" was the purest kind of rot—the picture created and fostered by the Allied press, of a vicious and besotted beast with natural brutality accentuated ...
— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green
... disclosures, I resolved to study conditions at close range and went into the homes of some of these offenders against the law, taking with me interpreters, for the great majority of them were foreigners. In many of these homes poverty had done its worst. Every surrounding influence favored undesirable citizenship; ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... replied Mercer. "Doing what I can. Strong—they're devilish strong, Taylor. And, at close range, I can see you were right. They have true gill-covers; ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... I found at close range on his native heath, wearing the mantle of the departed Botha, carrying on a Government with a minority, and with the shadow of an internecine war brooding on the horizon, was the same serene, clear-thinking ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... by one, and one by one the loosened turns of the bandage were uncoiled. The trenches at this point were apparently very close, for Macalister could hear the crack of the British rifles, the clack-clack-clack of a machine gun at close range, and the thought flitted through his mind that over there in his own trenches his own fellows would hear presently the crack of the officer's pistol with no understanding of what it meant. But with luck and his loosened hands ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... plausible scheme. The heavy charges of shot at close range smash the Grizzly's interior works in a deplorable manner and he dies right away. But only a few men have the nerve to face a big ugly bear in full charge and reserve fire until he is within two yards of the muzzle of the gun. One-eyed Zeke and a celebrated hunter of the Bad Lands ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... replied Strong. "About twenty years ago, maybe less, there was a whole wave of them. That was before we developed superrebound pulse radar. The ships were faster than the radar at close range." ...
— Stand by for Mars! • Carey Rockwell
... seemed, in that instant of shattering chaos, that the great gun itself must have fired. He had known the jar of heavy artillery at close range; he had had experience with explosives. He had even been near when a government arsenal had thrown the countryside into a hell of jarring, ear-splitting pandemonium. But the concussion that shook the earth under him now was like nothing ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... was Leon Czolgosz, a young man of Polish parentage, who shot the president with a revolver at close range. For a while it was thought that the president would recover, but he collapsed and died on Sept. 14, 1901. Czolgosz professed to belong to the school of anarchists who believe in violence. He was executed in ...
— The Greatest Highway in the World • Anonymous
... those aboard the bigger ship, when an order suddenly rang out, and the whole of the Spaniard's bulwark instantly flashed into a hundred points of flame as a party of musketeers aboard her discharged their weapons at close range. At such an exceedingly short distance it was inevitable that a certain number of casualties should occur, and George, with rage in his heart, saw several figures collapse and fall upon the deck of his own ship, Dyer's among them, while a bullet rang sharply upon his own steel headpiece, ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... slender reed, hardened in fire and sharp-pointed; it is hurled by a Moro at an enemy with unerring skill, and sometimes five are discharged in one volley. He narrates surprising instances of the efficacy of this weapon, and says that "there is none more cruel, at close range." ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga
... a serious thing. I can't think of anything that would make that worth while. Here comes Mr. DeWitt. It must be dinner time. John, come up and see a little desert owl at close range. Kut-le has all the desert at his beck ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... of men killed at close range by revolver and rifle bullets out at the front," replied Desmond, "but I never saw a man's face messed up like this. In a raid once I shot a German at point blank range with my revolver, the ordinary Army issue pattern, and I looked him over after. But it wasn't ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... volley came at close range; so close that in spite of the customary poor marksmanship of their kind the Indians wounded every man in the coach. A bullet got Tingley in the wrist. He dropped the reins, and before he could regain them the team was ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... doggedly to his story. The cowpuncher had fired the first shot. He had continued to fire, though he must have seen Doble sink to the ground immediately. Moreover, the testimony of the doctor showed that the fatal shot had taken effect at close range. ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... live at all had been for him a matter of fine moral courage, and his slight, delicate emaciated, yet dauntless, figure was in itself the expression of a resolute will to endure as well as to resist. When a man has faced death at close range for fifteen years he is, in a measure, bound to become either indifferent satyr or partial saint, and even in the extremity of his first revolt his personal ideal had stood, like the angel with the flaming sword, between Adams and the quagmire of bodily materialism. ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... paragraphs will be found gathered reliable reports based on the keen observation of men who in their capacity as special correspondents of various newspapers had opportunities to collect and observe facts at close range and the very vicinity where they transpired. They come from various sources, but chiefly from the narrative of a war correspondent published in the Munich "Neueste Nachrichten," who was himself an eyewitness of what he describes. Although they refer more especially to that ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... be forced to deploy early. The field of fire should therefore be good at distances from 500 to 1,200 yards or more; a good field of fire at close range is not necessary. ...
— Infantry Drill Regulations, United States Army, 1911 - Corrected to April 15, 1917 (Changes Nos. 1 to 19) • United States War Department
... had reached the drawing-room and was enabled to take a square look at the Bassett that I found the debonair gaiety with which I had embarked on this affair beginning to wane a trifle. Beholding her at close range like this, I suddenly became cognisant of what I was in for. The thought of strolling with this rummy specimen undeniably gave me a most unpleasant sinking feeling. I could not but remember how often, when in her company at Cannes, I had gazed dumbly at her, wishing that some kindly motorist in ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... over-zealous. She and pretty Ethel Harbin had made life endurable for the gay young officers who came over on the ship; the pretty wives of certain captains and lieutenants had small scope for their blandishments at close range. Flirtations were hard to manage in space so small. The two girls were therefore in a state of siege most of the time. The abject following fell away perceptibly when the broader field of action on shore gave their ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... upon it they brought their camera into play, and again succeeded in photographing a heavenly body at close range. The nucleus or head was of course turned towards the sun; while the tail, which they could see faintly, preceded it, as the comet was receding towards the cold and dark depths of space. The head was only a few miles in ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor
... and followed by alternations of reticence. He admitted her bewitching but had no idea that he was himself bewitched. His was a literary passion. He was a student of life as well as of books, and he had never before had the opportunity of studying such glorious examples of both at close range. ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... this, then remembered the disappearance of Perdosa. My heart jumped wildly, for the Mexican had been gone quite long enough to have cut off the assistant's escape. I could not doubt that he would pick off his man at close range as soon as the fugitive should have reached the entrance to ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... The ground where the French army had stood was literally covered with dead and wounded. The two volleys fired at close range had mowed them down like grain. The French army, smitten unto death, was reeling back, and the British, seizing the moment, rushed forward with bayonet and drawn sword. The Highlanders, as they charged with the broadsword, uttered a tremendous yell, and Robert saw his own Americans in ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... he had given up because his mother had asked it. She had spoken of the place which his grandfather had filled, of the dignity of a country practice, of the opportunities for research and for experiment. At close range, the big town set between its rivers and the sea had seemed noisy and vulgar. Its people had seemed mad in their race for money. Its medical men had seemed to lack the fineness and finish which come to those who move and ...
— Mistress Anne • Temple Bailey
... lead-blue morning; sitting in the outer office of one of the greatest city editors for three of these years; studying every "first night," every picturesque slum, every visiting or indigenous notoriety at close range—to catalogue a life like this, add that it was the life of a handsome, well-dressed, high-spirited girl, and pretend that it was an existence unqualified by male adjectives, ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... all her resolutions she was not prepared to forget. She lifted her eyes for a fleeting glance, and could not help thinking that the memory of his face had been much less effective than its presence. The tones of his voice, too, were stronger and sweeter at close range than she had remembered. In short, Dic by her side and Dic twenty-five miles away were two different propositions—the former a very dangerous and irresistible one, indeed. Still, she would not forgive him. She could not and would not forget him; but she would shut her eyes ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... Magill saw the effect of his movement, and, halting, made an effort to rally his men. But the Confederates were thoroughly stampeded, and they dashed madly away. The shouting Federals were now at close range, and the bee-like song of the bullets could be heard on every side. Hastily placing Harry in front of him, to shield him as much as possible from the enemy's fire, he followed his men, now some distance in advance. ...
— Southern Stories - Retold from St. Nicholas • Various
... bravery and devotion to duty when in command of his battalion, the leading waves of which, during an attack, became disorganized by reason of rifle and machine-gun fire at close range from positions which were believed to be in our hands. Lieutenant-Colonel Best-Dunkley dashed forward, rallied his leading waves, and personally led them to the assault of these positions, which, despite ...
— At Ypres with Best-Dunkley • Thomas Hope Floyd
... so acute that I know the exact dynamics of every tone, every effect of light and shade; thus I do not have to stand at a distance, as the painter does, even if I could do so, in order to criticize my work, for I can do this satisfactorily at close range. ...
— Piano Mastery - Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... glow that radiated from her the night he was introduced to her at a dinner party at the Williamsons', had struck him—he was unconscious of this mental process no doubt—as a person whom it would be difficult, at close range, to remain quite ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... left not in sight a single blue coat, save that a battery in the tavern yard was firing upon us. Two Confederate batteries galloped up to our line, and, unlimbering, opened upon the battery in the yard at close range. There were in the Southern armies many soldiers in their teens, but here at one of the guns labored a boy who was, as I guessed from his size, not more than twelve years old. It was his part to fire the gun by pulling the lanyard, ...
— Reminiscences of a Rebel • Wayland Fuller Dunaway
... the line Admiral Schley's division was doing splendid work. We could see the "Massachusetts," "Brooklyn," and "Texas" move in toward shore and open fire at close range. It was a stirring sight, this mighty duel between warships and forts. As compared with the cliffs and hills of the land, the ships seemed veritable pigmies, but in this strife the pigmies were ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... gaining upon them, and close at hand, they left the water and stood at bay on a cake of ice. A bullet from Lieutenant Schwatka's rifle broke the mother's backbone and she dropped, when Mr. Williams gave her the "coup de grace" with a bullet through her head at close range. We were quite anxious to capture the little fellow alive, but found it difficult to kill the mother without wounding him, as he clung to her poor wounded body with the most touching tenacity. It was heartrending to see him try to cover her body with his own little form, and lick her face and ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... keen eyes marking down the fall of his prey, Amber stood without moving, exultation battling with a vague remorse in his bosom—as always when he killed. Quain, who had dropped back a pace after firing but one shot and scoring an unqualified miss at close range, now stood plucking clumsily, with half frozen fingers, at an obstinate breech-lock. This latter resisting his every wile, his temper presently slipped its leash; as violently as ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... to save, I went out into the street and bent over him. He was bloody, disfigured, dying, but was yet alive, uttering dismal groans. I tried to lift him up, but soon saw that the wounds which he had received from bullets fired at close range were both mortal, one being in the head, and the other in the loins. Just then a patrol, of the National Guard turned round the corner of the street. This, instead of being a relief, awoke me to a sense of my danger, and feeling I could do nothing ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... child, when told to make his choice, took the mass of straw, which he set on fire easily enough, warming himself first from a respectful distance and then at close range, in proportion as the heat of the ...
— Poise: How to Attain It • D. Starke
... solely upon the stitching used in quilting, whether it be of the simple running stitch, the back stitch, or the chain stitch, is not particularly ornamental. However, when viewed at close range, the effect is a shadowy design in low relief that has a distinctive but modest beauty when well done. Early in the eighteenth century a liking for this fashion prevailed, and was put to a variety of uses. Frequently there was no interlining between the right and wrong sides. ...
— Quilts - Their Story and How to Make Them • Marie D. Webster
... coming close now. The bands playing the Deguelo swelled to greater volume and the ground shook again as the Mexican artillery fired its second volley. When the smoke drifted away again the Alamo itself suddenly burst into flame. The Texan cannon at close range poured their shot and shell into the dense ranks of the Mexicans. But piercing through the heavy thud of the cannon came the shriller and more deadly crackle of the rifles. The Texans were there, every one of them, on the ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... my personal observation, viewing the matter at close range, that nearly always fat, like old age or a thief in the dark, steals upon one unawares. I take my own case. As a youngster and on through my teens and into my early twenties—ah, those romping elfin twenties!—I was, in outline, what ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb
... from Paris with his beloved daughter, Martha. He was intending soon to return to France and study social science at close range. Already, he had seen that mob of women march out to Versailles and fetch the King to Paris, and had seen barricade after barricade erected with the stones from the leveled Bastile; he was on intimate and affectionate terms with Lafayette and the Republican leaders, and here ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... at the Alhambra are not home-like. Bare walls with a row of pegs along one side—a couple of chairs—a table piled with make-up stuff and over it a mirror flanked by electric lights with wire netting around them. Not gay. And grease paint, at close range, is not attractive. A man shouldn't cry after he's made up—that's a theatrical commandment, or ought to be. Probably a man shouldn't anyhow. But some do. I imagined Everett had, and that he'd done it with his head in his arms and his arms in the litter of the big ...
— August First • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews and Roy Irving Murray
... Eyre." This added interest to the volume, and there came the details of the invention of the new hut, intended to be a shelter against all weathers, so that the artist might study nature on intimate terms. He made it in order to paint the heather at close range. Now, this was a revelation! It had never hitherto occurred to me that the heather changes its aspect day by day, or indeed that our pet place of beauty, the Wissahickon Creek, or river if you like, was not the same every day in the year except when the ice bound it! This ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan
... out in front of everybody to see better, but Ernest pulled her back impatiently. When the last words were uttered and the minister extended his hand in congratulation, she slipped quietly around behind the bridal pair, to look Marian over at close range. Her brother caught sight ...
— Chicken Little Jane • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... creeping through his own native woods. On this beautiful May morning, Lee, Jackson, and Stuart met in conference before the battle opened. The plan was chosen. Lee would open the battle and hold Hooker at close range. Jackson would "retreat." Out of sight, he would turn, march swiftly ten miles around their right wing and smash ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... loose. With a mighty, hideous, screeching burst of noise, hundreds of guns spoke. The men in the front trenches were deafened by the sharp reports of the field-guns spitting out their shells at close range to cut through the Germans' barbed wire entanglements. In some cases the trajectory of these vicious missiles was so flat that they passed only a few feet ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... certain that we must wait long for definitely reliable reports as to the losses on the two sides. It is already clear, however, that the encounter has added little to our knowledge of naval warfare. British battle cruisers engaged German battleships at close range and were badly punished. In this there was nothing new or instructive. Nor has anything new or instructive developed from what is thus far known of other phases of the battle. Indeed the one and only striking feature of the battle appears to be the fact that everything occurred ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... not difficult. The plump, copper-skinned maiden was overjoyed by the opportunity to examine anything so wonderful as a white girl at close range. ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... well advertised, many adventurers flocked to William's standard. The Norman cavalry and archers proved superior to the English forces, who were on foot and were so armed that they could not fight to advantage except at close range. Harold was killed in the memorable battle of Senlac[87] and his army defeated. In a few weeks a number of influential nobles and several bishops agreed to accept William as their king, and London opened its gates to him. He was crowned on ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... prince of deadly weapons at close range is the human eye. Billie was standing beside his friend, one hand resting lightly on his shoulder. The cowpuncher was as lithe and clean of build as a mastiff, but it was the steady candor of his honest eye that spoke ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... notice. The sails of the vessel I had seen off to the south-west had grown larger and plainer. They were of the same schooner-rig as the Ghost, though the hull itself, I could see, was smaller. She was a pretty sight, leaping and flying toward us, and evidently bound to pass at close range. The wind had been momentarily increasing, and the sun, after a few angry gleams, had disappeared. The sea had turned a dull leaden grey and grown rougher, and was now tossing foaming whitecaps to the sky. We were travelling faster, and heeled farther over. Once, in ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... or twice been followed by Lynxes, but I am sure it was merely out of curiosity. Many times I have met them in the woods at close range and each time they have gazed at me in a sort of mild-eyed wonder. There was no trace of ferocity in the gaze, but ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton
... waiting we had studied our map until we knew the location of every important road and railroad, every forest, river, canal, and creek within a radius of one hundred kilometres. We studied it at close range, on a table, and then on the floor, with the compass-points properly orientated, so that we might see all the important landmarks with the birdman's eye. We knew our course so well, that there seemed no possibility of our ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall
... field, descended and put the plane away. Not until the doors were closed and locked did they sit down on the skidway outside the hangar to discuss what they had seen. There had been remarks made by all after they had seen the strange plane at close range and on the hasty trip home, but all had been too busy with their own ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... comprehend the temperaments of the ministers, she managed them with inimitable tact. Although all the Girondist ministers were supposed friends, she readily saw how difficult it would be for a small group of men with the same principles to act in concert. Seeing the political machine in motion at close range, she lost some of her enthusiasm for revolutionary leaders; above all, she recognized the need of a great leader. As wife of the minister, installed in the ministerial residence with no other woman present, she gave two dinners weekly to her husband's colleagues, to ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... 21 I was shown a flock of Martian sheep. The herd was small and I observed five of the animals at close range. I call them sheep for the reason that the animals resembled our sheep in every particular. The wool was very long and of a dark reddish-brown color, except underneath their bellies ...
— The Planet Mars and its Inhabitants - A Psychic Revelation • Eros Urides and J. L. Kennon |
