"Indian file" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... rugged surface like the ribs of some petrified monster. On the other hand a wild chaos of boulders and debris made all advance impossible. Between the two ran the irregular track, so narrow in places that they had to travel in Indian file, and so rough that only practised riders could have traversed it at all. Yet in spite of all dangers and difficulties, the hearts of the fugitives were light within them, for every step increased the ...
— A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle
... she turned her gaze southward she was suddenly aware of three figures clearly tricked out against the grey sky above the further fell: their silhouettes showed like midges dapped against the window by a boy, and Meg could see that the centaurs were coming forward on a fair round trot in Indian file. She could not distinguish at the distance horse from rider, but she could note the pose of the horse's head, and the movement against the sky-line. 'Three-quarters of an hour,' commented the ...
— Border Ghost Stories • Howard Pease
... the dim blue spaces and wide wooing vacancies to leeward. It was only an instant; for again his eyes seemed whirling round in his head as he swept the watery circle. The breeze now freshened; the sea began to swell. The birds! —the birds! cried Tashtego. In long Indian file, as when herons take wing, the white birds were now all flying towards Ahab's boat; and when within a few yards began fluttering over the water there, wheeling round and round, with joyous, expectant cries. Their vision was keener than ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... while the exploring party were making their way along the foot of the Sierras. Passing around a point on the lake shore, they unexpectedly met a dozen Indian warriors. They were walking directly behind each other in what is known as Indian file, their heads bent forward and their eyes fixed on the ground. The whites turned aside to allow them to pass and naturally watched them with much interest. The Indians neither halted, deviated from the path, spoke nor looked up, but walked straight ...
— The Life of Kit Carson • Edward S. Ellis
... determined to attempt a retreat to camp. It was impossible for him to succeed, for he had a march of full three miles to make; and after encountering the enemy once or twice in the woods, he, with many of his men, was compelled to surrender. Brodhead, while marching through the woods in Indian file to join him, was also attacked and his men dispersed, though most of them, with the lieutenant-colonel himself, escaped to the lines. The rout was speedily communicated to the guards at the two remaining ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... the north to the west, and led now at a pace that was little more than a walk. Paul and Sol drew deep breaths, as they felt the heavenly air flowing back into their lungs and the spring returning to their muscles. They went in Indian file, five dusky figures in the shadow, a faint moonlight touching them but wanly, and all silent. Thus they marched until past midnight, and they heard nothing behind them. Then their leader stopped, and the others, without a ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... of constables debouched from College street, marching in Indian file. Goosestep. Foodheated faces, sweating helmets, patting their truncheons. After their feed with a good load of fat soup under their belts. Policeman's lot is oft a happy one. They split up in groups and scattered, saluting, towards their beats. Let out to graze. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... see our way on account of the fireflies, which made such a glare in front of us that the slight track which we had been following was almost invisible. It was a very dark night, and once or twice we felt rain. We had to go very slowly, so that we should not miss the track. Thus we trotted on in Indian file, each of us now leading spare horses, in silence, except when one of us asked how many leagues it was to the estancia, only to jog on again for what seemed two or three hours, until almost midnight. With a cheerful yell we suddenly came on a barbed wire fence, and ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various
... the tree, which kept Eugenia at home to make some alteration in her plans. So when the time came to start only the four guests set out across the snowy lawn, down the woodland path leading to the village. They went Indian file at first in order that Phil might make a trail through the snow, until they reached the ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... a sort of break in the undergrowth that was like a silly person's idea of a path. They went along this in Indian file, the learned ...
— The Story of the Amulet • E. Nesbit
... down near the abandoned Austrian Legation, and, rapidly trotting forward in Indian file under cover of the high encircling wall, we at last reached the main entrance. This was debatable ground. I looked round the corner with one cautious eye, and even as I did so, a shadow rushed along the ground.... Instantly I snapped ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... seemed to mass themselves together, and lay thin and straight, like clouds, upon the limit of one's view. Not that this massing was complete, or gave the idea of any extent of forest, for every here and there the trees would break up and go down into a valley in open order, or stand in long Indian file along the horizon, tree after tree relieved, foolishly enough, against the sky. I say foolishly enough, although I have seen the effect employed cleverly in art, and such long line of single trees thrown out against the customary sunset of a Japanese picture ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... with fallen wood, forming a kind of uneven flooring over which it is impossible to walk, unless one balance one's self with marvellous dexterity. Troops of children amuse themselves with this exercise all day long. You will see them jumping over the big beams, walking in Indian file along the narrow ends, or else crawling astride them; various games which generally terminate in blows and bellowings. Sometimes, too, a dozen of them will sit, closely packed one against the other, on the thin end of a pole raised a few feet from the ground, ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... he had no acquaintance with that part of the frontier, declared that all they had to do was to pursue a straight course, whereon they resumed their way, moving among the trees in Indian file with the greatest circumspection, until they reached the edge of the thicket. There, mindful of the injunction of the kind-hearted villager, they were about to turn to the left and take a short cut across the fields, but on coming to a road, bordered with a row of poplars on either side ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola |
