"Shoot down" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that number we brought off wounded, and it is conjectured (I believe with much truth) that two thirds of both received their shot from our own cowardly Regulars, who gathered themselves into a body, contrary to orders, ten or twelve deep, would then level, fire and shoot down the ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... this quiet, as the Water-Gate is watched on the outside night and day by Chinese sharpshooters. It is the last gap leading to the outer world which is still left open. Tortured by the sight of these starving wretches, who moan and mutter night and day, the posts near by shoot down dogs and cows and drag them there. They say everything is devoured raw with ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... was this the case in the days of the greatest bison destruction, when a still-hunter could get "a stand" on a bunch of buffaloes quietly grazing at the edge of the great mass, and slowly and surely shoot down each animal that attempted to lead that group away from ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... can't shoot down this young fellow without making all kinds of trouble. First thing we'd lose the claims. The Administration would drop you like a hot potato if you did a thing like that. Sheba would never speak to you again. Your friends ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... than the rest of the rock, caught in his clothes, righting the boy's body, permitting him to shoot down the rest of the way, ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... outlying settlers were all the time obliged to keep as sharp a look-out as if engaged in open war. Throughout the summer of 1776 the Kentucky settlers were continually harassed. Small parties of Indians were constantly lurking round the forts, to shoot down the men as they hunted or worked in the fields, and to carry off the women. There was a constant and monotonous succession ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... cypress tree. Here, Lacy, you help. Low doesn't know how to handle an ax. We'd better begin operations over there on the left. There are fewer windows on that side. We can batter down the door. No, there is a high window above the door and they could shoot down upon us. That won't do. We'll take the left side. See, there are but two windows, both close together near the end. Look out, boys. Keep behind the trees. I wonder how solid those logs are. When was that ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... becomes especially serviceable when snow or ice are there to act as lightning lubricants. And here the Otters will meet, old and young, male and female, without any thought but the joy of fun together, and shoot down one after the other, swiftly, and swifter still, as the hill grows smooth with use, and plump into the water and out again; and chase each other with little animal gasps of glee, each striving to make the shoot more often and more ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton
... Their object was, as I have said, to drive the English Colonists from North America, and substitute in their place their own colonial system. For this purpose they fitted out hundreds of parties of savages to proceed to other portions of the English settlements, shoot down the settlers when at work at their crops, seize their wives and children, load them with packs of plunder from their own homes, and drive them before them into the wilderness. When no longer able to stagger under their burdens, they were murdered, and their scalps torn ...
— The Two Hundredth Anniversary of the Settlement of the Town of New Milford, Conn. June 17th, 1907 • Daniel Davenport
... requested not to enter any business house or dwelling except your own, as you may be mistaken for one of the looters and shot on sight, as the orders are not to arrest but shoot down any one caught stealing." ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... earth against which the stage had crashed in its mad dash—for its precipitant front had compelled the savages to attack from one direction only, a slight overhang, not unlike a roof, making it impossible even to shoot down from above. But this same sharp incline was now likewise a preventive of escape. Hamlin shook his head as he recalled to mind its steep ascent, without root or shrub to cling to. No, it would never do to attempt that; not with her. ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... Slaves to aid Rebellion, by the digging of ditches, the throwing up of intrenchments, and the erection of batteries, their Rebel masters placed in their hands arms with which to shoot down Union soldiers at the Battle of Bull Run, which, as we have seen, occurred on Sunday, July 21, 1861—and resulted in a check to ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... of you," said the dauntless leader, "and your rifles will reach that gun. Shoot down every man who tries to handle it. The rest of us will attend to the new charge ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler
... drilled clear through the shoulder, and in falling his head had struck one of the upright poles. Without a word he got his gun into action once more, shooting now from the left shoulder. Tim, with a tight grin of relief, devoted himself once more to trying to shoot down the ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... come ponderously to the wind again, showing that her helmsman was down—"Let the man who did that come to me by and by, and he shall have a noble for that good shot. Swing the mainyard! Musketrymen, clear the enemy's tops of archers, and shoot down any that may attempt to take their places! Trim aft the head sheets! Swing the foreyard! Starboard gunners, reload your ordnance! We will try that trick again if they will but give us the chance. Now, larboard gunners, be ready, and let her ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... I told you in the first place," interrupted the lieutenant. "We must have a police force around the store, and shoot down every suspicious character that approaches during ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... the countryside were prompted by the panic and its vindictive reaction to shoot down a certain number of innocent blacks along with the guilty and to make display of some of their severed heads. The magistrates were less impulsive. They promptly organized a court comprising all the justices of the peace in the county and assigned attorneys for ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... Yanks. Dey hid dey jewelry and fine dishes and such. Dose Yanks had on big boots. Dey'd drive up, feed dey hosses from old Master's corn, catch dey chickens, and tell old Master's cook to cook 'em, and they'd shoot down old Master's hogs ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... they got to the mound. I had looked round while the chief was away, and I saw that a hundred yards or so higher up, the ravine came to an end, the sides closing in, so there was no fear of our being attacked from there. What I was afraid of was that the Indians might be able to get up above and shoot down on us, though whether they could or not depended on the nature of the ground above, and of course I could not see beyond the edge of ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... undoes all that it has been wished to accomplish. The drummer, on the other hand, must beat his drum as he goes to the attack, yet he is expected to run into the enemy unarmed. He would prefer exchanging his drum for a rifle, so that he would be able to shoot down a soldier. ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... her and all that's in her. That's pretty near the law o' the land—near enough for you, anyway. Contrary, by law, b'y," with another impressive tap, "if they is one o' the crew aboard, he's a right to shoot down any man who comes over the side against his will. That's exactly ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... whole human race; they all lowered the swords they had raised! Yes, to massacre the Parisians, to treat Paris like a place taken by assault, to deliver up to pillage one quarter of the town, to outrage the second Eternal City, to assassinate civilization in her very sanctuary, to shoot down old men, children, and women, in this illustrious spot, this home of the world; that which Wellington forbade his half-naked Highlanders, and Schwartzenberg his Croats to do; that which Blucher did not suffer his Landwehr to do, and which Platow dared not allow his Cossacks to undertake,—all ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... I verily believe the women are worse than the men. There is only one I would spare, though she is the worst of all. At every barricade where the fighting has been fiercest for the last four days she has been conspicuous. The troops got to know her by her red cap and dress. She has been seen to shoot down men who attempted to retire, and she has led a charmed life or she would have been killed a thousand times. When she was taken she had on an old dress over her red one, and a hideous bonnet in place of the cap. She was caught just as she had dropped a lighted match ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... lie in the hedge and shoot down the old man as he came in from those cursed mines which had started all the trouble? Or should he walk right into the house and shoot and fell whatever he came across? If he must suffer it would at all events be some satisfaction to ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... government; we know also that to meet this situation, the Minister of the Interior had placed machine guns in the garrets, in steeples, on housetops, and other such places where they could command the important streets and shoot down the mob. The rising did not take place because Miliukov, the great liberal leader, learned that the Government was behind this move and that preparations had been made to slaughter the unsuspecting workmen. He, therefore, addressed them in an open letter calling on them ...
— The Russian Revolution; The Jugo-Slav Movement • Alexander Petrunkevitch, Samuel Northrup Harper,
... Danes advanced to the assault. This time they were but little annoyed in their advance by the archers. These were posted on the walls at each side of the gaps to shoot down at the backs of the Danes after they had entered. On the inner semicircular mounds the ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... was even more demoniacal than before. Mad with rage at the prospective escape of his prey, and infuriated by his half-sister's appearance in the plane, Von Kettler had thrown all caution to the winds. In his insane hatred he was prepared to shoot down Dick's plane and send Fredegonde to ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... that had happened. Yet her tongue had no urging word to offer. She waited in a supernatural and dreadful curiosity on Jack's decision. It was as if he were to answer one more question in explanation of the mystery of his nature. Could he deliberately shoot down an unarmed man? ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... savage!" commanded 'Siah. "You wanter shoot down men of your own color, do ye? Beech-sealin' an' duckin' is all right; but it's an awful thing to draw bead on another white man, as ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster
... with dark, rich moss. There were retired little falls in it, that seemed like nuns, so unregarding as they were of all the commotion about them. Then the whole body of water would gather itself up, and shoot down some rock, and cut like a sword-blade into the still water below. We shall long remember that little, leaping, dancing branch of the Coquille, that runs from the Coast Mountains to ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton
... To Kobadjischini he gave a suit of flint of many colors and a long whip with which to drive away sickness, and in his hair he tied a downy eagle feather. Then he said to Naye{COMBINING BREVE}nayezgani, "Shoot down and see if you can hit that tree." So Naye{COMBINING BREVE}nayezgani shot, and the arrow shattered the tree like a bolt ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... skated nervelessly, with hanging arms. But, watching, he saw her summon up her strength and shoot down the glimmering ice-way like a swallow let loose from his hand. So swift was her flight that, all unknowing, she overtook and passed the travellers jogging parallel with her on the high road; and had reached Kelstein and was putting ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and the chief anarchists were driven from place to place and hunted as wild animals. Police spies and agents provocateurs swarmed over the labor, socialist, and anarchist movements, and at the slightest sign of an uprising the soldiers were brought out to shoot down the people. Hardly a month went by without some "anarchist trouble," and many harmless strikes resulted in dreadful massacres. It was a tragic period, that reminds one again of the picture in Dante in which the two bitter ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... Sailors don't act that way. We'll wait for the captain or the police." Which, interpreted, and plus the slight shade of anxiety showing in his disfigured face, meant that Mr. Jackson was confronted with a new phase of the problem: as to how much more unsafe it might be to shoot down, on the deck of a ship, men who did not know where they were, than to shoot down sailors who did. So, while the uninjured men were assisting the wounded five into the forecastle, the police flag was run up to the main-truck, and the two mates retired to the poop to wait ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... infantry made for three different points, [Footnote: White Point, Flat Point, and Kennington Cove. See the accompanying Map of the siege.] respectively two, three, and four miles from the fortress. The French sent out half the garrison to shoot down the first boatloads that came in on the rollers. To cover the landing, some of Boscawen's ships moved in as close as they could and threw shells inshore: but ...
— The Winning of Canada: A Chronicle of Wolf • William Wood
... of skirmishers issued once more from the Indian camp, creeping among the trees and bushes, and seeking a chance to shoot down the men at the guns. But sharp ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... front wheels dangerously near to the outer edge of the shelf road. Mr. Boltwood gazed at the hand on the wheel. With a quick breath Claire looked at the side of the road. If the car ran off, it would shoot down forty feet ... ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... In this plight they were discovered by a body of horsemen from the town, who began firing upon them. The Spaniards must now have thought that their game was almost bagged and that all they had to do was to stand on the edge of the bog and shoot down the floundering fellows who could not get away from them. But these fellows were bloody buccaneers, each one of them a great deal harder to kill than a cat, and they did not propose to stay in the bog to be shot down. With their ...
— Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts • Frank Richard Stockton
... the labor unions; "they bring in gangs of armed mercenaries who shoot down honest workmen striving for their rights." This is the baldest nonsense, as they know very well who utter it. The Pinkerton men are mere mercenaries and have no right place in our system, but there have been no ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... Hawkins, ladder, and all shoot down into the water, and I wondered whether Heaven would send wind enough to hoist ...
— Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures • Edgar Franklin
... count with two loaded pistols," cried Herr von Waldow. "I will shoot down whoever shall dare to oppose him, and open a free path for him to the Willow-bank Gate, where you will be waiting ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... evil." This counsel being not so seriously taken as given, is the reason of that starting from opinion to opinion, reeling this way and that way, out of this lane into that lane, and so missing the way to the kingdom. Tho the way to heaven be but one, yet there are many crooked lanes and by-paths that shoot down upon it, as I may say. And again, notwithstanding the kingdom of heaven be the biggest city, yet usually those by-paths are most beaten, most travelers go those ways; and therefore the way to heaven is hard to be found, and as hard to be kept in, by reason of these. Yet, nevertheless, it is ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser
... way before the rush; but for an instant there was a struggle and a fight, for Muggridge and the man who slept at the farm were close behind the farmer, little expecting their master to give way so soon, and leave them to grapple with their visitor, and it may have been that he intended to shoot down one of them, or that in the struggle the pistol accidentally went off, but in another second a bullet whistled through the air, and, passing clean through the fleshy part of Paul's arm, became embedded in the ...
— Paul the Courageous • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... and then sending a curiously furtive glance in my direction, for all the world as if he were asking in his own mind: "Have you found me out yet?" "I would ask nothing better," he told me, "than to put myself at the head of my regiment and to march my men through Paris, and to shoot down every Jew who lives in it. I would shoot them down like rabbits, 'sans rancune et sans remords.'" He flashed that strange furtive glance at me and took his walking-stick in both hands: "I have a dream," he went on, "it comes to me often. ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... shooting, what they cannot take, or reach with their Hands, they do with Arrows; and have so admirable an Aim, that they will split almost an Hair, and at any Distance that an Arrow can reach: they will shoot down Oranges, and other Fruit, and only touch the Stalk with the Dart's Point, that they may not hurt the Fruit. So that they being on all Occasions very useful to us, we find it absolutely necessary to caress 'em ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... answers Woodley. "Contrarywise, they'd only hamper us. If the redskins make to rush past, we kin eezy shoot down thar animals, an' so stop 'em. Wi' thar squaws along, they ain't like to make any resistance. Besides, arter all, they may be some sort that's friendly to the whites. Ef so, 'twould be a pity to kill the critters. We kin capter 'em ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... overflowing. People were sitting close together in small select companies, and looked gay and happy. On the tables round which they sat, stood the wine-cooler with the champagne bottle pointing obliquely upward as though it were going to shoot down heaven itself to them. How secure they appeared to feel! Had they no suspicion that they were sitting upon a thin crust, with the hell of poverty right beneath them? Or was that perhaps why they were enjoying themselves—to-day ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... fall into it drop by drop from one or two inches above it. The rebounding column will be seen to consist almost entirely of milk, and to break up into drops in the manner described, while the vortex ring, whose core is of milk, may be seen to shoot down into the liquid. But this is better observed by dropping ink into a ...
— The Splash of a Drop • A. M. Worthington
... passed directly beneath the trees in which the fugitives were hiding. It would have been an easy matter for Frank or any of the others to have killed Captain Jack and several of his men with a single volley, but none could bring himself to shoot down a man in cold blood. Besides, a single shot would have precipitated a battle, and all the fugitives knew that their best chance of safety lay in ...
— The Boy Allies with Uncle Sams Cruisers • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... ex-sailors of the Royal Navy, would nerve his Arab helpers to attack and defeat Alfieri's band of cutthroats. Moreover, von Kerber and his small escort were evidently making a fight of it, and, while daylight lasted, the Hadendowas, once discovered, would endeavor to shoot down their quarry at a safe range rather than undergo the certain ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... certain death. It is imagined (I believe with great justice, too) that two thirds of both killed and wounded received their shots from our own cowardly dogs of soldiers, who gathered themselves into a body, contrary to orders, ten and twelve deep, would then level, fire, and shoot down ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... permitted to speak, I may say I do—at least, I have an obscure comprehension of it. Fairly interpreted, I take it to mean this. You have arranged with the Horned Lizard to make a counterfeit attack upon our camp—to shoot down or spear our poor devils of ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... the knoll, on which also flew the flag of the bloody head. "This smaller castle, Robert, is of no great strength and cannot hold more than fifty men. It is built, as I conceive it, that no one should seize the high ground and shoot down into the other. Why should we not turn all our strength upon it, since it is the weaker of ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... suppression, notwithstanding the fact that he seriously interferes with the material welfare of the professional juror and my lawyer friends. But were I duly ordained to perform that duty I would not begin by creating new deputies or calling out local militia companies to shoot down their neighbors and friends, to protect the miserable carcass of a rape-fiend. I would wipe out our entire penal code and frame a new one in which there would be no comfortable penitentiaries. If a man were found guilty of rape or homicide I'd promptly hang him, ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... Shoot down the traitor dogs with her," he cried savagely. "One hundred pesos to the man who kills either ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... human characteristics he leaned back in the saddle and felt for tobacco and papers. As he finished pouring the chopped alfalfa into the paper he glanced up and saw a mounted man top the sky-line of the distant hills and shoot down the ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... working his way behind underbrush to a shelf from which he could shoot down at Calhoun. Calhoun had dropped into a hollow and pulled Maril to cover at the first shot. The second man happily planned to get to a point where he could shoot him like ...
— This World Is Taboo • Murray Leinster
... was an enemy, Captain Carden at once issued the command to clear for action. The most thorough preparations were made and officers were stationed with orders to shoot down the first man who flinched from his duty. On board the ship were a number of American seamen, who began speculating among themselves as to whether the approaching frigate was a Frenchman or belonged to their ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis
... very poor intrenchment. Our best shelter from the French fire, which was very hot, was hogsheads filled with earth." He and his men made the West Gate their chief mark; but before they could get a fair sight of it, they were forced to shoot down the fish-flakes, or stages for drying cod, that obstructed the view. Some of their party were soon killed,—Captain Pierce by a cannon-ball, Thomas Ash by a "bumb," and others by musketry. In the ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman
... sooner or later—I like to feel that I've got a bit of right on my side. But how can you feel that when you over-run Belgium and burn down Louvain—that's the place that made your heart bleed, bah!—and when you shoot down Belgian hostages and do to death an English nurse? All that never seems to strike you. You go on thinking of yourself as a holy humble man whom everybody wilfully mistakes for a bully and a tyrant. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 19, 1916 • Various
... of the forest,—and sometimes wins. He soon knew better than to cut the animal's throat, and learned from Hines that a single stab at a certain point of the chest was much better for the purposes of bleeding. And, what is more, he learned not to over-shoot down hill. ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... men," he continued, "indifferent to death, and would, without compunction, shoot down everyone present—if I merely raised my hand! Each of them is a social pariah, with a price upon his head. Let no man think this is a jest! Any movement made without my permission will ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... expiring, he called the man who was to relieve him, wrapt himself in his blanket, and was soon buried in a slumber that was to be his last. Now the assassins rose. Duhaut and Hiens stood with their guns cocked, ready to shoot down any one of the destined victims who should resist or fly. The surgeon, with an ax, stole toward the three sleepers, and struck a rapid blow at each in turn. Saget and Nika died with little movement; but ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... the top of the breach the French would see a great gulf in front of them. With timbers and planks he erected a sort of slide from the breach down into this vault, and covered it with grease, so that those trying to descend would shoot down to the bottom and remain there ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... It is only a morbid sense of things that would describe such incidents as heroic. Everyone knows that Major Butt was a brave man, but his record of heroism would not be enhanced if he, a trained army officer, were compelled under orders from the captain to shoot down unarmed passengers. It might in other conditions have been necessary, but it would not be heroic. Similarly there could be nothing heroic in Captain Smith or Murdock putting an end to their lives. It is conceivable men might be so overwhelmed by ...
— The Loss of the SS. Titanic • Lawrence Beesley
... only be on the shore, to see you shoot down, it would afford me the greatest pleasure in the world. Not that I don't want to go through, too, but my first duty is toward securing all these wonderful events in an imperishable way by taking a picture. Some ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen
... it for herself. She felt it to be merely consistent that she, in whom service to her community was becoming a necessity, should have this privilege. It never would be possible for her to exercise murderous powers of destruction in behalf of her country. She would not be allowed to shoot down innocent men whose opinions were opposed to her own, or to make widows and orphans. She would be forbidden to stand behind cannon or to sink submarine torpedoes. But it was within her reach to add to the sum total of peace and happiness. She would, if she could get her Bureau of Children ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... Dan, "it was not the fighting that bothered me, it was the idea I had landed guns which your men were using to shoot down other men like sheep. It was a new sensation, and it got into me, I'll say that. Still it was none of my business; I was carrying out your instructions. I am sorry I was so unwise as to give ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... where Malkin Tower was situated. Even in broad day the accursed structure would have been invisible, as it stood on the further side of the hill, overlooking Barrowford and Colne; but Richard knew its position well, and while his gaze was fixed upon the point, he saw a star shoot down from the heavens and apparently alight near the spot. The circumstance alarmed him, for he could not help thinking it ominous of ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... had made several unsuccessful attempts to shoot down one of the nests by firing with ball at the supporting branch, the black volunteered to climb the tree, provided I would give him a knife. I was puzzled to know how he proposed to act, the trunk being upwards of four feet in diameter at the base, and the nearest ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... times, war times is all the hard times I ever seen. No foolin'! It was really hard times. We had no bread, shoot down a cow and cut out what we wanted, take it on. We et it raw. Sometimes we would cook it but we et more raw than cooked. When we got to Ft. Smith we struck good times. Folks was living on parched corn and sorghum molasses. They had no mills to grind up the corn. Times was hard they thought. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... himself, which he expressed frequently in a half-comical, half-serious fashion, was to me more like a man on the stage than an ordinary undergraduate. From morning to night Lambert was self-conscious, even at the wine, when he was sitting on the floor with Webb, he did not forget to shoot down his cuffs. I have already said that Dennison played the piano, he was also considered a wit, and fired off things which Lambert said were epigrams, but Collier, who was full of curious information, declared that most of them were adapted ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... gravely, "but a shadow gathers in the north. The children of Corlear wish to plow the land and raise corn, but the sons of Onontio go into the forest and become hunters and warriors with the Hurons. It is easy for the man in the woods to shoot down ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... The Jacobins, for the moment, were crushed. Robespierre, Marat, even Danton, effaced themselves, and expected that the Feuillants would follow up their victory. It seemed impossible that men who had the resolution to shoot down their masters, the people of Paris, and were able to give the law, should be so weak in spirit, or so short of sight, as to throw away their advantage, and resume a contest on equal terms with conquered ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... They cannot steer, neither can we. The poop, which is the high place, is ours. The wheel is on the poop, yet we cannot touch the wheel. From that slitted opening in the ventilator-shaft they are able to shoot down any man who approaches the wheel. And with that steel wall of the chart-house as a shield they laugh at us ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... in St. Elmo now was that the Turks still held on to the ravelin which they had captured; this they had built up to such a height that they could look over the parapet of the fortress and shoot down with arquebus fire any one whom they could see. Meanwhile the Turkish sappers delved night and day in their endeavour to undermine the parapet, which, if blown up, would give them free access to the interior of the fort; ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... Cloud, Mr. B. observed, 'Ah, that is the fellow I came near having a fight with'; and he detailed at length the circumstances. This Indian was a very desperate character, and of whom, all the Leech Lake band stood in fear. He would shoot down any Indian who offended him, without the least hesitation, and had become quite the bully of that part of the tribe. The trader at Leech Lake warned Mr. B. to beware of him, and said that he once, when ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... we practised that in our campaign against Montcalm; 'twas necessary to avoid the murders of their Indians, who were sure, Miss Alice, to shoot down a man at his post, if he were placed two nights running in ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... had to march away; whilst another man was pulled out by main force and left his boots behind him, and after walking a mile in bare feet was put into a cart. The enemy have had the audacity to open on us with a machine gun, and spent last night with it trying to shoot down my principal communication trench, so, as I have more or less placed the gun, I am asking the artillery to fire on it without delay. A curious way of spending the third Sunday in Advent, shivering with cold in a ...
— Letters of Lt.-Col. George Brenton Laurie • George Brenton Laurie
... when the people of various German states demanded their liberty, it was an ultra-pious king of Prussia who sent his troops and shot them down—precisely as Luther had advised to shoot down the peasants. At this time the future maker of the German Empire rose in the Landtag and made his bow before the world; a young Prussian land-magnate, Otto von Bismarck by name, he shook his fist in the face of the new German liberalism, ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... allowed to go on eating our dinner, to finish seeing the new play, or to enjoy to the end the ball, the Christmas fete, the promenade, the races or, the hunt, thanks to the policeman's revolver or the soldier's rifle, which will shoot down the famished outcast who has been robbed of his share, and who looks round the corner with covetous eyes at our pleasures, ready to interrupt them instantly, were not the policeman and the soldier there prepared to run up at our first call ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... has many a man been compelled to stand for hours in a public road, and in order to save his own life shoot down an innocent person? I always held that Alf Jucklin was a dangerous and a desperate man, and everybody knows that he comes of that breed. I never did like him; and he took a dislike to me without cause. ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... a line of rocks occupied the space between the two channels, whilst a reef, projecting from the left bank, made the central passage distinctly visible, and the rapidity of the current proportionably great. I entertained hopes that the passage was clear, and that we should shoot down it without interruption; but in this I was disappointed. The boat struck with the fore-part of her keel on a sunken rock, and, swinging round as it were on a pivot, presented her bow to the rapid, while the skiff floated ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... would bring them about the little party in overwhelming strength. Flight anywhere downhill was impossible. The one refuge in sight was that beleaguered little clump of buildings just beyond them up the slope, garrisoned by a dozen desperate men who had shouted warning again and again, they'd shoot down the first man that showed a head above ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... that. She was lighter on her feet than he was upon his, an' soon outdistanced him. He hadn't stopped to pick his rifle up—he only had th' knife he'd done th' killin' with, so he couldn't do what he'd 'a' liked to done—shoot down a woman ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... he answered. "I hadn't stepped out of the cab, not a minute, when I heard the lever go. He's running somebody down, he says; he'll run the whole shoot down in a minute—look!..." ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... incoming regiments, halted outside her house on the line of march. The refreshment was long in coming, and she went down to see why. She found her cook up in arms: "Is it me boil the kettle for Englishmen coming in to shoot down Irishmen?" Yet that was still the voice of a minority. When I came home from France a few weeks later, a shrewd and prosperous Nationalist man of business said to me with fury: "The fools! It was the first rebellion that ever had the ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... Shoot down the first one who resists or attempts to escape," he added, turning to his men. "Stand to your guns, my lads!" shouted Captain Wilson. "Don't give ground ...
— Frank on a Gun-Boat • Harry Castlemon
... Then Tom began to turn the big burnished propeller, just as John threw a lever from the inside which caused the auxiliary ground wheel to shoot down and engage the sod. At the same time the movement of another lever by Paul ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... fully—armed brigands effected their purpose, though it was broad daylight. Another time they entered a market town in Transylvania and coolly demanded that the broken wheel of their waggon should be mended, threatening to shoot down anybody who offered the slightest opposition. The post was frequently stopped, but it came to be remarked, that though the passengers were generally killed, the drivers escaped. This, together with the fact that the post was always stopped ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... faces against the whole plan of education; Christy having been nettled at hearing what he terms a wild-goose chase put on a par with a fox-hunt; and the gamekeeper having always been accustomed to look upon hawks as arrant poachers, which it was his duty to shoot down, and nail, in terrorem, ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... weapons on which my mother pronounced her magic benediction. . . . Flowers! flowers! I will crown my head for the death-fight. And the lyre too, reach me the lyre, that I may sing a battle-song. . . . Words like flaming stars, that shoot down from the heavens, and burn up the palaces, and illuminate the huts. . . . Words like bright javelins, that whirr up to the seventh heaven and strike the pious hypocrites who have skulked into the Holy of Holies. . . . I am all joy and song, all sword and flame! ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... forest came the calls of night birds, and Robert saw one shoot down upon the lake and then rise with a fish in its talons. He almost expected to see the dusky figure of Tandakora creep from the bush, and he knew at least that the Ojibway chief would be somewhere near the lakes. Beyond a doubt they would encounter him and his warriors as they ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... accredited by the Court of St. James's, he must hold aloof and neutral in all personal quarrels. He appreciated the tact with which Rallywood dismissed him from a scene which promised to be distinctly awkward, but his hand itched to shoot down the flower of the Guard of Maasau for the insolence that dared to doubt the worthiness of an Englishman of birth to hold a place ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... raising money to keep down the price of bread. Thousands of servants in livery, armed with terrific instruments for the destruction of life, are kept standing on and around the walls of the city, ready at a moment's notice to shoot down any one who makes any movement or demonstration in a direction contrary to the laws of the machine. And to support this great crowd of liveried lackeys, the people are squeezed like sponges, till ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... a big man like you turning traitor to his class. I suppose you're aching to join the militia for a chance to shoot down union drivers the next strike. You may belong to the militia already, for that matter. You're ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London
... claims of the Rand multi-millionaires—the indignation of the Dutch Colonists confined in concentration camps by order of the military authorities—the Jingoes who thought it would be only right to shoot down every Dutch sympathiser in the country: these were among the things agitating the South African public mind, and setting up conflicting claims impossible of adjustment without bitter censure on one hand or the other. The wonder ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill
... way into the tunnel, and he seemed in deadly fear. The echo of the hoof-beats irritated him. He eyed each hole in the roof as if Yasmini might be expected to shoot down at him or drench him with boiling oil and hurried past each of them at a trot, only to draw rein immediately afterward because the ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... to the left towards the boulders. Khaki was on the one side, we on the other. Some of our men had a most original and amusing way of getting at the khakies. 'Come out, you rabbits, come out of your holes, else we'll shoot down the lot of you!' Then the poor things answered: 'We're afraid to come out. You'll kill us!' They really thought we would shoot them down if they surrendered. The officers had lost all control over the soldiers. Later on, ...
— On Commando • Dietlof Van Warmelo
... exempting all who should aid an officer in his tyranny from trial for murder in the place where they should commit their crime. Mr. Toucey has humbly copied that precedent of despotism. It was very proper that the new tyranny growing up here, should select that anniversary to shoot down freedom of thought and speech among the subjects of the slave-power. I welcomed the omen. The Fifth of March is a red-letter day in the calendar of Boston. The Court could hardly have chosen a better to punish ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... dawn advised them that it had come upon them mid-way, and the Muezzin began his call from the Minaret, "Haste ye to salvation! Haste ye to salvation!" [FN429] Then Allah suffered his angelic host to shoot down the Ifrit with a shooting star, [FN430] so he was consumed, but the Ifritah escaped and she descended with Badr al- Din at the place where the Ifrit was burnt, and did not carry him back to Bassorah, fearing lest he come to harm. Now by the order of Him who predestineth all things, they alighted ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... have been easier than for Avon, from where he stood, to shoot down the savage and appropriate his horse for himself. There was an instant when he meditated such a step, but though many a veteran of the frontier would have seized the chance with eagerness, he shrank from such a ...
— The Great Cattle Trail • Edward S. Ellis
... and had murdered several white men, so that the latter had begun to regard the Red Men as their natural enemies. Indeed some of the more violent among them had vowed that they would treat them as vermin, and shoot down every native they chanced to meet, whether he belonged to the guilty tribe or not. The Indian who now approached the camp-fire of the white men knew that he had good ground to fear the nature of his reception, and there is no doubt that it would have been an ...
— Digging for Gold - Adventures in California • R.M. Ballantyne
... soldier-burghers, who, irritated by being called away from their peaceful existences, maddened by the loss of some of their number who fell in the fighting, and elated by their easy victory, were thirsting to shoot down the leaders of the Raid, as they stood, in the market-square at Krugersdorp. The state of the Boer Government at that time added to the President's difficulties. He was hampered by the narrowest—minded Volksraad ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... twenty-five; the Bishop could bring fifty men, and surround himself with about 200 priests and defteras, so as to form a mixed sortie; all, however, ready to fight in case of need. Should persuasion or threats fail to force the way to the gate, they were to shoot down any one attempting to molest us in our advance. Arrived at the gate, the Bishop and the priests would stand before the inner door, whilst the armed party would seize upon the outer gate and hold it until the Wakshum and his men, ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... broad chests, and healthy lungs, and noble throats, and above all, their musical hearts, they poured out the harmony so clear and full, that every glass in the room rang like a harp, and a bolt of ice seemed to shoot down Grace Carden's backbone; and, in the chorus, gentle George's bass was like ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... hundred yards behind Jacob's Ladder, there is a little round clump of trees. Both village and clump make conspicuous landmarks. The clump was once the famous English machine-gun post of the Bowery, from which our men could shoot down the valley into ...
— The Old Front Line • John Masefield
... man, each one of you," said he, in a suppressed eagerness; "and soon as the soldiers issue at the charge shoot down upon your mark." ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... make it inadvisable to have them executed. Here there is no such difficulty. You have often heard me at the annual swearing in of recruits tell them that they are now my children and must do what I say, even if I should order them to shoot down their own parents. I wish to show the world that this is so, and that my soldiers believe it and will act upon it. Such an army will inspire terror indeed. Most of the prisoners are men, but I have included ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby
... Petrograd at this time, more than sufficient to suppress any uprising. Neither Protopopoff nor the most radical members of the Duma doubted that the soldiers would obey the orders of their officers, and shoot down the crowds on the streets. When had Russian soldiers ever refused to suppress demonstrations of the people? "The revolution is on," cried Milukov, "but it will be drowned in blood!" In this supposition both sides ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... not destroyed; they get away; when we gain a field, it is only the moral effect that remains with us. War is different from the old wars. The only thorough defeats are surrenders. It would take days for Lee's army to shoot down Meade's at long range, even if Meade should stand and do nothing. We may defeat Meade,—I don't see why we should not,—but in less than a week we should be compelled to fight him again, and we should be weaker and he would ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... horrible, for at that point the state of things was reversed, and the Soudanese were few in number, while the English were the many. And it was a revolting thing to have to shoot down and stab this ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... Roderick Norton so determined that Jim Galloway should not so much as suspect that these men were watchful in the mountains? What sinister chain of circumstance had impelled Moraga, who Norton said was Galloway's man, to shoot down the cattle foreman? And Galloway himself, what type of man must he be if all that she had heard of him were true; what were his ambitions, his ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... lose their milk in August, become sufficiently fat for table use by October. Fallow heifers and steers, are good beef, and fit for the knife at any period after the middle of May. Nothing is more common than for an Illinois farmer to go among his stock, select, shoot down, and dress a fine beef, whenever fresh meat is needed. This is often divided out amongst the neighbors, who in turn, kill and share likewise. It is common at camp and other large meetings, to kill a beef and three or four hogs for the subsistence ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck
... "Shoot down the intolerable young rascal! Shall he thus beard my Lord Maxwell?" cried a voice from the troop which witnessed the chase. And more than one bow was bent, and several hand-fusils levelled from the ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... to play brakemen, and the man who was to be fireman, had their work carefully mapped out for them. The other men were to form a guard who would stand near the cars that were to be seized; they were to have their revolvers ready and must shoot down any ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins
... those humble villages situated along the road to Meaux, Penchard, Marcilly, Chambry, Etrepilly, where a barbarian horde had passed. Since there were no inhabitants remaining—men whose throats could be cut, women who could be violated, or babies to shoot down—the horde had vented its rage on the furniture and the poor little familiar objects in which each one of us puts a bit of ...
— Fighting France • Stephane Lauzanne
... Indeed Humfrey, who came in for a moment to receive his master's orders, report his watch, and greet his lady, narrated, on the authority of the lately enlisted men-at-arms, that M. de Nid de Merle had promised twenty crowns to any one who might shoot down the heretics' ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... free he was a white patched object no longer human, a ball of choya burrs, and he slipped off the bank to shoot down and down into the ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... so there comes one of those fearful moments that makes a man's heart break to think of. Then in the fearful silence you hear one of the men whisper that he has three children and a wife; and you see the other gaze at him an instant with terror in his eyes, and then let go his hold and shoot down to the street below. And that is all ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... and their wars to be paid for by English gold." Obviously their methods of warfare were, to say the least of it, curious. Sometimes they would drive a battalion of friendly natives or slaves in front of them, and shoot down their enemies from behind the shelter of these advanced guards. Occasionally they employed a method similar to that used against the Zulus of Dingaan. According to Livingstone's essay, written in 1853, and not published ...
— 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
... cakes and ale. Some of the Emperor's acts and speeches have postponed, if not precluded, eventual popularity—his breach with Bismarck, for example, the whole "personal regiment," and speeches like that at Potsdam in 1891, when he told his recruits that if he had to order them to shoot down their brothers, or even their parents, they must obey without a murmur. Speeches of this last kind live long in public memory. In his dealings with his people the Emperor is neither arrogant—"high-nosed" is the elegant German expression: "arrogant" is no German word, Prince Buelow would doubtless ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... sailing past the huge outlines of mountainous Formosa, that rich island off the coast of China, between Shanghai and Manila. It looks like some fairly island with its coves and caves, into which pours the purple sea, visible through the faint mists of morning and noontime. Its precipitous sides shoot down to the sea in great bare cliffs, save where, here and there, a beautiful bay runs in from the southern sea to kiss the green lips ...
— Flash-lights from the Seven Seas • William L. Stidger |
