"Single file" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... on nothing of importance, but in reality telling him with great glee of how he had succeeded in lulling the captain's suspicions. Presently the whole party reached the thicket in which the well was situated, and as the path was narrow they had to walk in single file, the children who were carrying the axes falling behind. And then suddenly, and almost without a sound, thirty or more stalwart savages, led by the young Kaibuka and his uncle, leapt on the unsuspecting white men, who in a few seconds were clubbed to death before even ...
— The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton - 1902 • Louis Becke
... has killed himself— [Adds the latter in lower tone, almost fainting. The dancers appear in the ball-room, hand in hand in single file, led by FANSHAW, and dance wildly in—all singing "Won't You Come And Play With Me." They make a big circle about MARION and MRS. WOLTON, dancing out through the ball-room, the music and singing becoming fainter as they disappear. The two women are left alone. ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: The Moth and the Flame • Clyde Fitch
... down from the castle of Blentz toward the village. Just out of sight of the grim pile where the road wound down into a ravine Barney turned his horse's head up the narrow defile. In single file Butzow and the troopers followed until the rank undergrowth precluded farther advance. Here the American directed that they dismount, and, leaving the horses in charge of three troopers, set out once more with the balance ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... it, he began to be aware of a group of men emerging from the trees on the Laggan side, and walking in single file along the path. Navvies apparently—carrying bundles and picks. The path came within a few yards of the window, and of the little stream that supplied the ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... sedan left me, was built over the pathway, which was here a narrow track, two feet six inches wide. Mountain coolies on the road were passing in single file through the inn, their backs bending under their huge burdens. Pigs and fowls and dogs, and a stray cat, were foraging for crumbs under the table. Through the open doorways you saw the paddy-fields ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... the visitors had to give way to men who marched in single file carrying what seemed to be huge cheeses, but the guide explained that within these were cups, saucers, bowls, and basins, and men mounted on ladders piled these yellow tubs up the walls of the ovens. When the visitors had peeped into the huge interior, they were conducted to ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... rest the horses, they started up the trail in single file, Bud going first. For a greater part of the distance the rocky spurs shielded them from any save a very limited field of observation. But at the summit there was an almost level stretch of twenty feet or more from ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... Arcona's fall in the royal city of Karents, they hastened with offers of surrender, and Absalon went there with a single ship's crew to take possession. They were met by 6000 armed Wends, who guarded the narrow approach to the city. In single file they walked between the ranks of the enemy, who stood with inverted spears, watching them in sullen silence. His men feared a trap, but Absalon strode ahead unmoved. Coming to the temple of their local god, Rygievit, he attacked him with his axe and bade his guard fall to, which they did. Saxo ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... brief time after his arrival in Virginia City that Clemens began the series of hoaxes which would carry his reputation, not always in an enviable fashion, across the Sierras and down the Pacific coast. With one exception these are lost to-day, for so far as known there is not a single file of the Enterprise in existence. Only a few stray copies and clippings are preserved, but we know the story of some of these literary pranks and of their results. They were usually intended as a special punishment of some particular individual or paper or locality; but victims were gathered ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... by a wide detour, fording the Creuse at a secluded place, and ascended the wooded hills in single file. After a long and toilsome progress through pathless and deeply shaded wilds, we reached, in the afternoon, the forest inn kept by Godeau and his wife. It had been my intention to stop and rest here, and to send Blaise ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... the servants had gone downstairs, one of the maids-of-honour set a chair under the domed ceiling in front of the vestibule for Miss Clifford, who went to it from the reading-desk, and sat there. Then the first-class girls rose and left their seats in single file, and each as she passed walked up to Miss Clifford, took the hand which she held out, and curtsied good-night to her. The other classes followed in the same order. Miss Clifford said a word or two to some of the girls, and had a smile for all. When Beth's turn came, she made an awkward ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... girls, mostly girls,—as many girls as would fill Vassar College a hundred times and more, or double the population of Nevada. Put these men and girls in line, march them ten abreast, and six hours would pass before the last company would arrive at the reviewing stand. In single file this throng of Telephonians would make a living wall from New ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... us was a large open square, with the huts of the queen's Kamraviona or commander-in-chief beyond. The battalion, consisting of what might be termed three companies, each containing 200 men, being drawn up on the left extremity of the parade-ground, received orders to march past in single file from the right of companies, at a long trot, and re-form again at the ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... and the order, "March," was given. Off started the Indians in single file with as much apparent ease as if they were taking a pleasure walk along a well-beaten path instead of plunging, heavily laden, into the recesses of a trackless forest. Captain Glazier, his brother and Mr. Paine followed their ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... hunters were running in single file upon the trail of the scout, each Indian closely followed by his trusty hunting dog. In less than two hours they stood just back of the low ridge which rounded the south side of Shell Lake. The narrow strip of land between its twin divisions was literally ...
— Indian Child Life • Charles A. Eastman
... and the soldiers' wives followed the troops to the dock. The soldiers marched single file over the gang-plank of the boat, the officers said good-bye, the shrill whistle of the "General McPherson" sounded—and they were off. We leaned back against the coal-sheds, and soldiers' and officers' ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes
... the enemy's guns. The wadi Janus was a deep slit in the ground with sides of clay falling almost sheer to the stony bottom. It was hard to get horses into the wadi and equally troublesome to get them to bank again, and the wadi in most places was so narrow that horses could only move in single file. The Dorsets were brought up in small parties to join the Bucks in the wadi, and they had to run the gauntlet of shell and rifle fire. The Berks were to enter the wadi immediately the Bucks had left it. Behind Mughar village and its gardens the ground falls sharply, ...
— How Jerusalem Was Won - Being the Record of Allenby's Campaign in Palestine • W.T. Massey
... thousand feet the ascent was very steep, and the path so narrow that we could only march in single file. Suddenly we entered upon a piece of ground cleared for cultivation, and as we emerged from the forest we were received by a volley from a position about sixty yards off. A young police orderly, who was acting as our guide, was knocked over by my side, and a second volley wounded one ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... are led out for sale they walk to the marketplace in single file, like storks on the wing, in whole dozens, chained together by the neck, and are there sold by auction. The auctioneer shouts loudly that they are 'the newest arrivals, simple, and not cunning, lately captured from the people of the kingdom (Poland), and not ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... out-of-the-way place and at one end of it was a rude lodge. This was the medicine lodge or headquarters. All the initiates were there. At the further end or entrance were the door-keepers or soldiers, as we called them. The members of each lodge entered in a body, standing in single file and facing the headquarters. Each stretched out his right hand and a prayer was offered by the leader, after which they took the places assigned ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... pockets; the fourth carried a bag of some kind, which apparently was no burden to him, for it swung lightly backwards and forwards on two of his fingers. The men's faces were all muffled in scarves, and their caps pulled down over their eyes. As they walked along the field-path in single file they preserved a profound silence. At last they reached a stile which brought them out close to the end of the bridge which was nearest to the up-line, along which the ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... these return journeys, while skating in single file, we approached the third lock, and the boy in front forgetting that there would be no ice for a few yards below the lock, because the water there was kept in agitation by the stream always falling from the lock, suddenly found himself floundering in an icy cold bath, while ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter
... at the spot where the support line ran down to the nullah and from which C Company was to emerge, while our artillery thundered against the enemy's position. Then the hour came, and C Company, under Chadwick (bravest of the brave), moved in single file into the nullah and onward towards the gap in the front-line barricade and ...
— With Manchesters in the East • Gerald B. Hurst
... with four hundred Sherwood Foresters through Reninghelst, Ouderdom, and Vlamertinghe to Kruisstraat, which we reached in three hours. Hence guides of the 4th Gordons led us by Bridge 16 over the Canal and along the track of the Lille Road. It was a dark night, and as we stumbled along in single file, we could see the Towers of Ypres smouldering with a dull red glow to our left, while the salient front line was lit up by bursting shells and trench mortars. Our route lay past Shrapnel Corner and along the railway line to Zillebeke Station, and was rendered particularly unpleasant by the ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... minute he and Pete shouldered the extra guns and the packs they were to carry in case our trip lasted over more than a couple of days; and we set off in single file steadily up the side of the stream between the walls of rock, and sometimes wading across it to find better ground. Twice over we waded in the middle of the water, where it was sandy, and found it nowhere ...
— Through Forest and Stream - The Quest of the Quetzal • George Manville Fenn
... little log tower at the door, Dodd and I made our way out of the church, and returned to the house to drink tea. I had just finished my last cup and lighted a cigarette, when the door suddenly opened, and half a dozen men, with grave, impassive countenances, marched in in single file, stopped a few paces from the holy pictures in the corner, crossed themselves devoutly in unison, and began to sing a simple but sweet Russian melody, beginning with the words, "Christ is born." Not expecting to hear Christmas carols in a little Siberian ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... the middle of one of the walls there was another of the cunningly-constructed revolving stones which our ancient masons ever used to bar their secret ways, and this three of our men, working as I told them, turned on its hinge, and through the opening that was thus made we passed out in single file to a little rock-walled valley over which the ...
— The Romance of Golden Star ... • George Chetwynd Griffith
... for the handicap, Father Dominic ceased praying and craned forward. There were ten horses in the race, and the old priest's faded eyes popped with wonder and delight as the sleek, beautiful thoroughbreds pranced out of the paddock and passed in single file in front of the grand-stand. The fifth horse in the parade was Panchito—and somebody had cleaned him up, for his satiny skin glowed in the semi-tropical sun. All the other horses in the race had ribbons interlaced in their ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... infer from the cautious silence preserved while they were searching for the lost tracks; and even when these were regained, the discovery was communicated from one to another merely by signs, not a man uttering so much as a word. In a few moments, they were seen again, formed in a single file, stealing through the woods with a noiseless but rapid pace, and, fortunately, bending their steps towards a distant part of the ridge, where Roland and his companions had ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... spying me, she would leave her young and circle round and round me, nearer and nearer till within four or five feet, pretending broken wings and legs, to attract my attention, and get off her young, who would already have taken up their march, with faint wiry peep, single file through the swamp, as she directed. Or I heard the peep of the young when I could not see the ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... half-breed's gun, picked up the beans, and in single file they marched through the wood back to where the Indian sat patiently waiting. On their appearance he looked round, and as his eyes fell on the half-breed's face a momentary flash came into them, and then as it passed he continued to look at the ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... been and will continue to be picking them off in single file. He meets one of them alone, and Harvey makes sure of him by ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... finest and surest testimonies of judgment that I know. I have no other officer to put my writings in rank and file, but only fortune. As things come into my head, I heap them one upon another; sometimes they advance in whole bodies, sometimes in single file. I would that every one should see my natural and ordinary pace, irregular as it is; I suffer myself to jog on at my own rate. Neither are these subjects which a man is not permitted to be ignorant in, or casually and at a venture, ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... one, as they came in single file down the precipice, the old man counted them, much astonished to see that there was no new member of the company—that as many were coming back as had gone away. For the moment his heart was glad, then he reproached himself bitterly for ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... you have got to fight, it would be best to do so on a good road. Our horses would be of no use to us, if we were going single file along a bad road; while on a good road we could charge the spalpeens, ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... in a row &c n.; uninterrupted, unintermitting^; unremitting, unrelenting (perseverence) 604.1; perennial, evergreen; constant. Adv. continuously &c adj.; seriatim; in a line &c n.; in succession, in turn; running, gradually, step by step, gradatim [Lat.], at a stretch; in file, in column, in single file, in Indian file. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... was already on the turn. Mackay and Ruvigny, with the English and Huguenot cavalry, had succeeded in passing the bog at a place where two horsemen could scarcely ride abreast. Saint Ruth at first laughed when he saw the Blues, in single file, struggling through the morass under a fire which every moment laid some gallant hat and feather on the earth. "What do they mean?" he asked; and then he swore that it was pity to see such fine fellows rushing to certain ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... stairs, the light footsteps of barefooted women pattering over the white mats. No doubt the first course of my lunch just about to be served. I quickly fall back, fixed and motionless, upon my black velvet cushion. There are three of them now, three waiting-maids who arrive in single file, with smiles and curtsies. One offers me the spirit-lamp and the tea-pot, another preserved fruits in delightful little plates, the third, absolutely indefinable objects upon gems of little trays. And they grovel before ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... solemn line of panoplied boats, started from the palace. Boats hung with purple fabric. In single file they wended their way through the city streets. From every landing, balcony, window and roof-top, the people stared down at us. The street corners were hung with shaded tubes of light, shining down with spots of ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... chilled bodies. When the Canada herds pushed down upon them the boys gave over trying to keep them north of the river; while they turned one bunch a dozen others were straggling out from shore, the timid following single file behind a leader more venturesome or more ...
— The Lure of the Dim Trails • by (AKA B. M. Sinclair) B. M. Bower
... but at last, spying me, she would leave her young and circle round and round me, nearer and nearer till within four or five feet, pretending broken wings and legs, to attract my attention, and get off her young, who would already have taken up their march, with faint, wiry peep, single file through the swamp, as she directed. Or I heard the peep of the young when I could not see the parent bird. There too the turtle doves sat over the spring, or fluttered from bough to bough of the soft white pines over my head; or the ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... they again moved forward and, descending to the river, followed its banks until they arrived at the spot they had fixed on; then, in single file, they began to climb the hill. John placed himself in the middle of the line, in order to have a central position when the attack began. As soon as they reached the top of the slope, they lay down and, one by one, crawled forward into the darkness; two or ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty
... track as this that they were going in single file one day, for some particular reason that was apparently known only to the professor and Yussuf. They seemed to be deep down in the earth, for the rift along which they travelled was not above twenty feet wide, and on the one side the rock rose up nearly three thousand feet almost perpendicularly, ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... obliged for the most part to walk in single file until the last ridge descended over a mass of rocks to the marshes along Beaver Pond. Then having given her his hand to help her down, he kept hold of it as they went along the free path to the open meadows. The feeling of ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold
... them around the shoulder of a hill. It was tolerably smooth, but they were obliged to go single file, so there was very ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill
... than their own. Till their little feet are educated, the mother must choose the way for them; and a wise fawn will jump squarely in her tracks. That explains also why deer, even after they are full grown, will often walk in single file, a half-dozen of them sometimes following a wise leader, stepping in his tracks and leaving but a single trail. It is partly, perhaps, to fool their old enemy, the wolf, and their new enemy, the man, by hiding the weakling's trail in the stride and hoof mark ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... with mats. We soon became very much fatigued, especially I, for the pain in my leg grew more violent every moment. During that night, which was unusually dark, they led us along with the greatest caution. We walked in single file, and before each of us, as also before the leader of the band, a lantern was carried. Men, too, with lights in their hands, went before, and came after the procession. Near steep cliffs, and deep ravines, ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... single file suddenly appeared out of a draw to the east and headed for the rock where the ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in New Mexico • Frank Gee Patchin
... along in single file, and had proceeded on our journey for about half an hour, when we heard the distant thunder of cannon, and concluded that our vessel must have attacked the fort. I was so tightly bound, especially about the neck, that my face became swollen, and I found that my breath was ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... of Cree Indians in the valley below, and for several days they were a great nuisance in the garrison. One bright morning it was discovered that a long line of them had left their tepees and were coming in this direction. They were riding single file, of course, and were chanting and beating "tom-toms" in a way to make one's blood feel frozen. I was out on one of the little hills at the time, riding Bettie, and happened to be about the first to see them. I started for the post at once at a fast gait and told Faye and ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... ranges of science I am referring to. I know that as well as you. But mark this which I am going to say once for all: If I had not force enough to project a principle full in the face of the half dozen most obvious facts which seem to contradict it, I would think only in single file from this day forward. A rash man, once visiting a certain noted institution at South Boston, ventured to express the sentiment, that man is a rational being. An old woman who was an attendant in the Idiot School contradicted the statement, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... way round to the rear, Mr Holt and I following in single file. There the place seemed in worse case even than in the front. There were two empty rooms on the ground floor at the back,—there was no mistake about their being empty, without the slightest difficulty we could see right into them. One was apparently intended for a kitchen ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... commands to boats seeking to crowd into positions not rightly theirs. When a boat is securely drawn upon the strand, there is no waste of time in getting the cargo started for the government storehouse. Muscular porters, glistening in their perspiring nudeness, go in single file between boat and kottu like ants executing a transportation feat. In a very few minutes the oysters are being counted by nimble-handed coolies. Important gamblers in oysters, men with sharp eyes and speculative instincts, have only ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... the service-room. Shortly after Mr. Wilkins and his family entered; the superintendent read a chapter of the Bible, the inmates sung a hymn, accompanied on the organ by Miss Clara Wilkins; after a short prayer, the inmates marched in single file to the head of the room, where Mr. Wilkins stood, his kind face actually beaming, and with extended hand greeted every individual inmate. After leaving him we marched to the other side of the room, where we also received a cheery 'good morning,' ...
— Grappling with the Monster • T. S. Arthur
... amphitheatre, could an estimate be made by the average onlooker which would approximate with any degree of accuracy the size of the assembly? Or if an observer were stationed at a certain point, and 10,000 persons were to pass him in single file without his counting them as they passed, what sort of an estimate would he make of their number? The truth seems to be that our mental conception of number is much more limited than is commonly thought, and that we unconsciously adopt some new unit as a standard of comparison when we ...
— The Number Concept - Its Origin and Development • Levi Leonard Conant
... Mary should stay behind and the doctor agreed to act as her escort. Then in single file the party proceeded up the drive, Robin in front, then the Dutchman, after him the Chief, and Mr. Manderton in ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine
... guides wait, Joseph and Aloys, and away we tramp in single file along the little path that runs through fields full of wild flowers, drenched with dew, into a fairy-tale wood of tall, straight pine-trees. We follow the steady, slow footsteps of Joseph, the chief guide, up the winding path that turns and ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... Gwalior. A single man takes charge of twenty or thirty, holding the bridle of the first, and walking on before its nose. The bridles of all the rest are tied one after the other to the saddles of those immediately preceding them, and all move along after the leader in single file. Water must tend to attract and to impart to vegetables a good deal of electricity and other vivifying powers that would otherwise he dormant in the earth at a distance. The mere circumstance of moistening the ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... We had ridden in single file through a part where the lotus, now a tree instead of a bush, snatched at us on either side, and the air was fragrant with broom, syringa, and lavender. Behind us the path closed and was hidden; before us it was too thick to see more than a few yards ahead. Here and there some ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... We went in single file up its board incline, and entered a squalid room with matting on the floor, a rude charcoal brazier at one side, and the remains of a previous meal lying on ...
— The Fire People • Ray Cummings
... single file in the narrow trail until they emerged into the open. Then Banneker's horse moved forward, neck and neck with the other. Miss Van Arsdale ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... with certainty, and the others, true to their training, came behind him in single file, and without noise. But as they advanced the sounds of an army ahead of them increased, and when they reached the edge of the covert they saw a great Confederate division on their side of the stream, in full possession of the cottages and occupying all the ground about them. ...
— The Sword of Antietam • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Redoubt, for Companies (except B who were detached for other work) to begin to move up in readiness to our front line trenches. This movement began about 9.0 p.m. very slowly along Reserve Trench and "Hayward's Heath." The difficulty of moving a Battalion at night, in single file, through a maze of unfamiliar trenches without losing touch, may be better imagined than described, and it was after midnight before we had covered the 400 or 500 yards, which was all we had ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... ground sheets flung across their head and shoulders, like hooded monks. At a point where scarlet bundles were being lifted into ambulances, we branched overland. Here and there from all directions, infantry were converging, picking their way in single file to reduce their casualties if a shell burst near them. The landscape, the people, the early morning—everything was stealthy and walked with ...
— The Glory of the Trenches • Coningsby Dawson
... parallel trails. At the pass, most of the travel came upon one track, and that so steep the ascent could be made only by cutting steps in the ice and snow—fifteen hundred steps in all. Frequently every step would be full, while crowds jostled each other at the foot of the ascent to get into the single file, each man carrying a hundred-pound pack ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... There was not a single chair. There was the skeleton of an iron bed which was quite useless as there was no mattress. There were four blankets, and two bundles of straw which very soon crumbled into dust. "One day a week we had an hour in the courtyard, and there we walked round and round in single file, being forbidden to walk two by two. There was a guard with fixed bayonets always with us. The food was absolutely inadequate[21] and we suffered continually from hunger. There was a certain Croibien ...
— Their Crimes • Various
... trail, now slippery as glass, winding around the base of crags, through narrow gorges that almost overarched, leaving a mere skylight of intense blue to mark the way, moved a party of four persons in single file, slowly ascending a steep spiral. In advance, mounted on a black pony, was a cowled monk, whose long, thin profile suggested that of Savonarola; and just behind him rode a Canadian half-breed guide, with the copperish red of aboriginal America ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... native bells. All the capitas and most of the paddlers shout orders to each other which no one regards, even if they hear them, while the friends of the paddlers howl farewells from the beach. At length however, the baggage is arranged and the little fleet starts in single file, for each canoe hugs the bank. Before half an hour had elapsed my canoe struck a rock and stuck on it. Fortunately we were not travelling faster than two miles an hour, or a hole would have been ...
— A Journal of a Tour in the Congo Free State • Marcus Dorman
... we set up our banner on the top of our house, and, with our drum and fire-arms, marched up and down the yard of our house; being but fourteen in number, we could only cast ourselves in rings and esses in single file, and so plied our shot. Hearing our firing, the sabander, and some others of the chief people of the land, came to see us, and enquired the cause of our rejoicing; when we told them that our queen was crowned on that day forty-seven years ago, for which reason ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... that stood there, in single file, as if waiting at the door of the cheaper part of a theatre; men in substantial cloth clothes, and others in ragged blouse and breeches; there were a few women, too, with black shawls on their shoulders and kerchiefs round ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... Chekiang provinces a line of half a dozen white goats were often seen feeding single file along the pathways, held by a cord like a string of beads, sometimes led by a child. Here, too, one of the most common sights was the water buffalo grazing unattended among the fields along the paths ...
— Farmers of Forty Centuries - or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan • F. H. King
... In single file, and with a little space separating them, they started off, the motors soon popping merrily as the boys entered into the spirit ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen
... the hulking devils go past in sheepish single file with furtive glances at me. When they had passed out of ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... was necessary to go single file and Polly noticed how naturally Scott took the lead, leaving her to follow and Hard to bring up the rear. She noted with some amusement that it seemed characteristic of him to take the lead everywhere, just as it seemed ...
— Across the Mesa • Jarvis Hall
... ranged along the wall in order of seniority, and after too long a delay for a country where the chief magistrate has no right to keep people waiting, the old General came in, followed by all the members of his Cabinet, who walked in single file, and so kept behind him. He then advanced toward Mr. Fox, whom Mr. Webster presented to him. Mr. Fox read to him his address. Then the President took out his spectacles and read his reply. Then, after having shaken hands with the English minister, ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... in this order for seven hours. The pace was so slow that I confess it made me impatient, but our path through the forest was too narrow and too steep to do more than walk our horses in single file. The character of the vegetation visibly changed as we ascended. We left the oak and beech, and came upon a forest of pine-trees, and I thought ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... claim-jumpers are about to stake out our land up there who is there left to stop them?" added Anne, suspiciously, when she saw the deep concern on every man's face as he rode single file down the path. ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... that Peterkin walked along the sands between us. We had two ways of walking together about our island. When we travelled through the woods, we always did so in single file, as by this method we advanced with greater facility, the one treading in the other's footsteps. In such cases Jack always took the lead, Peterkin followed, and I brought up the rear. But when we travelled along the sands, which ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... you talk—and that filthy accent." And at that moment he remembered Lizzie Baker. Fletcher and Harding were now speaking to Lady Seveley, and taking advantage of the circumstance he slipped out, and, lighting a cigarette, entered the bar room. Behind the counter the young ladies stood in single file, and through odours of cigarettes and whisky their voices called "One coffee in order," and the cry was passed on till it reached the still-room. Frank remembered having read a description of the place somewhere, he thought ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... only equaled by her surprise on beholding them. But they were not permitted to communicate with each other. Presently the whole party emerged from the wild mountain gorges, through which they had been passing for some time, and proceeded in single file along a narrow path that skirted the precipices of the coast. The cliffs here were nearly a hundred feet high. They descended sheer down into deep water; in some places even overhung ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... guide in advance, bending against the storm and clasping her poor rags about her. In the darkest part of the wood, where the roaring of wind and groaning of branches seemed the louder for the booming of waters, she cautioned the band to keep in single file, but to make haste, for the way was far and the gloom was thickening. Bending their heads against the wind they pressed forward, she in advance. Suddenly, yet stealthily, she sprang aside and crouched beneath a tree that grew at the very brink of the fall. The Indians ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... single file with Ladd in the lead. He did not keep to the trail of the raiders all the time. He made short cuts. The raiders were traveling leisurely, and they evinced a liking for the most level and least cactus-covered stretches of ground. But the cowboy took a bee-line ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... which may have been following them on a journey on the river. They build a small archway of boughs on the bank just before they arrive at their destination. Underneath this arch, they build a fire and, in single file, all pass under, stepping over the fire and spitting into it as they pass; by this act they thoroughly exorcise the evil spirits and emerge on the other side free from all baleful influence. Another instance, is where they are throwing aside the signs of mourning for the dead; ...
— Folk-lore in Borneo - A Sketch • William Henry Furness
... coming at a brisk trot in single file along the "old trading path," as it was called even then, the fleecy white clouds racing above in the dense blue of the sky, their violet shadows fleeting as swift along the slopes of the velvet-soft azure ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... communication trench called "Hertford Street," under the "Marble Arch" to "Oxford Circus!" It is quite dry mud over bricks and very narrow, and goes higher than your head on the enemy side, and has zigzags very often. You can only go single file, and we had to wait in a zigzag to let a lot of men go by—they stream past almost continually. One officer invited us to come and see his dug-out, but it was farther along than we might go without being awfully in the way. We had before this given one stream of ingoing men all the cigarettes, ...
— Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front, 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... there, and they were obliged to ride single file, which was not favorable to conversation. Thus far, Beatrice thought, she was a long way from winning her wager; but she did not worry—she looked up to where the hill towered above them, ...
— Her Prairie Knight • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower
... until on a second signal they fell back, leaving but their chiefs in single combat. These fighting furiously, were Presently parted by the judges of the field, with the announcement that they were of equal valour, and their ladies of equal beauty. Forming in single file, they advanced and saluted, and a finish was put to this ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... convicts' point in single file, came a long line of some thirty canoes, uncouth, shapeless things, each hewed out of a great cypress log. In the end of each an Indian stood erect plying a long pole which sent their clumsy looking crafts forward at surprising speed. Magnificent savages they were, not one ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... little path that ran from the encircling wall towards the houses. These latter were clad in garments of llama cloth and boots and belts of leather, and they wore caps of cloth with back and ear flaps. They followed one another in single file, walking slowly and yawning as they walked, like men who have been up all night. There was something so reassuringly prosperous and respectable in their bearing that after a moment's hesitation Nunez stood forward as conspicuously as possible upon his rock, and gave ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... and presently they entered a thicker grove of trees than any they had before noticed. The trunks were so close together that the birds could only pass between then in single file, but as they proceeded in this fashion it was not long before they came to a circular space which the child-lark knew at once ...
— Policeman Bluejay • L. Frank Baum
... Advancing in single file along the bank of the stream, we soon found that it narrowed down to a mere brook, and finally that it lost itself in a great green morass of sponge-like mosses, into which we sank up to our knees. The place was horribly ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... their way, single file, to the road and up to the house. Lord Ashleigh did his best to dispel a queer little sensation of uneasiness which seemed to have arisen in the minds of all ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... necessary to remove the sheep from one side of the river to the other, the shepherd crosses the plank, sounding his horn, and each individual of the flock passes regularly after him in single file. Even in the highest floods, there has never ...
— Minnie's Pet Lamb • Madeline Leslie
... house with balconies a little farther down. That was where General Tumbalo, the comandante and commander of the military forces, lived. Right across the street was a private residence built like a combination bake-oven and folding-bed. One day, O'Connor and me were passing it, single file, on the flange they called a sidewalk, when out of the window flies a big red rose. O'Connor, who is ahead, picks it up, presses it to his fifth rib, and bows to the ground. By Carrambos! that man certainly ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... boys flipped on the switch of the portable spacephones in their fish-bowl helmets and spoke to each other. Strong indicated that he was satisfied and turned toward the jet-boat catapult deck, the three boys following him in single file. ...
— Stand by for Mars! • Carey Rockwell
... become indifferent as they rolled out from under his fingers. But Jean-Christophe was glad to learn about the relationships between them, their hierarchy, the scales, which were like a King commanding an army, or like a band of negroes marching in single file. He was surprised to see that each soldier, or each negro, could become a monarch in his turn, or the head of a similar band, and that it was possible to summon whole battalions from one end to the other of the keyboard. It amused him to hold the thread which made them march. But it was a ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... also bound by another of the party, and his eldest brother lying dead upon the earth; the other two fled to Virginia, where they had an uncle, as Mary afterward learned, and those who remained were made captives and hurried into the woods. All day they were obliged to march in single file over the rough, cold soil. Night found them in the heart of the wilderness, surrounded by their strange captors, and all the horrors of Indian life or Indian death staring them in the face. They had no hope of mercy, whether ...
— Legends, Traditions, and Laws of the Iroquois, or Six Nations, and History of the Tuscarora Indians • Elias Johnson
... the men made a long circuit to drive toward us as Caldwell had directed. After half an hour had passed we heard them yelling as they closed in, but what was our disgust to see them solemnly parading in single file up the bottom of the valley on an open trail and carefully avoiding all thickets where a serow could possibly be. As Harry expressed it, "all the animals had to do was to sit tight and watch the noble procession ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... so on; and when they seem to be growing up, which is against the rules, Peter thins them out; but at this time there were six of them, counting the twins as two. Let us pretend to lie here among the sugar-cane and watch them as they steal by in single file, each with his ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie
... generally regarded as novel, but which, on a small scale, British cavalry accomplished also in America. The sappers and miners of the left attack broke passages through the intrenchments, through which the cavalry of Sir Joseph Thackwell rode, in single file, forming as they passed through, and then charging within the area of the defences, cut down the Sikh gunners and infantry mercilessly. The 3rd Dragoons, with less assistance from the sappers, and making many "break-neck ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... made a sign with his hand, and spoke a few words in a loud tone. The incessant jabbering which they had kept up from the moment they halted instantly ceased, and one after another a number of young warriors, perhaps twenty, rode out in single file upon the prairie. After gaining a distance of about one hundred yards from the main body they increased the intervals separating them to some fifty paces, and then inclining the course so as to form a sort of half circle, they increased their speed and came on with the evident ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... the sober one said, "Indian go!" He had them all start in single file. In that way they went out of sight. Mother was overjoyed and much relieved when they were gone. They had eaten up all her bread and used up all her milk, but I suppose they thought they had had ...
— The Bark Covered House • William Nowlin
... race, till they all struck the bottom with a deep rumbling sound, shivered like so many bombshells into a thousand pieces, and telling us what would be our fate it we made a single misstep. We followed our Indian in single file, keeping close together, that the stones set free by those in the rear might not dash those below from their feet; feeling our way with the greatest caution, clinging with our hands to snow, sand, rock, tufts of grass, or ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... the stone pier we watch a hundred brown-sailed Cornish fishing-smacks follow each other in single file across the harbor bar and go sailing out into the west as the sun goes down—a most beautiful sight, of which Marty feels all the mystery and the charm and the pathos, and Chips all the jollity and danger ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... the old man leaned forward, straining his dim eyes to discern the distant figures on the far-off hill. In single file, on the warriors came, one preceding another, according to the grade of the honours he had won in the battle. The Herald hastened forth from the village to meet them and to learn their tidings. After a halt he turned and came on in advance ...
— Indian Story and Song - from North America • Alice C. Fletcher
... In single file they jogged ahead, reached the river, and descended to the level surface of ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... form a line and march single file between the light and the "blind man," who is not allowed to turn around. Thus their shadows are thrown on the sheet and as they pass, the "blind man" must guess who they are. The children may disguise their walk and height, so as to ...
— Games for Everybody • May C. Hofmann
... and Wahren, had engaged three additional men for this excursion, so that they now had five guides, none of whom were superfluous, since they carried with them various barometric instruments which required careful handling. They began the ascent in single file, but the slopes soon became so steep and the light snow (in which they floundered to the knees at every step) so deep, that the guides resorted to the usual method in such cases of tying them all together. The ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... they pushed on through the woodlands, walking in single file, Amos Green first, then the seaman, then the lady, and De Catinat bringing up the rear. The young woodsman advanced cautiously, seeing and hearing much that was lost to his companions, stopping continually and examining the signs ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... occasionally be seen in petticoats at home, still I fear that the firm stride of the Laughlan lady could hardly be reproduced in English boots. To see ten or twelve of these ladies walking in the unsociable formation of single file, which they adopt, with their many-coloured kilts flying out on either side, is a very pretty sight.' Evidently, a judicious traveller and observer might do worse than take a ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... the woods, a paseo among the houses, a paseo at the landing-place, looking at us and our vessel, and too lazy to speak fast; while the others were driving—or rather, driven—about, at a rapid trot, in single file, with burdens on their shoulders, and followed up by their task-masters, with long rods in their hands, and broadbrimmed straw hats upon their heads. Upon what precise grounds this great distinction was made, ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... spoken since they left the park grounds. He came second in the single file that they observed, striding silently and obediently at the given twenty paces behind Selim. They kept to the grassy roadside and moved swiftly and with as little noise as possible. By this time, their eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness; they could distinguish one another quite clearly. ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... neighbourhood of Castle Kearney was part of my uncle's property, and was well cultivated; but we very soon got into the primeval forests, where the woodman's axe had been employed only in cutting a path along which baggage animals could proceed in single file. The trees were mostly live-oak or pine, amid which grew magnolias and laurels. The ground was very uneven, though from the river it looked level. We had to cross what is called a hummock, which was in reality a depression, but not low enough to be swampy. Here grew huge cabbage-palms, cotton-trees, ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston
... path had grown so narrow that the four young men could only walk in single file. It rose for about five hundred paces with an easy but winding slope. Coming to an opening, Montbar stopped and gave, three times, the same owl's cry with which he had called Morgan. A single hoot answered him; then a man slid down from the branches of a bushy oak. It was ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... in a line, single file; Fitzhugh, after a lively gallop, led us all. Soon he came alongside the rear buffalo, at which he fired. The animal faltered, and with another shot Fitzhugh brought him to the ground. Crosby dashed ...
— An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill (Colonel W. F. Cody) • Buffalo Bill (William Frederick Cody)
... clearing in the woods where the tall trees had been cut down and a thicket of small underbrush had grown up. The English were obliged to pass this clearing on their way home and the only path across it was a narrow one used by the Indians, who always went through the woods in single file, one behind another, each stepping in the footprints of the man ahead ...
— Once Upon A Time In Connecticut • Caroline Clifford Newton
... stand sentry while the herd is feeding, and protect it both in front and rear. When running off they usually go in single file, as Jan had represented. ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... no moonlight to travel by an' have to camp over tomorrow in some coulee, there's no tellin' who'll run onto us. This south slope's infested some plentiful by the riders of three or four outfits." He headed his horse down the steep descent, the others following in single file. ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... visited by tourists. The party, however, with perhaps more curiosity than prudence, determined to explore and visit this cave. A female guide was procured, and a candle supplied to each person. All being ready, in single file they entered the mouth of the cavern, carefully groping their way, not without difficulty. Miss Anderson soon lost courage, and turned back, stating that she and Mr Cunningham would return to the inn at Elie, and prepare ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... in hand by the poor woman whose privilege it was to show the ruins. For a little distance they walked up the path in single file; not that it was too narrow to accommodate two, but M. Lacordaire's courage had not yet been screwed to a point which admitted of his offering his arm to the widow. For in France, it must be remembered, that this means more than it does in ...
— The Chateau of Prince Polignac • Anthony Trollope
... the farmyard. It was as the rooster had said. The six geese were waddling around a corner of the barn in single file. Somehow the sight of them made him so furious that he forgot he had been picking ...
— The Tale of Turkey Proudfoot - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... pit, was directed into the thick willows bordering the banks; that when six score or more had clambered out they obeyed a whispered command, for which Veronica had prepared them, and noiselessly, in shadowy single file, they followed the bed of the stream, even where the water flowed deep and dangerous, until they came to the gentle slopes of Church Hill. Then, under guidance of Barney, those who were wise followed swiftly down ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... deliberate movement that insures an easy and a safe way. Follow her trail through the woods, and you have the best, if not the shortest, course. How she beats down the brush and briers and wears away even the roots of the trees! A herd of cows left to themselves fall naturally into single file, and a hundred or more hoofs are not long in smoothing and compacting almost ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... the camp; the little company of sixteen could not be divided. They set off in single file, Tom leading the way, not because he had any hope of treading in his former course, but because he alone had traversed the forest, and ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... shore of the fjord, the people looked to us like the cairns out on the moorlands, only these tiny cairns moved in single file about the hay-fields. I seemed to smell the sweet hay in the homefields, but of course this was only my imagination. I also fancied I could hear the maids laughing, especially one of them. I would willingly have sacrificed a good deal to be over there helping her dry the hay. But of this ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... and a dim light fell from high skylight windows, giving the shop something of the suggestion of a well. Counters blocked it, making entrance a matter of single file, and, in the deep gloom at the back, two candles burned before a huge, ferocious-looking figure depicted on rice-paper and stuck against the wall. It was hard to believe that it was day outside, so heavy was the darkness, and it was a few moments before ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... in single file until they came to the ford. They reined up sharply. One of them dismounted and dragged the body of Fadeaway to the bank. They grouped around gazing at ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... began to crawl through the passage, which was as dark and dank as the pit, and the officers followed her in single file. They crawled, and they crawled, and they kept on crawling, for the passage was not big enough to allow them to stand upright. It turned this way and twisted that, sometimes like a corkscrew and sometimes zigzag, but seldom ran for ...
— Tik-Tok of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... in the last part of August our fears for the dreaded event were realized. A British officer with a number of soldiers came on board. The prisoners were all ordered on deck, placed on the larboard gangway, and marched in single file round to the quarter-deck, where the officers stood to inspect them, and select such ones as suited their fancies without any reference to the rights of the prisoners. * * * We continued to march round in solemn ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge |
