|
|
|
More "Trigger" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hired a guide and went hunting, eighty miles beyond the last outpost of civilization. Somehow, he got his hand on a gun, though only guides were supposed to touch them, managed to overcome its safety devices, and then pulled the trigger with the gun pointed ...
— Badge of Infamy • Lester del Rey
... with your dad at last. I'm a poor hand to talk and a poorer to write, for my finger is crooked to hold a trigger, not a pen. But he gave me it to do. Don't take it too hard that a man with only plain words is blunt. ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... silence of death seemed to reign within: yet each one of the little garrison was at his post, looking out through a loophole, and covering one or another of the foe with his revolver, while with his finger upon the trigger, he only awaited the word of command to send the bullet ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... daring, had alone nerved Carthew to enter the forecastle; and here was the enemy crying and pleading like a frightened child. His obsequious "Here, sir," his horrid fluency of obtestation, made the murder tenfold more revolting. Twice Carthew raised the pistol, once he pressed the trigger (or thought he did) with all his might, but no explosion followed; and with that the lees of his courage ran quite out, and he turned and ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... they were at the range for which he had set his sights. He cuddled the butt of the rifle against his cheek. As the man who carried the Crown walked under the blade of the front sight, he squeezed the trigger. ...
— The Keeper • Henry Beam Piper
... verify these simple observations; and then, turning the gun over, was aware of a trace of earth on the trigger-guard and another on the point of the butt. These were easily accounted for. The weapon, no doubt, had slid for some distance down the cliff—probably from the very top—before lodging in the bushes ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... bite or a kick ready in any emergency. Day by day the hate in him deepened until it became the master-passion. A quick foot-fall behind him was enough to send his heels flying as though they had been released by a hair-trigger. He kicked first and investigated afterward. The mere sight of a man within reaching distance ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford
... sun for full half of the year, Made each glacier a blizzard blown trap, They strung out volcanoes half way to Japan Each one with a hair trigger cap. They planned for the coast line a system of storms Each equipped with a ninety mile breath And then spread o'er it all the fog that men call The North ...
— Rhymes of a Roughneck • Pat O'Cotter
... of shooting with the right hand or the left; it's a question of holding one of your hands as though you were going to pull the trigger of a pistol with your arm bent. As for the pistol itself, when all is said, you can put that in your pocket!" And he added, "Let this be clearly understood, or I will answer for nothing. It is a matter of life and death. And now, ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
... much bravery to pull a trigger behind a bush," muttered Decoud to himself. "Fortunately, the night is dark, or there would be but little chance of saving the ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... will go, and you know how that acts to and fro in a straight groove. A pheasant or hare at full speed, a few trees—firs as most characteristic—could be put on the plate, and something else on the trigger guard; firs are easily drawn, and make most appearance for a few touches; pheasants roost in them. Even a coat of arms, if it were the genuine coat-of-arms of the owner's family, would look well. Men ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... wondrous combination of sense and judgment in what quarter lay the danger, would, without once looking round, measure straight a hundred yards of hillocks and rocks between the sight-taking and the pulling of the trigger. Another time it would be no shot, but the bark of a dog, the cry of a moorfowl, or a signal from watching hind that started him; for the creatures understand each the other's cries, and when an animal sees one of any sort on the watch to warn covey ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... and see," grinned Davy. "I'm loaded with information, like a gun is, to the muzzle; and all you have to do is to pull the trigger." ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... trying, now right, now left, to force his way through the congestion at the door, like a harried rabbit at a wattled fence. A touch on the shoulder simultaneously with the click of a trigger at his ear brought his face round over his shoulder. He made the instinctive pioneer motion to his hip, looked into the bore of the Colonel's pistol, and under Keith's grip dropped his ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... rough customers about the bush, and there have been one or two shootings on the Big Sugar. Orlando Morse saw a man on horseback one night just after he had crossed the ford, waiting for him by the side of the road under the trees. But Orlando is an old frontier-man, so he is pretty quick with his trigger. He fired twice at the man, after challenging; whereupon the scoundrel vanished rapidly, and Orlando ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... tongue, Bob Acres. It's my belief ye're no better than a coward," said Captain Costigan, quoting Sir Lucius O'Trigger, which character he had performed with credit, both off and on the stage, and after some more parley between the couple they separated in ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Stacy threw his gun to his shoulder and pulled the trigger. At least he thought he did. But no ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Grand Canyon - The Mystery of Bright Angel Gulch • Frank Gee Patchin
... months of thrashing to and fro in the wintry North Atlantic a torpedo sped across her bows and she knew her chance had come. Instantly her alarm signals, quietly given, brought all hands to action stations, some in deck-houses, others in hen-coops, but each with his finger on the trigger or his hand on a ready spare shell. Presently the submarine broke surface and fired a shot across the Q ship's bow. On this the well-trained crew ran about in panic, while the captain screeched at them and waved his arms about like mad. Then the submarine ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... would be questioned, of course, but as soon as they learned who he was and that he had nothing to do with you, they would let him go. But if he were with us, say here, when we were pounced upon, and you had no time to pull the trigger of the pistol pointing into that keg of powder in the cupboard, he would be hurried away with us to one of the fortresses, and the chances are that not a soul would ever know what had become of him. Still ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... barrel of his rifle with mittened hand, which had, however, a trigger-finger free. With black eyebrows twitching over sunken gray eyes, he looked doggedly down the frosty valley from the ledge of high rock where he sat. The face was rough and weather-beaten, with the ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... to see what they would do; for they would sit down and say their prayers, sitting on an old saddle, or their knapsacks, maybe, and then take off their boots and their stockings, and lean their chin on the barrel of their musket. Then they would put their toe on the trigger, and pouf! it was all over, and there was no more marching for those fine old Grenadiers. Oh, it was very rough work up there on these ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the terrific temper that had lived within the composed demeanor of Joe Ellison. The fires of that temper could not yet be all burned out. If she told the truth, told that Jimmie Carlisle was still alive, that might be just touching the trigger of a devastating tragedy—might be disaster for all. What would be the use when no one would have ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... felt the barrel of a rifle under him. He rolled on his side, and clawed for it, almost sightless, with one hand, and laughed harshly as he raised himself a trifle. There was a flash and a concussion, the trigger-guard sank into his nerveless finger, and a smashing amidst the undergrowth was followed by footsteps that were presently lost in ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... was accustomed to standing still when I fired from his back, also he was so surprised that he did not know which way to shy. The other savage was almost on me; his outstretched shield reached the muzzle of my gun as I pulled the trigger of the left barrel. It exploded, the warrior sprung high into the air, and fell against my horse dead, his spear passing just in front of ...
— Allan's Wife • H. Rider Haggard
... establish friendly relations with them. But as he was leaving, one of them threw a spear. Flinders snatched up his gun and aimed at the offender, but the flint being wet missed fire. A second snap of the trigger also failed, but on a third trial the gun went off, though nobody was hurt. Flinders thought that it might obviate future mischief if he gave the blacks an idea of his power, so he fired at a man who was hiding ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... appearance, for he stuck his forefeet into the ground, threw himself back on his haunches and growled savagely. As I covered his brain with my rifle, I felt that at last I had him absolutely at my mercy, but .... never trust an untried weapon! I pulled the trigger, and to my horror heard the dull snap that tells of ...
— The Man-eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures • J. H. Patterson
... trigger," said Sam indistinctly, his face convulsed as in sympathy with the great muscular efforts of other parts of his ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... I get—generally less," he answered grimly; and he moved the gun about on his knees restlessly, fingering the lock and the trigger softly. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... himself under this window, which he realized must be almost over Shorty's head. It was but the work of an instant to grasp Pat's gun and stick its nose well through the little half moon of an opening in the shutter, pointed straight over Shorty's head into the woods, and pull the trigger. ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... fired his revolver at them. The shot went wild. He pressed the trigger again but with no result. Then, realizing that his weapon was empty, he hurled it at Bob, ...
— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman
... be written on the reasons why such names as Sir John Brute, Sir Tunbelly Clumsy, Sir Peter Teazle, Sir Anthony Absolute, Sir Lucius O'Trigger, Lord Foppington, Lord Rake, Colonel Bully, Lovewell, Heartfree, Gripe, Shark and the rest were regarded as a matter of course in "the comedy of manners," but have become offensive to-day, except in deliberate imitations of the eighteenth-century style. ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... uttered, in a tone of eagerness and anger, within so small a distance of my pillow. What construction could I put upon them? My heart began to palpitate with dread of some unknown danger. Presently, another voice, but equally near me, was heard whispering in answer, "Why not? I will draw a trigger in this business; but perdition be my lot if I do more!" To this the first voice returned, in a tone which rage had heightened in a small degree above a whisper, "Coward! stand aside, and see me do it. I will grasp her throat; I will ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... pre-existing energy which it finds at its disposal. Now, it finds only one way of succeeding in this, namely, to secure such an accumulation of potential energy from matter, that it can get, at any moment, the amount of work it needs for its action, simply by pulling a trigger. The effort itself possesses only that power of releasing. But the work of releasing, although always the same and always smaller than any given quantity, will be the more effective the heavier the weight it makes fall and ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson
... and instantly a most surprising event came to pass. That jerk at the rope must have set a hair-trigger going, for there followed a sudden rattling noise, the loop was instantly tightened around his ankle, and in a trice Johnny was hanging head down, as helpless as ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas
... Something had moved in No Man's Land. "Look out!" I said. "They're coming!" just as from behind a bit of rising ground a figure rose on to its hands and knees. I pointed my revolver at it, and pulled the trigger. The figure collapsed, and rolled forwards till its progress was arrested by a rocky projection, over which it finally lay, doubled up like a bolster. As it fell my heart gave a sickening leap, either of excitement or ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... intention of the mind, or the relation of holy things, which make a part of murder or sacrilege, have no necessary connexion with the outward and visible action of him that commits either: and the pulling the trigger of the gun with which the murder is committed, and is all the action that perhaps is visible, has no natural connexion with those other ideas that make up the complex one named murder. They have their union and ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books III. and IV. (of 4) • John Locke
... the trigger of his automatic again and again as he rushed forward. By some strange trick of fate the figure reeled for a second and one of its arms dropped swinging to its side. The bullet had entered a joint. Had it in some way deranged ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... foreleg, and exposes to view a small spot, denuded of hair, just behind the point of his shoulder; upon this the hunter brings the sight of his rifle to bear; lightly and delicately his finger presses upon the hair-trigger. Quick as thought the spiteful crack of the rifle responds to his slight touch, and instantly in the middle of the bare spot appears a small red dot. The buffalo shivers; death has overtaken him, he cannot tell from whence; still he does not fall, but walks heavily forward, as if nothing ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... the old familiar woods and dreamed of the happy long ago, until a gang of blackbirds, spluttering in a neighboring treetop woke me. And when I rose from the log and threw myself into the shape of an interrogation point, and touched the trigger, at the crack of my rifle old bullfrogg shot into the pond; the hoot-owl "scooted" into his castle in the trunk of an old hollow tree; the blackbirds cut the "asymptote of a hyperbolical curve" in the air; the squirrel fell to the ground at my feet, with ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... a caution to be extry-careful, would shut his eyes, pull the trigger of his blunderbuss, and wake all the echoes of the creek in an uproar which, as Susannah never failed to remark, was fit to frighten every war-ship down in Hamoaze. The trees, grey with lichen, sprawl as they have fallen under the weight of past crops. They go on ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the molecular ray pistol, while Wade helped Arcot into the suit. He looked at the pistol dubiously, pointed it at a heavy casting of iron resting in one corner of the room, and turned the ray at low concentration, then pressed the trigger-button. The casting gave out a low, scrunching grind, and slid toward him with a lurch. Instantly he shut off the power. "This isn't any ordinary pistol. It's got seven or eight times the ordinary power!" ...
— Invaders from the Infinite • John Wood Campbell
... like a shot. He must have had a steady hand at a trigger who could have got a shot off half ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... post of Mataafas, were challenged by an old man with a gun, and mentioned in answer what they were. "Ifea Siamani? Which is the German?" cried the old gentleman, dancing, and with his finger on the trigger; and the commissioners stood somewhile in a very anxious posture, till they were released by the opportune arrival of a chief. It was November the 27th when Leary and Moors completed their absurd excursion; in about three weeks an event was to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... being about a yard above the earth. Upon these he lashed one of their rifles. Then he cut a two-foot section of a very small sapling, one end of which he inserted carefully between the ground that the trigger of the rifle. The other end was supported upon a small fork somewhat higher than those supporting the rifle. Then he procured another slender but long section of sapling that reached from the end of the short piece in the crotch some distance beyond the muzzle of the rifle. The end ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... had been put in place, Blake to work one and Joe the other, while the automatic, which was operated by clockwork, once the trigger-string was broken, also setting off the continuous flashlight, was set between the two boys, to command a good view of the dam, and of whoever should ...
— The Moving Picture Boys at Panama - Stirring Adventures Along the Great Canal • Victor Appleton
... returned her brother, laughing. "I've taken the trigger screw out of Purt's gun and he couldn't shoot it if he had forty cartridges in it. But I haven't told Purt, for the dear boy seems to place implicit confidence in the old gat as a defense against anything on two or four legs ...
— The Girls of Central High in Camp - The Old Professor's Secret • Gertrude W. Morrison
... despair, and desired several different Indians to shoot him; and an Indian boy saw him kill himself in the following manner; he put the muzzle of his gun under his chin, and with his great toe pushed the trigger."[1] ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... right for a short distance, because all that had been fixed previously, it being his intention to have small animals snap off their own pictures at about the same focussing point, by pulling at a baited trigger that was attached to the flashlight cartridge by ...
— Phil Bradley's Mountain Boys - The Birch Bark Lodge • Silas K. Boone
... worse, just in the heart of the brattle, the grating sound of the yett turning on its rusty hinges was but too plainly heard. What was to be done? I thought of our both running away; and then of our locking ourselves in, and firing through the door; but who was to pull the trigger? ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... was able to decide approximately the whereabouts of his prey by the momentary shaking of a twig. He raised his rifle and covered that twig steadily; his forefinger played tentatively on the trigger; but on second thoughts he refrained. He was keenly conscious of the fact that the beast was doing its work with skill superior to his own. In comparison to his, its movements were almost noiseless. Jack Meredith was too clever a man to be conceited in the wrong place, which is the habit ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... on th' trigger, ole feller,' cried one. 'He kin hit a turkey's eye at two hundred paces, he kin,' said another. 'He'll burn yer in'ards, shore,' shouted a third. 'Ye'll speak fur warm lodgin's, ef ye bid on thet gal, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... them in one quick sentence and get it over with. He couldn't, any more than he could force himself to squeeze the trigger of a pistol he knew would ...
— Graveyard of Dreams • Henry Beam Piper
... turned. Dick levelled his pistol instantly at Austin, with murderous hate in his eyes, and drew the trigger. The pistol clicked harmlessly. Austin, self-conscious, did not raise his pistol. But Dick, broadening his chest, glared at ...
— Viviette • William J. Locke
... out of its big brown eyes, it stalked along on its delicate feet with an easy grace. The gentle, wild, fleet animal now reached a point just opposite the hidden Hunter's gun, and so close to him that he could hardly fail to hit it. He was just about to pull the trigger when the deer took fright, faced about in a different direction, and made a leap straight for the tree behind which the Hunter was standing. His gun cracked, and the animal, unwounded, made off with a series of mighty leaps into the forest. But from amid the corn he ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... myself in front of the looking-glass. With my left hand I would hold the handkerchief above my head, and with the other clutch the pistol at my side, and then, at the word, and as the handkerchief fluttered to the floor, I would take careful aim and pull the trigger. Sometimes I died and made speeches before I expired, and sometimes I killed my adversary and stood smiling ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... minutes of intense excitement followed, during which time every man sat with his finger on the trigger, listening to the regular beat of the prahu's long oars as she came sweeping down at a rapid rate, evidently bent upon making her escape, like her consort, out ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... it, Billy. It's to save you torture, old fellow, just to save you useless suffering, Billy." He drew his pistol from his belt, took careful aim just behind the pony's ear, and, turning his head away, pulled the trigger. ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... warfare. But he had kept his seat, and now at last,—so he thought,—the ease and comfort of an unopposed return was to repay him for everything. Alas! how all this was changed; how his spirits sank within him, when he received that high-toned letter from his confidential agent, Mr. Trigger, in which he was invited to suggest the name of a colleague! "I'm sure you'll be rejoiced to hear, for the sake of the old borough," said Mr. Trigger, "that we feel confident of carrying the two ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... the men to fire, but that he (Shortland) might do as he pleased. I then saw Captain Shortland seize hold of a musket, in the hands of a soldier, which was immediately fired—but I am not able to say whether he or the soldier pulled the trigger. At this time I was endeavouring to get through the gate to the prison-yard—in so doing several stabs were made at me with bayonets, which I evaded. Immediately after the firing became general, and I retreated, with the ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... Dozier widen and then contract again. "You're not exactly what I expected to find," he said. "But go on. If I don't take the bargain you pull that trigger?" ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... the expectancy with which we peeped over the whitened weeds and through the bushes, to catch a glimpse of the gums in some "parf" or at some clearly marked "gap"; our disappointment when we found the door standing open and the trigger set just as we had left it the mormng before; our keen delight when the door was down; the dash for the trap; the scuffle to decide which should look in first; the peep at the brown ball screwed up back at the far end; the delicate operation, of getting the hare out of the trap; and the triumphant ...
— The Long Hillside - A Christmas Hare-Hunt In Old Virginia - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page
... went to his own bungalow and began cleaning a rifle. He told the servant that he was going to shoot buck in the morning. Naturally he fumbled with the trigger, and shot himself through the head— accidentally. The apothecary sent in a report to my chief, and Jevins is buried somewhere out there. I'd have wired to you, Spurstow, if you ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... forgers, socket and ring stampers, grinders, polishers, machiners, hardeners, and filers; band forgers, stampers, machiners, filers, and pin makers; sight stampers, machiners, jointers, and filers; trigger boxes, oddwork makers, &c. The "setters up" include machines, jiggers (lump filers and break-off fitters), stockers, percussioners, screwers, strippers, barrel borers and riflers, sighters and sight-adjusters, smoothers, finishers makers-off, polishers, ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... pressed the trigger of his rifle. The flame leaped forth. The artillery-man turned round twice, his arms extended in front of him, his head uplifted, as though for breath, then he fell with his side on the gun, and lay there motionless. They could see his back, from the centre of which there flowed directly a stream ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... gale, and the stream became utterly impassable. Early in the morning Kenton, who was separated from his companions, observed three Indians and a white man, well mounted, rapidly approaching. Raising his rifle, he took steady aim at the breast of the foremost Indian, and pulled the trigger. The powder flashed in the pan. Kenton took to his heels, but was soon overtaken and captured. The Indians seemed greatly exasperated at the loss of their horses. One seized him by the hair and shook his head 'till his teeth rattled.' The others scourged ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... Mrs. Chatterton, with firmest of fingers on the trigger and her flashing eyes fastened upon the seamed, dirty face ...
— Five Little Peppers Midway • Margaret Sidney
... It is remarkable that, when little more than a youth, he had once tried to destroy himself. In a fit, apparently of constitutional melancholy, he had put a pistol to his head, but it did not go off. He pulled the trigger more than once; always with the same result. Anxious to see whether there was any defect in the weapon or the loading, he aimed at the door of the room, and the pistol went off, the bullet going through ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... the spruce boughs, were ptarmigan. Hunger bit him into instant action, though the action was infinitely slow. Five minutes passed before he was able to get his rifle to his shoulder, and a second five minutes passed ere he dared, lying on his back and aiming straight upward, to pull the trigger. It was a clean miss. No bird fell, but no bird flew. They ruffled and rustled stupidly and drowsily. His shoulder pained him. A second shot was spoiled by the involuntary wince he made as he pulled trigger. Somewhere, in the last three days, though he had no recollection how, he must ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... piece exploded. Whether it was that his finger had pressed the trigger too soon, or that the aim, owing to the pace, was unsteady, we know not, but Larry missed; the ball hit the ground just in front of the bear, and drove such a quantity of earth into his facs, eyes, and mouth, that he shook his head with a spluttering cough which ended in ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains - Wandering Will in the Land of the Redskin • R.M. Ballantyne
... dagger-like weapon, as though aiming it. At the same instant Chick pulled the trigger ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... across the summit Casavel would sometimes lie amid the rocks, and cover him with that same gun for a hundred yards or so, slowly following his movements with the steady barrel so that the mail-carrier's life hung, as it were, on the touch of a trigger for minutes together. Pedro Casavel seemed to shift his hiding place, as if he were seeking to perfect certain details of light and range and elevation. Perhaps it was only a grim enjoyment which ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... joints and muscles relaxed, the boy, Owen Daw, lying bloodthirstily along the limb of the old tulip-tree, aimed his musket, according to Van Dorn's instructions, at the forms contending there, and greedily pulled the trigger. ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... an hour's walking, Dick and Joe plunged into a forest of gum-trees, their eyes alert on all sides, and their fingers on the trigger. There was no foreseeing what they might encounter. Without being a rifleman, Joe could handle fire-arms with ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... his pistol would allow. That much, however, he would do, and like him whose resources are reduced, and yet who desires to spend the little that he has to best advantage, he levelled the weapon boldly at the advancing Marquis, and pulled the trigger. But Bellecour was an old campaigner, and by an old campaigner's trick he saved himself at the last moment. At sight of that levelled barrel he pulled his horse suddenly on to its haunches, and received the ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... life would be spared, thinking that Romaine must have had enough of blood after slaying his wife in that barbarous manner. But I was doomed to be terribly disappointed. Scarcely had Anderson muttered the words, "I am ready to die," when Romaine pulled the trigger of the upraised pistol, and the young merchant fell dead upon the floor, the bullet having ...
— My Life: or the Adventures of Geo. Thompson - Being the Auto-Biography of an Author. Written by Himself. • George Thompson
... in patrolling the marshes. Goodness only knows what for, for they hadn't any weapon with them except walking-sticks. Perhaps 'twas as well, though, for they might have let rip in their excitement. When a man's nerves are all upset it's not safe for him to have his finger on the trigger of ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... for highwaymanship as I was for farming with my Georgics. "Stand and deliver," quoth I to myself, "or I'll double your weight with swan-shot." Were the unknown horseman a resolute man armed with a hair-trigger, I was as good ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... are trying to get more information on him now, and they're going to do a little deep probing, if they can get him set up right; maybe they'll be able to trigger off another flash on that ...
— Fifty Per Cent Prophet • Gordon Randall Garrett
... the doctor clutched his revolver, with his finger on the trigger. In spite of his pledged word, he did not hesitate. If the adversary touched the end of the bed, the shot would be fired ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... in breathless suspense. The thud of their horses' hoofs alone told me their nearness. My finger was on the trigger. I awaited the word. "Fire!" she said at last, in a calm, unflinching voice. ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... his gun a trifle further, so that it bore on the tops of the cabbage palms beyond. Then his finger pressed the trigger, and with the sudden report he ...
— The Outdoor Chums on the Gulf • Captain Quincy Allen
... rate, Dr. Bush had given Dr. Francis to understand that he was ready to settle the affair according to the approved method of the day; but Dr. Francis was a man of peace, and had no relish for the code. Possibly, with the reputed activity of Sir Lucius O'Trigger, Dr. Bush had already selected his seconds, as I have seldom seen a man more unnerved than Dr. Francis by what proved after all to be only a trifling episode. Soon after my trying interview, however, explanations followed, and the two physicians amicably ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... a cucumber, and quick as lightning! Before we could suspect or prevent the action, he whipped a pistol out of his breast-pocket, and presented it at his own head. I seized his arm while his finger was on the trigger; but was too late to save him. He fired! I only changed the direction of the ball, which, instead of blowing off his head, buried itself somewhere in his body. He fell, a crowd gathered, we picked him up, took a leaf of the gate off ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... mahogany- complexioned executioners scurried like rats at the first cry. Most of them carried their arms with them, but Luc perceived a musket lying in a corner of the drill square. This he seized and levelled at Stephens, pulling the trigger, after careful aim. The rusty weapon missed fire, and the intrepid half-breed began hastily to chip the flint with the back of his sheath-knife; but while he was engaged in this laudable preparation, Annette ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... 'That if,' cried Honour O'Grady, 'is not, like most of the family of the ifs, a peace-maker. My Lady Delacour, I was going to observe that my principal has met with an unfortunate accident, in the shape of a whitlow on the fore-finger of her right hand, which incapacitates her from drawing a trigger; but I am at your service, ladies, either of you, that can't put up with a disappointment with good humour.' I never, during the whole course of my existence, was more disposed to bear a disappointment with ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... had not in the least slackened its pace. In fact, his eyes and ears seemed to have suddenly become at "outs," for they did not endorse each other as they usually did. His eyes told him that his carbine was fired rapidly, for they showed him the flashes that followed the pulling of the trigger; but his ears took no note of the fact, for he could not hear the faintest report. The reason for this was, that the herd, having been split in two by the first volley, was moving by on each side of them with a roar and a rush that would have drowned ...
— George at the Fort - Life Among the Soldiers • Harry Castlemon
... find such language for his disapproval as Johnson? "Sir, he was a scoundrel and a coward: a scoundrel, for charging a blunderbuss against religion and morality: a coward, because he had not resolution to fire it off himself, but left half-a-crown to a beggarly Scotchman to draw the trigger after his death." It is at once as devastating as a volcano and as neat as a formal garden. So, in a smaller way, is his criticism of a smaller man. Dr. Adams, talking of Newton, Bishop of Bristol, ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... wrinkled skin, who gnawed a head still covered with the singed hair. Thrusting a pointed stick into the eye-sockets, he contrived to extract a portion of the brain, afterward placing the skull in the hottest part of the fire, and thus separating the bones to obtain a wider aperture. The click of a trigger close to his ear recalled M. Garnier to his senses, and arresting the arm of his sergeant, who, excited to indignation, had brought his musket to his shoulder, he hurried from a scene calculated, beyond ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... friend was a LAW man, so he said, No, don't shoot; there is some law left, and we have EVIDENCE now. Let's go and indict them. Then if the sheriff won't arrest them, we can find plenty of chances to pull the trigger on them. I go in for law first, and LYNCHING afterwards.' Well, it was a hard thing to lose such a chance when we were boiling over, but I put my gun on my shoulder, and my friend let the bars of the pen down, ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... word being given, Dickinson fired quickly, and with perfect aim; a puff of dust flew up from the breast of Jackson's coat. But he kept his feet, drew his left arm across his breast, slowly raised his pistol, and pulled the trigger. The hammer stopped at the half-cock. He cocked it again, aimed deliberately, fired, and killed his man. His own life he owed to the thinness of his body, for Dickinson had hit the spot where he thought his adversary's heart was beating. Jackson had purposely allowed the other to fire first, ...
— Andrew Jackson • William Garrott Brown
... but the same idea struck us all, that he had been killed, and that the Prussians were blowing the trumpet to draw us into an ambush. We therefore returned to the cottage, keeping a careful lookout with our fingers on the trigger, and hiding under the branches; but his wife, in spite of our entreaties, rushed on, leaping like a tigress. She thought that she had to avenge her husband, and had fixed the bayonet to her rifle, and ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... his expected dinner; so, throwing me over his back with one jerk, off he trotted. I did not, however, lose my presence of mind; but recollecting that I had a brace of pistols in my belt, I drew one and pulled the trigger. To my horror, it missed fire! I had still another. I managed to get hold of it, well knowing that if that missed my fate was sealed. Pointing the muzzle at the brute's head, I fired. The tiger gave a leap, and opening its mouth, let me drop, ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston
... said Soeur Laurent, referring to Madame Guix. "Wonderful—afraid of nothing. Once at the beginning of the invasion she was put against the wall and a brute of a German aimed and pulled the trigger of a gun he had found in a corner. She had accidentally covered it with a wounded man's great coat! He accused her of hiding arms! Then in the thick of the battle, she went out into the German lines ...
— My Home In The Field of Honor • Frances Wilson Huard
... that mean? It was a mystery to us, but the same idea struck us all, that he had been killed, and that the Prussians were blowing the trumpet to draw us into an ambush. We therefore returned to the cottage, keeping a careful lookout, with our fingers on the trigger and hiding under the branches. But his wife, in spite of our entreaties, rushed on, leaping like a tigress. She thought that she had to avenge her husband, and had fixed the bayonet to her rifle. We lost ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... Waiting for them to come within range of the rifle requires great patience, for the approach is always more or less slow, and frequently just as they are at the right distance and the finger is on the trigger, off the whole band will streak, looking like horizontal bars of brown and white! I am always so glad when they do this, for it seems so wicked to kill such graceful creatures. It is very seldom that I watch the approach, but when I do happen to see them come up, the temptation ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... the Revolutionary war. But while they were inspecting the rusty old thing, whether it was worth carrying away, she took from a closet a bran span new double-barrel fowling-piece, and, putting her finger on the trigger, she said, "Now, sir, if you do not lay down that musket and leave the house, I will shoot you." If this gentleman had suddenly roused up a female tiger, he would not have been more terror-stricken than when he found himself facing this woman, blazing with scorn and irrepressible resentment, ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... Mackinaw and shoe-packs. Saw a bear loping along. He had—Morton had—a .44-.40 Marlin, but only one shell. Thrust the muzzle of his rifle right into the bear's mouth. Scared for a minute. Almost fell off his snow-shoes. Hardest thing he ever did, to pull that trigger. Fired. Bear sort of jumped at him, then rolled over, clawing. ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... chamber; it is summer, and your windows are open; you are chatting with your wife, and sipping a cup of tea; outside, the assassins are supplied with a short ladder; one ascends to a level with the window, sights you at his ease, presses the trigger, ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... my orders and I will leave you here unhurt: disobey, and your life is not worth the snap of a finger. Move back now until you face the door, and don't forget my pistol is within an inch of your ear, and this is a hair trigger. What ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... you handle the trigger; you know the lock is an easy one—I am going to have it altered." And he went forward to set the target firmer in the ground, as ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... made them afraid that they would not have any left for emergencies and gave them a wholesome respect for our shooting so that they were very shy of exposing themselves. We would also set a rifle to fire exactly into a loophole so that when it opened we had only to pull the trigger to send a bullet through the brain of the man using it. There were other dodges that it is not wise to speak of ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... he shouted, at the same time putting his gun to his shoulder and pulling the trigger. The hammer fell with a sharp "click" just as the door was snatched to with a bang. The cap had failed to explode, or the chicken-eating days of the individual in the hen-house would have ...
— Two Little Confederates • Thomas Nelson Page
... brought a score of animals to a stand. They turned their heads, staring intently, making up their minds, their nostrils wide. Kingozi, who had already picked his beast and partially assured his aim, almost immediately squeezed the trigger. ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... his father's warlike qualities, and was, it seems, always ready with his sword. He was at the Eaux Bonnes when he received an affront from a stranger, which—as Sir Lucius O'Trigger has it,—"his honour could not brook." Unluckily, he had not his sword with him, and the affair must be decided at once; he therefore sent his servant to Accous to fetch it, recommending him great promptitude ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... up again quick enough, and began swearing at the top of his voice, when a lot of ducks rose from the lake and came dead on towards him. Without waiting to see if his gun was all right, although it was covered with mud, he pulled the trigger of his right barrel, and it burst; one of the fragments gave him a nasty jagged wound on the chin and the Samoan buck got a lot of small splinters in his face. After the idiot had pulled himself together he examined his gun and found that the left barrel was plugged up with ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... behind and forced him to the 500-meter level. I was very close to him and quite surprised that he had stopped his twisting; but just as I was about to give him the finishing shots, my machine gun stopped. I had pressed down too hard on the trigger mechanism, in the heat of the battle, and this had jammed. The second Frenchman now attacked me, and I escaped while I could. The second fight took place over our lines. The first Frenchman, as I ...
— An Aviator's Field Book - Being the field reports of Oswald Boelcke, from August 1, - 1914 to October 28, 1916 • Oswald Boelcke
... looked after William Craft. I inspected his weapons; "his powder had a good kernel, and he kept it dry; his pistols were of excellent proof; the barrels true, and clean, the trigger went easy, the caps would not hang fire at the snap. I tested his poignard; the blade had a good temper, stiff enough and yet springy withal; the point was sharp."[213] After the immediate danger was over and Knight and Hughes had avoided the city, where they had ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... of the steel the monster curved itself round till its tail touched its head, and then, with a mighty effort, went off like a spring released by a trigger; there was a tremendous splash, deluging everyone with water, and the fish leaped a couple of yards off the hook, to ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn
... down behind a barrel of carpet-rags near which he had been standing. It was well that John did not longer remain where he had been; for the revolver contained a solitary load, and the frequent pulling of the trigger discharged this. The bullet passed the very spot where John had a moment before been standing, and lodged itself deep in the side of ...
— How John Became a Man • Isabel C. Byrum
... the barrel of the shotgun upon them. After all was complete, he stepped back against the door and squinted, gauging the elevation. It was to his satisfaction. With supple wrist and quick movements he uncoiled the small cotton rope he had brought with him and took two turns around the trigger of the shotgun. The rest of the rope he passed around a rod in the foot of the bed, which gave a direct back pull on the trigger, and thence he carried it over the upper hinge of the door, which opened inward, and finally down to the knob and back again to the ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... which were wasting away. Their disintegration is identical with our own. They have their decay, their ruptures, their tumors, their madnesses. A piece of furniture gnawed by worms, a gun with a broken trigger, a warped drawer, or the soul of a violin suddenly out of tune, such are the ills ...
— Romance of the Rabbit • Francis Jammes
... look at him, so I just turned for a moment, when, by Jove, there was my lord, lugging a pistol out of his right holster. He shouted again to me to stop. I turned, ducked my head, and the next moment he pulled trigger, and ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... he pressed the trigger. It was a long shot, and the first bullet threw up a cloud of dust fifty feet short of the Airedales. He fired again, and missed. The third time his rifle cracked there answered it a sharp yelp of pain which Laagdon himself did not hear. ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood
... floor. She tried to lift her up, but Germinie was shaken by such violent convulsions that the old woman was obliged to let the frantic body fall again upon the floor; for all the limbs, which were for a moment contracted and rigid, lashed out to right and left, at random, with the sharp report of the trigger of a rifle, and threw down whatever they came in contact with. At mademoiselle's shrieks on the landing, a maid ran to a doctor's office near by but did not find him; four other women employed in the house assisted mademoiselle to lift Germinie up and carry her to the bed in her ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... again confusion, every one hurrying to the front, and dreading above all things to be left in the rear. The Europeans were the only efficient men left, the Hindostanees having suffered so severely from the frost in their hands and feet, that few could hold a musket, much less pull a trigger. The enemy had occupied the rocks above the gorge, and thence poured a destructive fire upon the column as it slowly advanced. Fresh numbers fell at every volley. The sepoys, unable to use their arms, cast them away, and, with the followers, fled ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... reason than it is in a piece of machinery, in which, though one wheel gives motion to another, yet all the wheels seem to move simultaneously; or in that mechanical contrivance which is adapted to firearms, where, the trigger being touched, down comes the flint, strikes against the steel, elicits a spark, which falling among the powder, ignites it, when the flame extends, enters the barrel, causes the explosion, propels the ball, and the mark is attained—all of which incidents, by reason of the celerity with which ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... were completely overpowered, and compelled by the Manyuema to lay down their guns and powder-horns, on pain of being instantly despatched by bow-shot: they were mostly slaves, who could only draw the trigger and make a noise. Katomba had to rouse out all the Arabs who could shoot, and when they came they killed many, and gained the lost day; the Manyuema did not kill anyone who laid down his gun and powder-horn. This is the beginning of an ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... sport in the land!" said Duane, "and we are just tormenting you. Of course I'll go with you, but I'm blessed if I pull trigger ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... operandi was to take a Martini-Henri rifle and saw off four inches before and behind the magazine, and then to so file the trigger guard that the trigger was left exposed. Two of the most intelligent burghers were despatched over night with this mutilated rifle and a packet of dynamite to the spot chosen for the mine, while two other burghers ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... him coming again to visit our sheep; so I raised my gun to fire. At that instant I received a blow on the side of my head, which would have brought me to the ground had its strength not been broken by a bough. My hand was on the trigger, and I fired my gun. A man stood before me, and closing, attempted to wrench the weapon out of my hand. I had too firm a hold of it, however, for I was a stronger man than he. He was active though, and tried all sorts of ways to get the better of me. Finding that he could not succeed, he uttered ...
— Peter Biddulph - The Story of an Australian Settler • W.H.G. Kingston
... of impatience. He fingered the trigger of his weapon, and then slowly raised it on a ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... such as we read of in Pope. Who would not have expected them to be insipid likenesses of each other? No such thing. Harpagon is not more unlike to Jourdain, Joseph Surface is not more unlike to Sir Lucius O'Trigger, than every one of Miss Austen's young divines to all his reverend brethren. And almost all this is done by touches so delicate, that they elude analysis, that they defy the powers of description, and that ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... Duca glanced at Patsy. She was holding the revolver rigidly extended, and her blue eyes blazed with the excitement of the moment. It was a wonder she did not pull the trigger inadvertently, and the thought that she might do so ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... thickening towards the butt, at which was a square chamber firmly welded to a socket for receiving the pole, formed the gun itself. Within the chamber aforesaid a nipple protruded from the base of the tube, and in line with it. The trigger was simply a flat bit of steel, like a piece of clock spring, which was held down by the hooked end of a steel rod long enough to stick out beyond the muzzle of the gun three or four inches, and ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... from the leader of the Boxers, about fifty rifles were fired point-blank at the wall. Fred raised his rifle, pressed the trigger, and the Boxer leader threw up his arms and fell on his face. Fred's shot was taken by the other defenders as the signal to fire, and ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... owing to local obstacles; and before the movement had developed, while the troops were still in mass and {p.166} changing their places, a tremendous fire at two hundred yards opened from the line of trenches—every rifle apparently emptying its magazine as rapidly as the finger could handle the trigger. Coming wholly unexpectedly in the dark, at the critical moment of a change of formation, great confusion ensued, and contradictory orders were given, among which the most disastrous possible, "Retire," is said to have been uttered, causing a certain number to turn and ...
— Story of the War in South Africa - 1899-1900 • Alfred T. Mahan
... shot sent one of the creatures spinning to the ground. Two more were almost upon me before I could level the weapon and pull the trigger again. I ...
— The Infra-Medians • Sewell Peaslee Wright
... and efficient device for unlocking any door fitted with a spring lock is shown in the accompanying sketches. A fairly stiff spring, A, is connected by a flexible wire cord to the knob B. The cord is also fastened to a lever, C, which is pivoted at D and is released by a magnetic trigger, E, made from the armature and magnet ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... ready, Bill?" called Bridger from his station, his rifle cocked and the delicate triggers set, so perfect in their mechanism that the lightest touch against the trigger ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... happened out of sight and hearing in a place where we have never been, has not and never can have, except briefly as in a dream or fantasy, all the dimensions of reality. But it can arouse all, and sometimes even more emotion than the reality. For the trigger can be pulled by more ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... fine gentleman of the period, but underneath the elaborate carelessness of demeanor was a cool precision of action. The hand that so nonchalantly brushed away the grains of powder from his white ruffles, was steady enough at the trigger; the eye that turned from the red death without to cast languishing glances at his mistress where she stood directing the women, was quick to note the minutest change in savage tactics. He jested as he fought—once he drew a tremulous wail of ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... force, was in every respect satisfactory. As a sequel her Majesty was also present during fine weather, in an exceptionally wet summer, at the first meeting of the National Rifle Association at Wimbledon, when the first shot was fired by the Queen, the rifle being so arranged that a touch to the trigger caused the bullseye to be hit, when the ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... like a steeplechaser, for I seen 'Curly' grab at the drawer, and I have aversions to witnessing gun plays from the front end. The tenderfoot riz up in his chair, and snatchin' a stack of reds in his off mit, dashed 'em into 'Curly's' face just as he pulled trigger. It spoiled his aim, and the boy was on to him like a mountain lion, follerin' over the table, along the line ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... springs up there when he'd ought to be workin'. Then he'd come in an' brag, tellin' how he'd never missed a shot. The boys, jus' to tease Johnny, had gone to the cabin that very day an' drawed his shot out, jus' leavin' the powder alone so Johnny would think he'd missed when he pulled the trigger an' no birdies dropped. ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... so near that, instead of pulling the trigger quick, I stopped to see if I could catch the message. There it was, right before me, glimmering all around in those eyes of his. And then it was too late. I got scared. I was trembly all over, and my stomach generated a nervous palpitation ...
— Lost Face • Jack London
... worthy class of people referred to somewhat ironically as "the reading public," Boswell is read, but Johnson never. And so sternly true is the fact that many critics, set on a hair-trigger, aver that were it not for Boswell no one would now know that a writer by the name of Johnson ever lived. Yet the fact is, Boswell ruined the literary reputation of Johnson by intimating that Johnson wrote Johnsonese; but that ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... those who had followed Jack and Spouter were armed, so the fight rested entirely upon the shoulders of that pair. Circling around so as to avoid the others, Jack pulled the trigger and fired. The wildcat began flipping and flopping on the snow, badly wounded. Then Spouter discharged his firearm once more, and after this the creature lay quiet where ...
— The Rover Boys on a Hunt - or The Mysterious House in the Woods • Arthur M. Winfield (Edward Stratemeyer)
... sailor, who four days previous, had stood erect—a pillar of life—with an arm like a royal-mast and a thigh like a windlass. But the slightest conceivable finger-touch of a bit of crooked trigger had eventuated in stretching him out, more helpless than an hour-old babe, with a blasted thigh, utterly drained of its brawn. And who was it that now stood over him like a superior being, and, as if clothed himself with the attributes of immortality, indifferently discoursed ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... struck the bough the nest was resting on; we fired again, and the bullet passed through the nest without touching the bird. I then asked the king to allow me to try his Whitworth, to which a little bit of stick, as a charm to secure a correct aim, had been tied below the trigger-guard. This time I broke the bird's leg, and knocked him half out of the nest; so, running up to the king, I pointed to the charm, saying, That has done it—hoping to laugh him out of the folly; but he took ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... loomed up before him now as almost hopelessly long. If he only had a rifle, instead of his shotgun! But it was the last hope, and whispering a prayer to God to send the bullet straight, with nerves as tense as steel, he pulled the trigger. ...
— Bobby of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... to hear the fatal shot fired, but still Sinne refrained from pulling the trigger. Feeling sure that if we rushed forward to Ben's assistance it would be the signal for his death, we stood stock-still, not daring to move. In equally fixed attitudes stood the Arabs, evidently taking delight in our horror and anxiety. I dared not even ...
— Saved from the Sea - The Loss of the Viper, and her Crew's Saharan Adventures • W.H.G. Kingston
... been denied the sweetness, the glory, the fire, the life of woman's lips. It was a moment in which she met his primitive fury of possession with a woman's primitive fury of profanation. She pressed the gun against his side and pulled the trigger. ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... the divan, and very eagerly she drew it out, feeling it in the darkness, curling her finger about the trigger. Never in her life had she fired a shot, for her most formidable weapon had been the bows and arrows of the Children's Archery Contest of the English Club, but she felt in herself now that highstrung tensity which at all cost ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... pieces, and a man leaped through and landed on the floor. Before he got his feet, I had clapped a pistol to his back, and might have shot him, too; only at the touch of him (and him alive) my whole flesh misgave me, and I could no more pull the trigger than ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... matter will the sooner be settled. Look to that, now; he is stripping for battle, for in comes all his light canvas, and up goes his mainsail. The man who commands that ship is a right valiant cavalier, and will put up a good fight; therefore, let no man put match to culverin or finger to trigger until I give the word. Now, let the waits play up 'The brave ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... pleasing since he had the reputation of being as bloody and ruthless a pirate as ever took a ship or cut an innocent throat. He only had one hand, and used to fire his piece with great skill, laying the barrel on his stump, and drawing the trigger with his ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... this thought in her mind, Ruth steadied the rifle as best she could and pulled the trigger. The sharp explosion and the shriek of the panther seemed simultaneous. Through the little drift of smoke she saw the creature spring; but it did not spring far. One hind leg hung useless—there was a patch of crimson on the beaten snow—the ...
— Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp • Alice Emerson
... darted to the bosom of her dress. Before Alan could stop her—almost before he realized what she was doing—she had drawn out a little pistol, cocked it, and pulled the trigger. But her hurry at the last moment spoiled her aim. Alan felt a sting in the left arm, and knew that she had so far succeeded in her intentions; but with his right hand he was able to snatch the pistol from her, and to fling ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... open window. Finger on trigger, Banneker held up his flashlight in his left hand and irradiated the spot. He saw the hand, groping, and on one of its fingers something which returned a more brilliant gleam than the electric ray. In his crass amazement, the agent ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... the rifle pulled the trigger, intending to shoot the old detective, but his weapon ...
— The Bradys Beyond Their Depth - The Great Swamp Mystery • Anonymous
... through and landed on the floor. Before he got his feet, I had clapped a pistol to his back, and might have shot him, too; only at the touch of him (and him alive) my whole flesh misgave me, and I could no more pull the trigger than I could ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... at the same time putting his gun to his shoulder and pulling the trigger. The hammer fell with a sharp "click" just as the door was snatched to with a bang. The cap had failed to explode, or the chicken-eating days of the individual in the hen-house would have ...
— Two Little Confederates • Thomas Nelson Page
... aim the forefinger at the object to a hair's-breadth of exactness. I only make my point follow my forefinger. The important thing, then, is to grasp the hilt very firmly, and yet leave the wrist limber. I shoot in the same way with a revolver, and pull the trigger with my middle finger. I scarcely ever miss. You might amuse yourself by trying these things while you are waiting for Gouache. They will make the ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... Doc Taylor presumed to fly in the face of Providence, after that warning, Mr. Hennage felt that the responsibility must very properly rest on the doctor, for the gambler would have killed him as surely as he had the strength to work his trigger finger. ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... that quarter of a minute Nathaniel knew that he had not guessed rightly. Strang was not afraid. He would not tell him where Marion was. The insuperable courage of this man maddened Captain Plum and unconsciously his finger fell upon the trigger of his pistol. He almost shrieked the words that ...
— The Courage of Captain Plum • James Oliver Curwood
... you going to do?' says Joe, 'call the police? Because if so, my dear, I'll take my chance of that revolver being loaded and of your pulling the trigger in time. It will be a more ...
— The Observations of Henry • Jerome K. Jerome
... Il Duca glanced at Patsy. She was holding the revolver rigidly extended, and her blue eyes blazed with the excitement of the moment. It was a wonder she did not pull the trigger inadvertently, and the thought that she might do so caused the brigand ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... herd seemed to flatten itself and settle to its work. They did not run—they simply flew across the ground, their legs showing only as a blur. The one I killed was four hundred yards away, and I held four feet ahead when I pulled the trigger. They could not have been traveling less than fifty-five or sixty miles an hour, for they were running in a semicircle about the car while we were moving at forty miles ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... lumps of steel come out of the furnace and with the few strokes of the drop-hammer, fall a few seconds later, the shaped part of a rifle. Some of the machines were making receivers for the stock, the largest piece of metal, and other small parts like the trigger or the hammer, while still others were preparing the barrels of ...
— The Boy With the U.S. Census • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... apparently wanted only to keep what seemed to them a safe distance between us, and would stop to watch us curiously within easy rifle shot. Yet I am glad I can record that not a shot was fired at them. Gilbert was wild, for he had in him the hunter's instinct in fullest measure. The trigger of Job's rifle clicked longingly, but they never forgot that starvation broods over Labrador, and that the animal they longed to shoot might some time save the life of one in just such extremity as that reached by Mr. Hubbard and his party two ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)
... coat-pocket a cocked revolver and laid it on the table. So that was the kind of persuasion that it had been necessary to apply to secure Mr. Grenelli's attendance. One is apt to yield the point when he feels a pistol-barrel prodding him in the ribs, and it is no great trick to set a trigger-catch with the weapon in ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... Major proceeded to explain that he had loaded both pistols himself with precisely similar charges, and that they were identical in trigger, sight, drift, and weight, and had been tested on a number of occasions, when they had proved to be "excellent weapons and remarkably accurate in their fire." The young men bowed silently; but when he turned suddenly and called "George Washington," that individual ...
— "George Washington's" Last Duel - 1891 • Thomas Nelson Page
... the step again. His finger was trembling on the trigger, when down the path leisurely walked an old gentleman attired in black, a hammer in his hand, and a pair of gleaming spectacles poised placidly upon the bridge of an intellectual Roman nose. And this queer game halted in ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... drawer of the desk and took out of it a pistol; rose, went to the door, tried it once more, and again was satisfied of his seclusion. Then he took the weapon in both hands, the handle against his fingers, one thumb against the trigger, and, shaking with nausea, lifted it to the level of his eyes. His will betrayed him; he could not contract his thumb upon the trigger, and, with a convulsive shiver, he dropped the revolver ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... man of honor of those days would in our time be considered a ruffian certainly, and probably a blackleg or a swindler. "It was a favorite boast of his (the first Lord Norbury) that he began life with fifty pounds, and a pair of hair-trigger pistols." "They served his purpose well.... The luck of the hair-triggers triumphed, and Toler not only became Chief Justice, but the founder of two peerages, and the testator of an enormous fortune. After his promotion, the code of honor became, as it were, engrafted ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... careless attitude, was afraid; and he dodged down behind a barrel of carpet-rags near which he had been standing. It was well that John did not longer remain where he had been; for the revolver contained a solitary load, and the frequent pulling of the trigger discharged this. The bullet passed the very spot where John had a moment before been standing, and lodged itself deep in ...
— How John Became a Man • Isabel C. Byrum
... that it would be best that Owen had the jack upon his hat, he insisted on turning it over to him, contenting himself from that moment with falling in behind, carrying the shot gun in the hollow of his left arm, and with finger upon a trigger. ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... was not more than two minutes in length, but it seemed a good hour to Buffle, whose acquaintanceship the delicacy of the trigger of his beloved pistol caused his past life to pass in retrospect before him several times before they reached the light. The light proved to be in the saloon whose locality had provoked the quarrel. The saloon was full, the door was open, and there was a buzz of astonishment, which culminated ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... teaching her to shoot her rifle and she was proving a very apt pupil indeed, hitting the paper three times out of five the first round. Not so Hinpoha, who was also being taught. She took aim with her left eye and pulled the trigger with her right hand and the result was that she could not even hit the tree on which the paper was fastened. She screwed her face up into a frightful grimace and turned her head away when she fired, as if she expected the explosion to blow her head off. But Ned gallantly assured her that she would ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey
... dangerous pallor has overspread his face. He now goes slowly to a small cupboard, takes out an old army revolver and loads it. MRS. JOHN does not observe this.] You! Listen! I'll tell you somethin'—somethin' you forgot, maybe. There ain't no reason on God's earth why I shouldn't pull this here trigger! You scoundrel! You ain't fit to be among human bein's! I told you ... las' fall it was ... that I'd shoot you down if I ever laid eyes on you in my home again! Now go ... or I'll ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... special night, I had forgotten his warnings. Neglecting everything a man should do to his gun when he is finished with it for the day, I had left two cartridges in it, left the trigger on the hair-brink of eternity, and other enormities for which Charlie presently, and quite rightly, abashed me with profanity; in short, my big toe tripped over the beast as it stood carelessly against the wall of my cabin, and, as it ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... of it, the rifle went up to his shoulder. For a moment the foresight wavered across the indistinct form, and then his numbed hands grew steady, and, trusting that nothing would check the frost-clogged action, he pressed the trigger. He felt the jar of the butt, a little smoke blew in his eyes, and he could make out nothing on the crest of the ridge. It seemed impossible, however, that he had missed, and the next moment he heard a heavy floundering in the snow among the rocks above. He went up the slope at a savage run, ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... visible in the action itself; the intention of the mind, or the relation of holy things, which make a part of murder or sacrilege, have no necessary connexion with the outward and visible action of him that commits either: and the pulling the trigger of the gun with which the murder is committed, and is all the action that perhaps is visible, has no natural connexion with those other ideas that make up the complex one named murder. They have their ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books III. and IV. (of 4) • John Locke
... unreasonable one either, for that matter. I've spoke to him about it. He said: 'I dunno how it is. I don't see how a feller can shoot crooked. It jest seems that when I get out a gun there's a line drawn from the barrel to the thing I'm shootin' at. All I have to do is to pull the trigger—almost with my eyes closed!' Now, Kate, do you begin to see what these here things ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... fine weather, in an exceptionally wet summer, at the first meeting of the National Rifle Association at Wimbledon, when the first shot was fired by the Queen, the rifle being so arranged that a touch to the trigger caused the bullseye to be hit, when the ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... his revolver in his pocket. His finger was on the trigger. But if Dillon needed him to run an errand, then there obviously were no others of his own ...
— The Invaders • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... howls only a short distance in his rear. He hurried on, but before he could get across the lake, he saw several dark forms dash out on the ice behind him. He broke into a run, but the pack rapidly overtook him. Raising his gun to fire, he was thunderstruck to find that in some way he had jammed the trigger and that ...
— Bob Hunt in Canada • George W. Orton
... of warm stillness, watching the light tracery of shadow and sun on that smooth sward, only now and then roused by the fleet rush of a deer through the wood, or the brisk chatter of a plume-tailed squirrel, till one hears a distant, sharp, clucking chuckle, and in an instant more pulls the trigger, and upsets a grand old cock, every bronzed feather glittering in the sunshine, and now splashed with scarlet blood, the delicate underwing ground into down as he rolls and flutters; for the first shot rarely ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... passed in breathless suspense. The thud of their horses' hoofs alone told me their nearness. My finger was on the trigger. I awaited the word. "Fire!" she said at last, in a calm, unflinching voice. "He is well ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... begun to grow very anxious lest the others should take alarm, the bull likewise appeared on the edge of the glade, and stood with outstretched head, scratching his throat against a young tree, which shook violently. I aimed low, behind his shoulder, and pulled trigger. At the crack of the rifle all the bison, without the momentary halt of terror-struck surprise so common among game, turned and raced off at headlong speed. The fringe of young pines beyond and below the glade cracked and swayed as if a whirlwind ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... hair-seals off the south end. Shane's revolver finally disappeared entirely. One day, however, after he had stood long by Ellen's bed, he went out to the shed. Jean coming upon him there had found him thoughtfully twirling the weapon on his finger—his trigger finger as he had often called it. Although he announced that there were no more cartridges for it the girl later came upon five ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... correspondence transfixed by a jack-knife into the very centre of his wooden mantelpiece, then I begin to give myself virtuous airs. I have always held, too, that pistol practice should be distinctly an open-air pastime; and when Holmes, in one of his queer humors, would sit in an arm-chair with his hair-trigger and a hundred Boxer cartridges, and proceed to adorn the opposite wall with a patriotic V. R. done in bullet-pocks, I felt strongly that neither the atmosphere nor the appearance of our room was ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... less than five seconds. I only had to veer my gun two inches. My hand was on the trigger, and with a perfect "bead" on his left shoulder—right where the old guide had said the night before was the ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith
... you ain't got the grit to shoot sour apples," was Billy's answer. "I know your kind—brave as lions when it comes to pullin' miserable, broken-spirited bindle stiffs, but as leery as a yellow dog when you face a man. Pull that trigger! Why, you pusillanimous piece of dirt, you'd run with your tail between your legs ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... felon hand, between the goal and him, Reached from behind his back, a trigger prest,— And those perplexed and patient eyes were dim, Those gaunt, long-laboring limbs were ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various
... bridge to the summit of the hill. He was tramping once more through lanes, between fields, and stood again upon a hillock of Peckham Rye, and saw the morning break in beauty and in wonder over London. The vision gained from the foolish and romantic days of his boyhood, steadied his finger upon the trigger after all these years. ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... about to pull the trigger, but he does not. His eyes are drawn away from ASHER, toward the doorway, lower right, where DR. JONATHAN is seen standing, gazing at him. Gradually his arm drops to his side, and DR. JONATHAN goes up to him and takes the pistol from his hand. PRAG breaks ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... in a crisp white turban, with a strained face more gray than brown, suddenly advanced holding before her in both hands a heavy revolver of an outworn pattern. Elim Meikeljohn could see by her drawn features that she was about to pull the trigger, and he said fretfully: ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... up the rifle, to sight hastily, blindly, between those two, great greenish eyes. Choking out a strangled sob of desperation, Nelson made his trembling finger close over the cold strip of steel that must be the trigger. ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... camera down to demonstrate. "Now just stand behind me," he concluded, "and pull the trigger when I ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... been put in place, Blake to work one and Joe the other, while the automatic, which was operated by clockwork, once the trigger-string was broken, also setting off the continuous flashlight, was set between the two boys, to command a good view of the dam, and of whoever should ...
— The Moving Picture Boys at Panama - Stirring Adventures Along the Great Canal • Victor Appleton
... the ground, threw himself back on his haunches and growled savagely. As I covered his brain with my rifle, I felt that at last I had him absolutely at my mercy, but .... never trust an untried weapon! I pulled the trigger, and to my horror heard the dull snap ...
— The Man-eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures • J. H. Patterson
... the sun for full half of the year, Made each glacier a blizzard blown trap, They strung out volcanoes half way to Japan Each one with a hair trigger cap. They planned for the coast line a system of storms Each equipped with a ninety mile breath And then spread o'er it all the fog that men call The North ...
— Rhymes of a Roughneck • Pat O'Cotter
... memory as long as I live. He seemed the very spirit of the mountains, a thing born of peaks and crags, vibrant with the breath of the clouds. Selecting a spot which he must touch in the next flying leap, I waited until his body darkened the sights and then pulled the trigger. ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... figures one way or the other would take away from the effect; when Lord Curzon turned on the landing in the middle of the steps to say farewell, I had to look down at my pesky little camera to pull the trigger! So my mind is left blank just where I know there should be a telling arrangement, just such a moment as that painted in "The Spears," the Breda picture, where the principal actors and the others are caught in the ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... at hand; his rifle balanced on his shoulder. While in this plight, a troop of Buffalo came trotting by in great alarm. In an instant, Tom sprang from his horse and gave chase on foot. Finding they were leaving him behind, he levelled his rifle and pulled [the] trigger. His shot produced no other effect than to increase the speed of the buffalo, and to frighten his own horse, who took to his heels, and scampered off with all the ammunition. Tom scampered after him, hallooing ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... leaden slugs, and the legs and broken parts of iron pots. An officer of the W.A.F.F.'s, in a fight in the bush in South Nigeria, had one of these things fired at him from a distance of fifteen feet. He told me all that saved him was that when the native pulled the trigger the recoil of the gun "kicked" the muzzle two feet in the air and the native ten feet into the bush. I bought a Tower rifle at the trade price, a pound, and brought it home. But although my friends have offered to back either end of the gun as being the more destructive, we have found no one with ...
— The Congo and Coasts of Africa • Richard Harding Davis
... puffs that rise from the ground of the Deathlands under even the lightest treading became smaller and smaller around our steps and finally vanished altogether, and we were standing still. Only then did I notice the obvious physical trigger for our stopping. An old freeway ran at right angles across our path. The shoulder by which we'd approached it was sharply eroded, so that the pavement, which even had a shallow cave eroded under it, was a good three feet above the level of ...
— The Night of the Long Knives • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... stood opposite them with his arm outstretched and his finger on the trigger, aiming at the enemy. When Sauverand addressed Florence by her Christian name, he started from head to foot and his finger trembled. What miracle kept him from shooting? By what supreme effort of will did he stifle the jealous hatred ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... that!" yelled Rawbon, levelling and shooting with a rapid movement. But Wayne's quiet eye had been riveted upon him all the while, and he had thrown up the ruffian's arm as he pulled the trigger. ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... "I can't pull the trigger," said Sam indistinctly, his face convulsed as in sympathy with the great muscular efforts of other parts of his ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... only had the sense to pull the trigger last night when I had you at my mercy," Yeager ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... in his hat, which he said were original, but which I have since found were Milton's; likewise a little bottle labelled laudanum; also a pistol and a sword-stick. He drew the latter, uncorked the former, and clicked the trigger of the pocket fire-arm. He had come, he said, to conquer or to die. He did not die. He wrested from me an avowal of my love, and let off the pistol out of a back window previous to partaking of a ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... crossbow on the low arm of a tree, and as the rider came abreast of him touched the trigger, and the steel-pointed quarrel flew true and strong against the temple of the passing horseman. He fell from his horse like a stone and the well-trained animal at once stood still by the side of ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... from their grasp, and a figure that rose partly upright reeled into the fern, while Alton felt the barrel of a rifle under him. He rolled on his side, and clawed for it, almost sightless, with one hand, and laughed harshly as he raised himself a trifle. There was a flash and a concussion, the trigger-guard sank into his nerveless finger, and a smashing amidst the undergrowth was followed by footsteps that were presently lost in the ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... sentiments that are werry original. My adwice to you is, to shut both eyes until the word is given to fire, and then to open them suddenly, as if just awaking from sleep; after which you may present and pull the trigger. Above all, Toast, take care not to kill any of our own friends, most especially not Captain Truck, ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... with the spectacle, and laughs to himself as he sees how remarkably deadly are all Sir Lionel's shots. A man falls every time he pulls trigger; if he rushes at a fellow, so great is the fear his awful presence inspires that the wretched Arab sinks down and actually ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne
... the avenues under the old trees where his aunt used to take him walking in old days; he saw himself a little child, happy and wondering; he remembered the castles he used to build with strips of plane-tree bark... The trigger was pulled. Jean beat the air with his arms and fell forward face to the ground. The men finished him with their bayonets; then the woman danced on the ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France
... coat. But the hand paused before it reached its desire; for there upon the side of a low cot sat a beetle-browed fellow, shabby and down at the heel. He had a lean jaw, blue with an unshaven beard, and in his hand, dangling carelessly by the trigger ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre
... the noble authour and his editor. 'Sir, he was a scoundrel, and a coward: a scoundrel, for charging a blunderbuss against religion and morality; a coward, because he had not resolution to fire it off himself, but left half a crown to a beggarly Scotchman, to draw the trigger ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... "if you knew where there was a gun, would that make you want to put it up agin your head and pull the trigger?" ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... teeth, ready to cut the line should a tangle occur, but keeping his hands free to attend to the coils of rope. To Colin the seconds were as years while the old whaler held the gun raised and did not fire. It seemed to the boy as if he were never going to pull the trigger, but the old gunner knew the exact moment, and just as the whale was about to 'sound' the back heaved up slightly, revealing the absence of a dorsal fin, and thus determining that it was a devil-whale in truth; ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... a start, as he made a spasmodic motion toward the pocket of his coat. But if his intention had been to draw a weapon, Tom was too quick for him. The Marquis found himself staring into the barrel of a pistol and heard the unpleasant click of the trigger as ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold
... said. I was sorry for him; it was the other I hated. He hauled in his oar with a loud sigh, and as he was raising his hand to wipe his forehead with the air of a man who has done his work, I pulled the trigger of my revolver and shot him like this off the knee, right ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... a scream, and a female figure sprang out from the shadows and rushed before Jack just as Thornton pulled the trigger. ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... channel was cut. The channel was not very deep, only enough to receive a tenpenny nail with the head projecting half-way above the sides. A notch was cut across the barrel, through this channel, at the trigger end, and a trigger made of heavy iron wire, bent to the shape shown in Fig. 51, was hinged to the gun by a bolt which passed clear through the stock and through both eyes of the trigger. By using two nuts on the ...
— The Scientific American Boy - The Camp at Willow Clump Island • A. Russell Bond
... cried Rectus, and I was amazed to see how she had fired so rapidly. But as soon as I had counted seven, I stepped up to her and took her pistol. She explained to me how it worked. It was one of those pistols in which the same pull of the trigger jerks up the hammer and lets it down,—the most unsafe things ...
— A Jolly Fellowship • Frank R. Stockton
... of the muzzle so close to his skull, and the finger resolutely pressing the trigger, were too much, and the savage made a tremendous leap, like a tiger springing from his hiding-place, went far out into the sea, and, quickly coming to the surface, blew the water from his mouth, and began ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis
... of SS., between MR. J. GOUGH NICHOLS and ARMIGER, is, as Sir Lucius O'Trigger would say, "a mighty pretty quarrel as it stands;" but I have seen no mention by either writer of "the red sindon" for the chamber of Queen Philippa, "beaten throughout with the letter S in gold leaf:" or the throne of Henry ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 54, November 9, 1850 • Various
... his kinsman, a gallant young chamois hunter who had taught him to handle a trigger and load a muzzle, made the very name of Bavaria ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee
... victim alights on this it is held securely until captured by the hunter. Fig. 51 shows another method of securing such small game. A cord with a noose at one end is attached to a bent limb. In the center of this cord is tied a short stick which acts as a trigger. This trigger is placed with the top end pressing against an arched twig a, while the other end draws b against the sides of the arch. Other sticks rest on b and on them is a covering of leaves on which is placed ...
— The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao - The R. F. Cummings Philippine Expedition • Fay-Cooper Cole
... so quick upon the trigger, Priscilla. I would my snaphance went to the aim as lightly and as surely ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... me so about once a week ever since I was big enough to pull a trigger," Jean retorted, with something approaching her natural tone. "Maybe I won't come back, Lite. Maybe I'll camp ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... Thing was stooping again. It was horrible. I started to load my rifle. When I looked again, the monster was tugging at the stone—moving it to one side. I leant the rifle on the coping, and pulled the trigger. The brute collapsed, on its ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... taken aim, and was about to pull trigger, when the canoe commenced rocking about, as if tossed upon a ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... and pulled the trigger of his revolver. There was a slight click. He looked down the muzzle of the weapon and, with a little sigh, thrust it back ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... held his fire, watching for a favourable opportunity. Suddenly it came: a dog more venturesome than the rest sprang at the lion, and was caught by him. Planting both his front paws on the body of the unhappy cur, the lion stood for a moment glaring at his foes, and in that moment Grosvenor pulled trigger, the bullet striking the great beast full in his massive chest. For perhaps a quarter of a minute the lion stood absolutely motionless, his eyes blazing defiance; then he suddenly collapsed, and, with a half-whine, half-roar, slowly rolled over on his side, his great head sank to earth, ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... enemy's outline But this was enough for a shot to do its work. Teddy cautiously brought his rifle to his shoulder, and lifted the hammer. Pointing it at the breast of his adversary, so as to be sure of his aim, he pulled the trigger, but there was no response. The gun either was unloaded, or had been injured by its rough usage. The dull click of the lock reached the ear of the target, who asked, ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... now!" Alan yelled between blaster shots, almost irrational from the pain that ripped jaggedly through his leg. Then it happened. A few feet from the building's door his blaster quit. A click. A faint hiss when he frantically jerked the trigger again and again, and the spent cells released themselves from the device, falling in the grass at his feet. He ...
— Survival Tactics • Al Sevcik
... then, coming to the gap in the wire, Ned, Bob and Jerry, with the others, passed through. Each member of the party carried an automatic pistol and several hand grenades. These were small, hollow containers, of cast-iron, loaded with a powerful explosive, which was set off after a certain trigger or spring or firing pin (according to the type used) was released by the thrower. The explosive blew the grenade to bits, and it was scored, or crisscrossed, by deep indentations so that the iron would break up into small pieces like shrapnel. ...
— Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line - The Motor Boys Fighting for Uncle Sam • Clarence Young
... 'death! In that box that you have dragged about London and carried on your defenceless shoulders, sleep, at the trigger's mercy, ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... little sigh of satisfaction as he cuddled the butt into his shoulder, and saw that amazing target, the black man on the yellow ground, standing clear at the end of his fore sight. For an instant he was rigid and motionless. Then his finger tightened on the trigger. There was a strange, loud whiz and a long, silvery tinkle of broken glass. At that instant Holmes sprang like a tiger on to the marksman's back and hurled him flat upon his face. He was up again in a moment, and with convulsive strength he seized Holmes by the throat; but I struck ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... he was all ready to pull the trigger, looking down into this here frowning muzzle before a mirror; and then something about his whiskers in the mirror must of caught his eye. Anyway, another work of self-destruction was off. So he come in and helped with lunch. Then he told me he'd like to take some time ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... he pointed it full at the tall form with a steady aim. He pulled the trigger—the explosion followed, and that the bullet did its office there could be no manner of doubt, for the figure gave a howling shriek, and fell headlong from the ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... killed their fellows for the sake of their proper pride. The blood-feud was familiar to her, and she knew no shame in it. Why should she not slay this creature who outraged her self-respect, who threatened her every hope? Her finger on the trigger of the revolver tensed ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... cracked in the frost. He started in hair-trigger fright. Creeping to the window, he peeped cautiously between casing and blanket. Convinced that it was nothing, he returned to his ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... his citizenship without joy. A cold-blooded murderer, with an appalling record; and a man with a temper like smoking tow, an itching trigger-finger, the eye of a duck-hawk, and cat-like swiftness of movement, he tyrannized the town when the humor was on him; and as yet no counter-bully had come ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... to pull a trigger behind a bush," muttered Decoud to himself. "Fortunately, the night is dark, or there would be but little chance of saving the silver of ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... cramped position he had complained of. Archdale saw that the muzzle was pointed directly at him and that the hand which held it in apparent carelessness was working almost imperceptibly towards the trigger. That would not be touched quite yet, however, a shot now would alarm the garrison and be inexcusable. The accident would happen in the excitement of landing. Archdale's left hand that he with as great indifference ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various
... his revolver-hand was above his head. Swiftly as the grip had flashed about his legs, just as swiftly he brought the revolver down. He was still in the air, his fall in process of completion, when he pulled the trigger. The explosion was deafening in the confined space. The smoke filled the hole so that he could see nothing. He struck the bottom on his back, and like a cat's the pocket-miner's body was on top of him. Even as the miner's body passed on top, the stranger crooked in his right arm to fire; ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... flintlock pistol close to her face. "I shall take the trap off; you will walk three feet in front of me; if you make it four I blow your brains out; we shall go to Agricole. But right here, just now, before I count ten, you will tell me who sent you here; at the word ten, if I reach it, I pull the trigger. One—two—three—" ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... there later, unconscious, badly wounded, his hand still on the trigger of the gun he had worked with such success. He was carried back to the rest billet and thence to a hospital. Everywhere the story of the boy's heroism had ...
— The Children of France • Ruth Royce
... heavy rifle. I got the sights dead on to a certain spot at the back of that red cave. I pressed the trigger; the charge boomed—and nothing happened! I heard no bullet strike and Jana did not even take the trouble to close ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... sha'n't have to shoot much," said the policeman, still swinging his locust. "Anyway, we shant begin it. If it comes to a fight, though," he said, with a look at the men under the scooping rim of his helmet, "we can drive the whole six thousand of 'em into the East River without pullin' a trigger." ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... sitting in tree a wood-pigeon. This is a very shy bird, so he had to creep and maneuver to get within gunshot unseen, unheard. He stole from tree to tree, and muffled his footsteps in the long grass so adroitly that, just as he was going to pull the trigger, he stepped light as a feather on a venomous snake. It bit; ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... indebted to Mr. Jones for the ingenious mechanism by which continuous pressure on the trigger causes both the revolution of the barrels and the discharge of the piece; this patent goes back to 1829-1830. Colonel Colt first endeavoured to make a number of barrels revolve by raising the hammer, but the weight of the barrels suggested ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... in the corner. I have only to tie a string to the trigger and to put the muzzle to my mouth—No! My mother is alive; my mother's love is sacred. I have no right to take the life which she gave me. I must suffer and submit. ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... and Maurice's sentence, they were giving it a preliminary trial. "The trigger's been slipping—not working well," the head fellow explained to the master of ceremonies. Back and forth the terrible guillotine knife hissed and whistled until they pronounced ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon
... for such a meeting many days—alone, by night, with you! I would not willingly draw trigger, for the noise might bring down other folks upon us, out of Oxton yonder: but, drop ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... forsaken, scented by wolves in their flight, Left for the wind to make music through ribs that are glittering white; Gnawing the black crust of failure, searching the pit of despair, Crooking the toe in the trigger, trying to patter a prayer; Going outside with an escort, raving with lips all afoam; Writing a cheque for a million, drivelling feebly of home; Lost like a louse in the burning ... or else in tented ...
— Songs of a Sourdough • Robert W. Service
... listened, with his finger upon the trigger of his gun; and, as minute after minute wore away without a sound reaching him, he began to hope that Leland could ...
— The Ranger - or The Fugitives of the Border • Edward S. Ellis
... dazed condition from the scalp wounds-to disarm him. Immediately he found himself released he commenced the attack again, cutting and slashing like a demon, knocking the revolver from the consul's already badly wounded hand while he yet hesitated to pull the trigger and take his treacherous assailant's life. The revolver went off as it struck the floor and wounded the consul himself in the leg-broke it. The servant now rallied sufficiently to come to his assistance, and together they succeeded in disarming the robber, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... glared bravely at the steel barrel and the lifted trigger, poised a few inches from his eyes, his body, as though weak with fright, shifted slightly and his feet made a shuffling noise upon the floor. When the weight of his body was balanced on the ball of his right foot, the shuffling ceased. ...
— The Scarlet Car • Richard Harding Davis
... thought I heard the click of a trigger," he said to Grevin, after getting behind the trunk of a large tree, where the notary, uneasy at his friend's ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... Saurin in the same whispered tones. And raising his air-gun he got the roosting bird in a line with the sights, which was as easy to do pretty nearly as in broad day, and pressed the trigger. The black ball came tumbling down with a thump on the ground, and Marriner, pouncing upon it, put it in his sack. A second, a third were bagged without stirring from the spot. A few steps farther on another, who had been disturbed by the whip-cracks of the air-gun, had withdrawn ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... the gun and, holding coarsely upon the swiftly moving blot, he began to shoot. The first bullet sent up a great splash of dust beneath the horse's nose, making him leap as if to hurdle a fence. The rifle was automatic; Gale needed only to pull the trigger. He saw now that the raiders behind were in line. Swiftly he worked the trigger. Suddenly the leading horse leaped convulsively, not up nor aside, but straight ahead, and then he crashed to the ground throwing his rider ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... begun in earnest, and B.-P., on a rock directing the movements of his force, was surrounded by the deafening roar of artillery. In nearly every cave on those hills savages lay with rifle to shoulder, finger on trigger, waiting to pick off the besiegers as they came bounding over the rocks towards them. The Cape Boys never wavered; up they dashed, panting and sweating, to the very mouths of the caves, fired their rifles into the darkness, charged in, to reissue ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... had been in despair, and desired several different Indians to shoot him; and an Indian boy saw him kill himself in the following manner; he put the muzzle of his gun under his chin, and with his great toe pushed the trigger."[1] ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... thought I was dreaming. But what could I do? I felt I must rush to you but I dared not. That clump of palms is full of men. So are the houses you saw that time you came ashore with me. Full of men. Armed men. A trigger is soon pulled and when once shooting begins. . . . And you walking in the open with that light above your head! I didn't dare. You were safer alone. I had the strength to hold myself in and watch you come up from the shore. No! ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... Henry: we really haven't time for all that sort of flapdoodle now. [He starts to his feet as if she had pulled a trigger and straightened him by the release of a powerful spring, and goes past her with set teeth to the little table]. Oh, take care: you nearly hit me in the chin with the ...
— How He Lied to Her Husband • George Bernard Shaw
... the survivor might do, provided one of the guns should fail; (for they were determined upon going together;) but forgetting, perhaps, in the perturbation of the moment that the gun was cocked, when he touched trigger with the rod the gun fired, and he fell, and died in a few minutes—and was with George in the eternal world, where the slave is free from his master. But poor Isham was so terrified with this unexpected occurrence and so confounded ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... the old man. "Cap'n Bonnet 'ud clap me in irons if I slew this filthy Ed'ard Teach and robbed him of that enjoyment. I'll pull no trigger save in our ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... walking, Dick and Joe plunged into a forest of gum-trees, their eyes alert on all sides, and their fingers on the trigger. There was no foreseeing what they might encounter. Without being a rifleman, Joe could handle fire-arms with ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... be surprised to meet him out walking, right here in Philadelphia," said one of the staff. "He'll be disguised, of course, but you could always tell him by the absence of the trigger finger on his right hand. It's missing, you know; shot off when ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... panic. Fowler Smythe squeezed his trigger and the tiny dart leaped unseen across the crap layout. My lift had been way off—it should have thrown the stick toward the ceiling, where no one would have been hurt. Instead it merely twitched the crap-stick, and the dart struck Pheola ...
— Vigorish • Gordon Randall Garrett
... fence in the sementeras. The il-tib' is built of two sections of heavy tree trunks, one imbedded in the earth, level with the ground, and the other the falling timber. As the hog enters the sementera, the weight of his body springs the trigger which is covered in the loose dirt before the opening, and the falling timber pins him fast against the lower timber firmly buried in the earth. From half a dozen to twenty wild hogs are annually killed by the people of the pueblo. They are ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... confession in writing for the Entente commission—ten closely written pages. A masterpiece, if I have to boast myself. And in order to avoid the anti-climax which your sense of honor would undoubtedly precipitate, I will put a period to it in an hour. A trigger pulled, and the nobility of my sad country loses another of its shining lights. I am overawed by the quaint justice of life. I end a career of villainy with a final lie. It would really be impossible ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... words uttered, in a tone of eagerness and anger, within so small a distance of my pillow. What construction could I put upon them? My heart began to palpitate with dread of some unknown danger. Presently, another voice, but equally near me, was heard whispering in answer, "Why not? I will draw a trigger in this business; but perdition be my lot if I do more!" To this the first voice returned, in a tone which rage had heightened in a small degree above a whisper, "Coward! stand aside, and see me do it. ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... was feeding not far away and that the water was falling from his muzzle. When I opened my jack we were close upon him. His eyes gleamed. I shot high above the deer that went splashing ashore before I had pulled my trigger. After the roar of the gun had got away, in the distant timber, Tip mentioned a place abhorred of all men, turned and paddled for ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... away from the powder horn and the lantern (for it is none of the easiest to charge strange pieces in a dark cellar) she said that she would stand by "King George" while I was at hand—yes, and fire him off, too, if need were. Only I must show her how to pull the trigger, and also adjust the muzzle so as to bear on the steps by which the villains would ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... nearest savage. The distance was too trifling for me to doubt the fatal effects of the discharge; for I was determined to take deadly aim, in hopes that the fall of one man might save the lives of many. But at the very moment when my hand was on the trigger, and my eye was along the barrel, my purpose was checked by M'Leay, who called to me that another party of blacks had made their appearance upon the left bank of the river. Turning round, I observed four men at the top of their speed. The foremost of them, ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... same knife he had just used. It is remarkable that, when little more than a youth, he had once tried to destroy himself. In a fit, apparently of constitutional melancholy, he had put a pistol to his head, but it did not go off. He pulled the trigger more than once; always with the same result. Anxious to see whether there was any defect in the weapon or the loading, he aimed at the door of the room, and the pistol went off, the bullet going through the door; and from that day he conceived himself reserved by Providence ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... in my direction. I took out my revolver, and to tell you the truth I very nearly fired on sight, for it would have been an exceedingly awkward matter for me to have been taken prisoner just then. Just as my finger was on the trigger, I became conscious that the man who was approaching was humming 'Tipperary.' I flashed my light on his face and saw at once that he was a British officer. He addressed me quickly in German. I answered him in English. I fancied for a moment that he seemed annoyed. 'We'd better get out ...
— The Kingdom of the Blind • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... is equal to what cocking a gun, and directing it at its object, would be with us. To launch the spear, or to touch the trigger, only remains.] ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... first!" he shrieked. He fired again and again as he came; then, realizing that he had but one bullet left in his pistol, he halted at the galley hatch, took careful aim, and pulled the trigger for the last time. ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... an instant he followed headlong, tripped once or twice on the wet grass, but was up every time like lightning, and once more in swift pursuit. The fugitive turned once, raised his pistol and pulled the trigger again, evidently forgetful that it was empty. When the hammer snapped on the trigger he uttered a low cry of anger and hurled the useless weapon into the grass. Then he whirled around and faced Dick, who was coming ...
— The Rock of Chickamauga • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the summit Casavel would sometimes lie amid the rocks, and cover him with that same gun for a hundred yards or so, slowly following his movements with the steady barrel so that the mail-carrier's life hung, as it were, on the touch of a trigger for minutes together. Pedro Casavel seemed to shift his hiding place, as if he were seeking to perfect certain details of light and range and elevation. Perhaps it was only a grim enjoyment which he gathered from thus holding the Mule's life in his ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... calculation, before his rope (which was short) grew taut—which was good judgment on his part, for his neck was sore; and his feet being tender, he felt his way carefully and painfully over the metal, as if he feared that at any step he might spring some treacherous, air-trigger trap-door which ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... McGivney and Hammett went down in the elevator of the hotel, and out of doors, and into an automobile. Hammett drove, and Peter sat in the rear seat with McGivney, who had the revolver in his coat pocket, his finger always on the trigger and the muzzle always pointed into Peter's middle. So Peter obeyed all orders promptly, and stopped asking questions because he found he could get ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... said, were kept there during the day but were carried at night so that if he or his companions met Marcum they were prepared to kill him. The plot, so Mose declared, was to entice Marcum to his office on some pretext or other. Mose was to waylay him and pull the trigger. Mose went further. He told Marcum that the county officials had promised him immunity from punishment if he would carry out the plot and kill Marcum. When at last the election contest furore had quieted down Marcum concluded it was safe to venture forth to his ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... served as Mr. Rogers' pike-carrier in vain. Superb actor though he is, I saw his bluff, and quick as a hair-trigger called it. ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... could launch the missile Jared Long sent a bullet through him, and then, shifting the muzzle of his Winchester toward the line of dusky figures, he blazed away as fast as he could sight the weapon and pull the trigger. ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... As he pressed trigger, a light sighing eased itself from the slim barrel. Something flicked through the leaves; and, almost on the instant, the phenomenon of the little phosphorescent spot repeated itself, though in a different place from the first one. ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... pistol in his left hand, meaning to kill the Dark Master without pity in that first moment. Out of the hearth came a great swirl of ashes and red embers, flying toward the door and closing around O'Donnell; as Brian pressed the trigger the ashes smote him in a blinding swirl, and a harsh laugh answered the roar ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones
... groaned the cracker. "I ain't tryin' ter. But I cyan't let you roast in this yere d—— barbecue! Look a yere!" He lowered the revolver through the window. "Thar's a pistil, an' w'en th' fire cotches onter you an' yo' gwine suah 's shootin', then put it ter yo' head an' pull the trigger, an' yo'll ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various
... Williams cut up rough with Johnson, and drawed a knife on him, which Johnson gripped with his left while he pulled trigger.— Williams, I heerd, was in the wrong; I hain't perhaps got the right end of it; anyhow, you might hev noticed the Sheriff hes lost the little finger off his left hand.—Johnson, they say, got right up and lit out from Pleasant Hill. Perhaps the folk ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... cocks the rifle and aims at a target a foot high on the other side of the room, and when his aim is satisfactory, pulls the trigger. When this is done an electrical connection is made which shoots forward the rod which is on the standard, so that its point punches a hole in a miniature target like a visiting card, which is placed in front of it, which hole is mathematically on the same relative place on the card target ...
— A report on the feasibility and advisability of some policy to inaugurate a system of rifle practice throughout the public schools of the country • George W. Wingate
... he saw the avenues under the old trees where his aunt used to take him walking in old days; he saw himself a little child, happy and wondering; he remembered the castles he used to build with strips of plane-tree bark... The trigger was pulled. Jean beat the air with his arms and fell forward face to the ground. The men finished him with their bayonets; then the woman danced on the corpse ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France
... He pulled the trigger of his automatic again and again as he rushed forward. By some strange trick of fate the figure reeled for a second and one of its arms dropped swinging to its side. The bullet had entered a joint. Had it in some way deranged the mechanism, causing the Automaton to turn ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... courtesy to the piping pickets; ducking in perfect time, as though it had been brazed on a rod. Being half capable of thinking for itself, it fired a volley by the simple process of pitching its rifle into its shoulder and pulling the trigger. The bullets may have accounted for some of the watchers on the hill side, but they certainly did not affect the mass of enemy in front, while the noise of the rifles drowned any orders that ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... game away. Besides, there is everything in the feeling with which one approaches an animal. If one comes timidly, doubtfully, the animal knows it; and if one comes swift, silent, resolute, with his power gripped tight, and the hammer back, and a forefinger resting lightly on the trigger guard, the animal knows it too, you may depend. Anyway, they always act as if they knew, and you may safely follow the rule that, whatever your feeling is, whether fear or doubt or confidence, the large and dangerous animals will sense it ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... opportunity and suggested a new form of trigger for the unwieldy crossbows. He saw that as at present discharged it must require some strength, perhaps the united effort of several men, to pull away the bolt or catch. Such an effort must disconcert the aim; these crossbows were worked upon a carriage, ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... English writers call those large muskets calivers; the harquebuss was a lighter piece, that could be fired without a rest. The matchlock was fired by a match fixed by a kind of tongs in the serpentine or cock, which, by pulling the trigger, was brought down with great quickness upon the priming in the pan, over which there was a sliding cover, which was drawn back by the hand just at the time of firing. There was a great deal of nicety and care required to fit the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... behind. Their arms of fire wreak'd out their ire, their shields emboss'd with gold, And the thrusting of their venom'd points upon the foemen told; O deep and large was every gash that mark'd their manly vigour, And irresistible the flash that lighten'd round their trigger; And woe, when play'd the dark blue blade, the thick back'd sharp Ferrara, Though plied its might by stripling hand, it cut into the marrow. Clan Colla,[122] let them have their due, thy true and gallant following, Strength, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... the fern, while Alton felt the barrel of a rifle under him. He rolled on his side, and clawed for it, almost sightless, with one hand, and laughed harshly as he raised himself a trifle. There was a flash and a concussion, the trigger-guard sank into his nerveless finger, and a smashing amidst the undergrowth was followed by footsteps that were presently lost in ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... equal to what cocking a gun, and directing it at its object, would be with us. To launch the spear, or to touch the trigger, ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... in all his criminal record had so much as pulled trigger in self-defence, was ready now to shoot to kill with the most cold-blooded intent—given one of three targets; while Popinot's creatures, if they worried him, he meant to exterminate with as little compunction as though ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... custom here. Atoi was a very powerful man of about thirty, and those who attacked him had a most difficult task; twice he broke from them; and I then watched the countenance of his brother, which was perfectly cool and collected, though the firelock was in readiness, and the finger on the trigger, which might despatch him instantly. All parties sat perfectly quiet during the desperate struggle; one of the barrels of Atoi's piece went off, and the contents flew amongst us, without, however, doing ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle
... is stripping for battle, for in comes all his light canvas, and up goes his mainsail. The man who commands that ship is a right valiant cavalier, and will put up a good fight; therefore, let no man put match to culverin or finger to trigger until I give the word. Now, let the waits play up 'The ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... shape for a long shot. Jack has written that he seemed to be looking for hostile "Injuns" some distance away and to be waiting for another stir in the bushes. Suddenly he pulled his trigger. ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... the wintry North Atlantic a torpedo sped across her bows and she knew her chance had come. Instantly her alarm signals, quietly given, brought all hands to action stations, some in deck-houses, others in hen-coops, but each with his finger on the trigger or his hand on a ready spare shell. Presently the submarine broke surface and fired a shot across the Q ship's bow. On this the well-trained crew ran about in panic, while the captain screeched at them and waved his arms about ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... class of people referred to somewhat ironically as "the reading public," Boswell is read, but Johnson never. And so sternly true is the fact that many critics, set on a hair-trigger, aver that were it not for Boswell no one would now know that a writer by the name of Johnson ever lived. Yet the fact is, Boswell ruined the literary reputation of Johnson by intimating that Johnson wrote Johnsonese; but ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... means infrequent in Dynamics, where the truth is widely different from that which seems to be the case. An illustration will perhaps make the matter clearer. When a rifle is fired, it is the finger of the rifleman that pulls the trigger; but are we, then, to say that the energy by which the bullet has been driven off has been supplied by the rifleman? Certainly not; the energy is, of course, due to the gunpowder, and all the rifleman did was to provide the means by which the energy stored up in the powder could be ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... and thrust the muzzle into the tiger's mouth, just as the elephant swerved round with sudden fright and pain. At the same moment the weight of the tiger on the howdah caused the girths to give way; and Charlie, Tim and the tiger fell together on the ground. Charlie had pulled his trigger, just as he felt himself going; and at the same moment he heard the crack ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty
... With eyes full of terror and a certain vague curiosity they glanced rapidly from the pistol to the fateful ace, which slowly descended, quivering in the air. At the moment it touched the table Vulich pulled the trigger... a ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... two armed men, both deeply disguised in great black beards, and in good clothes, stepped into this empty little camp. Bending low, looking right, looking left, guns in hand and hand on trigger, they stopped in the centre of the little camp, and looked cautiously up, down, and all around. Seeing no one, hearing nothing, they looked in each others' eyes, straightened up, and, standing their guns against a tree, breathed more freely in the gray twilight. ...
— Shadows of Shasta • Joaquin Miller
... his catapult so that he could release the trigger from the flying machine. Mark said he was ready; the professor reached for the cord which ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... at his warning, and drew the trigger; but though there was a sharp report on either side of me, my piece did not speak, and suddenly recollecting that I had forgotten to cock it, I ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... enthusiasm than the cry deserves, it was then: to assume a rollicking air, to laugh with cool carelessness when there is nothing between you and death but the more or less strong pressure of a highwayman's finger on the trigger of a musket, is no easy task; but all this I accomplished, and once more got through the village with a whole skin indeed, but with the unalterable resolution to blow my brains out rather than again try ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... snapped the lift went upwards slowly. Two overhanging electric lamps illuminated the little elevator. They were dangerous to him. With the steel barrel of his pistol he smashed the bulbs and crouched down in the darkness, his finger on the trigger, ready for any emergency. ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... ignore, though it contained a considerable element of improbability. It was conceivable that Greifenstein should have been the first to die. In that case Rieseneck, who must have felt that he had ruined Greif by his revelations, might have burned his brother's letter, before pulling the trigger. It would have seemed more natural in that case that he should have also destroyed his own, but it might be that he had warned Rex for a good reason. Without such a warning, and if he had been a less devoted friend of Greif's, Rex might perhaps have ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... pressed trigger, a light sighing eased itself from the slim barrel. Something flicked through the leaves; and, almost on the instant, the phenomenon of the little phosphorescent spot repeated itself, though in a different place ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... as we advanced to charge Johnson's poltroons, one of the party, a resolute fellow, presented his gun to my breast and drew the trigger. Happily, in the very instant of its firing, lieutenant Jossilin knocked it up with his sword; and the ball grazing my shoulder, bursted through the side of ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... damned," said Jim Cummings, almost exultingly, as he drew his revolver from his belt. "Two can play at that game," and drawing a hasty bead on Chip, he pulled the trigger. ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... by-play took some time, but at last they were ready—one man armed with a pair of binoculars and the other with the American naval rifle—the Lee straight-pull, which fires the thinnest pin of a cartridge I have seen and has but a two-pound trigger pull. Even then nothing was done for perhaps another ten minutes, and in some cases for half an hour; it varied according to individual requirements. Then when the quarry was located by the man with the binoculars, and the ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... my mind in a twinkling, and just as I drew out my revolver the captain caught sight of me. He quickly shifted the rifle in his hands and tugged at the hammer. He knew nothing of the necessity of taking aim, or of the use of the trigger. It would only be by the merest chance if he hit me. I had half drawn the trigger, and was just correcting my aim, when a long flash of flame from the rifle startled me, and unconsciously I fired wild. ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass
... instant action, though the action was infinitely slow. Five minutes passed before he was able to get his rifle to his shoulder, and a second five minutes passed ere he dared, lying on his back and aiming straight upward, to pull the trigger. It was a clean miss. No bird fell, but no bird flew. They ruffled and rustled stupidly and drowsily. His shoulder pained him. A second shot was spoiled by the involuntary wince he made as he pulled trigger. Somewhere, in the last three days, though he had no recollection how, he must ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... jack-knife into the very centre of his wooden mantelpiece, then I begin to give myself virtuous airs. I have always held, too, that pistol practice should be distinctly an open-air pastime; and when Holmes, in one of his queer humors, would sit in an arm-chair with his hair-trigger and a hundred Boxer cartridges, and proceed to adorn the opposite wall with a patriotic V. R. done in bullet-pocks, I felt strongly that neither the atmosphere nor the appearance of our room was ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... Aiming at the foremost I fired twice at the advancing assailants. There were shouts and screams of pain in answer, and the line hesitated. I gave them the remaining cartridge, and, seizing the smaller weapon from Luella, fired as rapidly as I could pull the trigger. ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... pack, brittle and bent like a bow; Featureless, formless, forsaken, scented by wolves in their flight, Left for the wind to make music through ribs that are glittering white; Gnawing the black crust of failure, searching the pit of despair, Crooking the toe in the trigger, trying to patter a prayer; Going outside with an escort, raving with lips all afoam; Writing a cheque for a million, drivelling feebly of home; Lost like a louse in the burning ... or else in tented town Seeking a drunkard's solace, sinking and sinking down; Steeped in the ...
— Songs of a Sourdough • Robert W. Service
... is the screw-together. He screws on the heel plate, the guard that protects the trigger, puts in the trigger plate, lets in the pipes to hold the ramrod, puts on the nozzle cap, and ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... lacked water, so much so that I was reduced to washing in the seltzer water which the sister had had sent to me. I take my siphon, I mark the painter who cries fire, I press the trigger, the discharge hits him full in his face; then I place myself in front of him, I receive the stream in my beard, I rub my nose with the lather, I dry my face. We are ready, we go downstairs. The field ...
— Sac-Au-Dos - 1907 • Joris Karl Huysmans
... your soul, Mah'sr John, ye needn't be 'fraid o' my techin' 'em off. I wouldn't no more put a finger on 'em dan I'd pull de trigger ov a ...
— What Might Have Been Expected • Frank R. Stockton
... set his camera down to demonstrate. "Now just stand behind me," he concluded, "and pull the trigger when I ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... brothers sought and grasped each other, penitently. "Yes," interposed the Judge with delicate tact, "ye see the Right and Left Bower almost quarreled to see which should be the first to fire for ye. I disremember which did"—"I never touched the trigger," said the Left Bower, hastily. With a hurried backward kick, the Judge resumed, "It went ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... severe fine, but what do I care as long as I have their money to pay it with? The killing of that fool boy worries me more than a dozen fines. It was uncalled for, too, but he would butt in, and you fellows were all itching for the chance to finger a trigger. Now the understanding is that you all ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... but there could be no doubt, from its loudness, that it was near, and even in the house. It was no less manifest that the sound arose from the discharge of a pistol. Some hand must have drawn the trigger. I recollected the disappearance of the candle from the room below. Instantly a supposition darted into my mind which made my hair rise and my ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... Animals at work, even as in the contrivance of killing a Fox or Wolf with a Gun, the moving of a string, is the death of the Animal; for the Beast, by moving the flesh that is laid to entrap him, pulls the string which moves the trigger, and that lets go the Cock which on the steel strikes certain sparks of fire which kindle the powder in the pann, and that presently flies into the barrel, where the powder catching fire rarifies and drives out the bullet which kills ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... have made all these mistakes in recollecting my mother's account of the matter, although she was more accurate than I am, being precise upon points of genealogy, like all the aristocratical Scotch. She had a long list of ancestors, like Sir Lucius O'Trigger's, most of whom are to be found in the old Scotch Chronicles, Spalding, &c. in arms and doing mischief. I remember well passing Loch Leven, as well as the Queen's Ferry: we were on our way to ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... tell ye," answered the Trapper, "fer my eye was at the sights and my finger on the trigger, and the feelin' of natur' was strong within me to crop one of yer ears then and there, Shanty Jim, but somethin', mayhap the sperit of the Lord, staid my finger, and ye went with yer thievin' in yer hand to yer camp ...
— Holiday Tales - Christmas in the Adirondacks • W. H. H. Murray
... to take the revolver out of Ed's belt, and press it into Ed's hand, curling his fingers around the grip and over the trigger, and then he wanted to shake Ed awake, slap his ...
— The Last Place on Earth • James Judson Harmon
... merry, laughing blue eyes, jovial voice and handsome face, for he was a man who could be all things to all men; and the blue eyes sometimes went black, and the smooth, shapely hand that was for ever stroking the long flowing beard, liked too well to feel a trigger in the crook of its forefinger. So I laughingly declined his offer—even when, as an extra inducement, he pointed out to me a very handsome young Marshall Island girl, who would do the station honours for me ...
— The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton - 1902 • Louis Becke
... defend my right of giving or refusing the other shilling. And, after all, if I cannot defend that right, I can retire cheerfully with my family into the boundless woods of America, which are sure to afford freedom and subsistence to any man who can bait a hook or pull a trigger." The picture of Dr. Franklin, the philosopher, at the age of sixty-one, "cheerfully" sustaining his family in the wilderness by the winnings of his rod and his rifle stirs one's sense of humor; but the paragraph indicates that he was in strict ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... seen 'Curly' grab at the drawer, and I have aversions to witnessing gun plays from the front end. The tenderfoot riz up in his chair, and snatchin' a stack of reds in his off mit, dashed 'em into 'Curly's' face just as he pulled trigger. It spoiled his aim, and the boy was on to him like a mountain lion, follerin' over the table, along the line of ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... quite still. I could not exactly see what was best to be done, for the man's hand was steady, and I scarcely saw how I could escape if indeed he pressed the trigger. ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... to Dicky, and Dicky went into our room and fetched the large toy pistol that is a foot long, and that has the trigger broken, and I took it because I am the eldest; and I don't think either of us thought it was the cat now. But Alice and H. O. did. Dicky got the poker out of Noel's room, and told Dora it was to settle the cat with when ...
— The Story of the Treasure Seekers • E. Nesbit
... the case, though that was bad enough. It was losing my infernal hair-trigger of a temper that's been cutting in like a knife. I had the boy where he ought to get well if they followed my precautions a thousand times repeated. This morning his heart was a whole lot stronger; it only needed time. Tonight his mother let him sit up—in ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond
... struck Mr Knight a tremendous blow on the head with his mallet, which felled him to the earth, stunned and lifeless. He next rushed upon Frazer, who had fairly covered him with the muzzle of his piece, and would inevitably have shot him, but just as he pulled the trigger, the man whom I had seen creeping round behind him, sprang upon him, and deranged his aim; two or three of the others, who had stood looking on, taking no part in the affair, now interposed, and by their assistance Frazer was overpowered and secured. Whether they murdered him or not, as Luerson ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... me, Henry: we really haven't time for all that sort of flapdoodle now. [He starts to his feet as if she had pulled a trigger and straightened him by the release of a powerful spring, and goes past her with set teeth to the little table]. Oh, take care: you nearly hit me in the chin with the top of ...
— How He Lied to Her Husband • George Bernard Shaw
... the forest. The lordly animal paused for a few seconds and looked around. Dane was fully alert now. With his gun resting across a fallen log, he trained his eye along the smooth dark barrel. Then as the moose stepped forward and its right side was presented to view, he pulled the trigger. The loud report resounded through the silent forest reaches, and sent the ducks scurrying wildly out of the water. With a snort of pain and surprise the moose threw back its great head, lifted its fore feet from the ground, reeled for an instant, and crashed over on its side, ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody
... health-seeking vacations when they had better places nearer home, mentioning Sullivan's Island where the hospitable Fort Moultrie officers "were good hands at drawing a cork." Of course, he meant a trigger. ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... along the edge of the boat as if to relieve it from the cramped position he had complained of. Archdale saw that the muzzle was pointed directly at him and that the hand which held it in apparent carelessness was working almost imperceptibly towards the trigger. That would not be touched quite yet, however, a shot now would alarm the garrison and be inexcusable. The accident would happen in the excitement of landing. Archdale's left hand that he with as great indifference as Edmonson's laid upon the boat's ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various
... need to go; Proudfit's coming right back; he's only gone for his horse. There's plenty of time to hear the little I've got to say. John March, I'm ashamed of this reputation you've got for being quick on the trigger. O, you're much admired for it—by both sexes! Ye gods! John, isn't it pitiful to see a fellow like you not able to keep a kindly contempt for the opinion of fools! My dear boy—my dear boy! you'll never be worth powder enough ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... of astonishing a tiger was practised with success. A loaded musket was firmly fixed in a horizontal position, about the height of his head, to a couple of stakes driven into the ground, and the piece being cocked, a string from the trigger, first leading a little towards the butt, and then turning through a small ring forwards, was attached to a shoulder of mutton, stuck on the muzzle of the musket, the act of dragging off which, drew the trigger, and the ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... were each eager to take the quarrel into their own hands. A scene of uproar and hubbub ensued that defies description. M'Lellan would have brought his rifle into play and settled all old and new grudges by a pull of the trigger, had he not been restrained by Mr. Hunt. That gentleman acted as moderator, endeavoring to prevent a general melee; in the midst of the brawl, however, an expression was made use of by Lisa derogatory to his own honor. In an instant the tranquil spirit ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... neither man moved a muscle. Silence—a premonitory silence—fell over them as they stood, each with a steady finger dragging uncertainly upon the trigger of his weapon. An owl hooted in the cottonwood nearby; other noises of the night reached their ears. Unaware of this crisis Mustard ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer
... without honor, filled himself full of brandy, cocked a forty-five-calibre revolver, put the muzzle in his mouth, pulled the trigger, blew off the back of his head, and was "accidentally shot while cleaning ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... attenuated for computation, is here able to effect such a change in a pinch of dust that it becomes a free avenue instead of a barricade. Through that avenue a powerful blow from a local store of energy makes itself heard and felt. No device of the trigger class is comparable with this in delicacy. An instant after a signal has taken its way through the coherer a small hammer strikes the tiny tube, jarring its particles asunder, so that they resume their normal state of high resistance. We may ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... curious way in which he handled it George was alarmed. It was an automatic, and if the Chief once pulled the trigger there would be trouble for some one. George held up a warning hand, and the Chief ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Adventures on Strange Islands • Roger Thompson Finlay
... seal—all harsh and unmelodious, save the tones of this sweet little singer. Nothing but starvation or scientific research could justify the slaughter of one of these innocents. I believe I shut my eyes when I pulled the trigger of my gun, and I know my heart gave a regretful thump when I heard the thud of its poor, bleeding body upon the ground. When we started for Franklin Point the next day, Lieutenant Schwatka concluded to follow ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... gentlemen would prefer abandoning the cares and dangers of the ocean for a life of ease and gayety," said the captain. "The hand that has long dallied with a marlinspike may be easily made to feel a trigger, as gracefully as a lady touches the keys of her piano. In short, there is and there is not a great resemblance between the life of a sailor and that of a soldier. There are no gales of wind, nor short allowances, ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... remnant of College-day dreams (Its wadding is made of forensics and themes); Ah, visions of fame! what a flash in the pan As the trigger was pulled ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... I beat up a stroke that threatened to cleave my skull, I heard a voice calling on them to hold, and the lady in scarlet forced her horse between us. As the brute's shoulder pressed me back into the angle of my embrasure she held out her pistol at arm's length, her finger on the trigger, and pointed it at close quarters full ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... a revolver. He picked it up. It was loaded. Idly he tried the trigger. It worked. He looked at Zaidos. How he hated him! They seemed all alone on that field of dead and dying. The tide had swept away and left ...
— Shelled by an Unseen Foe • James Fiske
... lines upon it were not the lines made by time: a stronger enemy than time had left his mark there. Dissipation was written in the ruddy complexion, the bloated flesh, and the bloodshot eye. The continual movement of the hand feeling along the whitewashed plank, or fingering, unconsciously, the trigger of the loaded rifle, testified, in a dumb way, to the derangement of the nervous system which had been surrendered to that most debasing of all passion, drink. He had sought the invigorating mountains, the safety of isolation, to do for him that which ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... instant he thought he had gone too far. The big ruffian opposite choked over his biscuit, the while rage purpled his face. He caught up the revolver, and his fingers itched at the trigger. ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... awkward antagonists even for the best regular troops. They were probably amongst the boldest sportsmen in the world, and they formed the most picturesque and, romantic section of the rebels. Their only weapon was an old-fashioned percussion gun, with long barrel and a brass trigger seven to eight inches in length. Many of them fired not from the shoulder, but from the hip. They never missed. They could only fire one charge in an attack, owing to the time required to load. They were trained to stalk the tiger, to ...
— Korea's Fight for Freedom • F.A. McKenzie
... a very shy bird, so he had to creep and maneuver to get within gunshot unseen, unheard. He stole from tree to tree, and muffled his footsteps in the long grass so adroitly that, just as he was going to pull the trigger, he stepped light as a feather on a venomous ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... course. Pouring this into the gun he put the muzzle to his mouth, and spat the ball into it, struck the butt on the pommel of the saddle to send it down, as well as to drive the powder into the pan, and taking his chance of the gun priming itself, he aimed as before, and pulled the trigger. The explosion followed, and a second buffalo lay dead upon the plain, with a glove beside it to ...
— Away in the Wilderness • R.M. Ballantyne
... the moonlight went out, but they stood scarcely three feet apart, and one of them knew that any move he made would be followed by the pressure of the other's finger on the trigger. He, however, did not move at all, and while the birches roared about them they stood silently face to face, the man of birth and pedigree with a past behind him and blood already upon his head, and the raw lad from the bush, his equal before ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... but to put in execution the plans that have for some time been agitating my brain. Here is the map for our campaign; here are the routes and the plan of attack. We shall at last stand before these Austrians in battle array; and as they dared say of my father, that his gun was ever cocked but the trigger never pulled, we will show them that we are ready to discharge, and thrust down the double eagle from its proud pinnacle. The combat is determined and unalterable; let us be silent and prudent, no one must discover our plans; we will surprise the Austrians. ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... to git him. I kept the trail hot from Tucson to Vegas an' back to Santone. An' now, doggone it, when my finger was on the trigger an' the coyote as good as dead, you cut in an' shoot the daylights out of him. By gum, ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... hat was merely a bit of Latin extravagance. They soon found out, however, that it had the significance of a signal. For, as the fellow dropped into cover, the grass became alive with human forms. Coyote Pete's finger, which had been trembling upon the trigger, ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... the family of the ifs, a peace-maker. My Lady Delacour, I was going to observe that my principal has met with an unfortunate accident, in the shape of a whitlow on the fore-finger of her right hand, which incapacitates her from drawing a trigger; but I am at your service, ladies, either of you, that can't put up with a disappointment with good humour.' I never, during the whole course of my existence, was more disposed to bear a disappointment with good humour, to prove ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... you that under the table I was chained tight down to the chair I sat in? Did he tell you that my hand was fastened to a drinking-horn, and my elbow to the table, and two fellows sitting opposite me with pistols quietly covering me, ready to draw the trigger if I should utter a cry? Did he tell you that I would have uttered that cry and died at that table but for one thing, I had promised her ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... I pulled the trigger, and the bull leader of the herd fell on his haunches. The bullet had found the vulnerable spot under the fore shoulder, where one should always shoot a musk-ox. To aim at the head ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary
... making up the ammunition like that of a rifle, with projectile and charge in a big brass-cased cartridge, so that the gun can be loaded up by one movement, and the cartridge contains its own means of ignition, and is fired by pulling off a trigger. The lighter quick-firers are further mounted on pivots, so that they can be easily moved through an arc of a circle by one man, who keeps his eyes on a moving target and his finger on the trigger ready to fire. The ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... hand down to the lock of the gun, and drew back the trigger. Cautiously as it was done, he could not prevent a slight clicking sound, which, perhaps, struck the ear of the Solitary, for he turned his head and moved in the chair. The Indian slunk to the edge of the window, so as to conceal his person from any one within the room, ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... waving in the wind just in front of the rifle, beyond my reach. The mahout leaned forward and gently bent it down. Now, all was clear. The tiger's eyes were like green glass. The elephant for a moment stood like stone. I touched the trigger. ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... us, for many of their machines are in the air moving around at different altitudes ready to attack us. One of them is coming to welcome me. I turn quickly to see if Allard, the observer, is wide awake. His machine gun is pointed at the enemy, his fingers are on the trigger. ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... occasion the villain spoke the line, pulled the trigger, and Jim fell. But the gun did not go off. Instantly Jim raised himself on his elbow and ...
— Continuous Vaudeville • Will M. Cressy
... terrified face, he remained master of himself, nevertheless, and his brain remained clear amid the breakdown of his nerves. The little black hole of the revolver was pointing at six inches from his eyes. The finger was bent and obviously pressing on the trigger. It only ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... of the revolver began to rise under the pressure of Elsie's finger on the trigger. The man's hair rose even more rapidly. His nerve was broken. He turned along the corridor in front of her, not knowing the instant a bullet might crash into his head. The girl followed so closely that she almost touched his heels. The ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... to look at, didn't have an ounce of ambition or a pint of sense. The next minute you'd wake up to find the ounce a hundred pounds of condensed lightning and the pint a couple of gallons of trigger thinking. That's the kind of a surprise package "Rus" was. And, brother, look out!! If "Rus" ever had occasion to lay hands on you he didn't let go until he got good and ready. Try your durndest and you couldn't shake loose the grip he carried ...
— Interference and Other Football Stories • Harold M. Sherman
... hair. Thrusting a pointed stick into the eye-sockets, he contrived to extract a portion of the brain, afterward placing the skull in the hottest part of the fire, and thus separating the bones to obtain a wider aperture. The click of a trigger close to his ear recalled M. Garnier to his senses, and arresting the arm of his sergeant, who, excited to indignation, had brought his musket to his shoulder, he hurried from a scene calculated, beyond all others, to thrill the nerves ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... D'Esterre first changed his position, moving a pace towards the left hand, and then stepped towards O'Connell. His object was to induce him to fire, more or less, at random. He lifted his pistol, as if about to fire. O'Connell instantly presented, pulled the trigger, and ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... the required pull, and instantly a most surprising event came to pass. That jerk at the rope must have set a hair-trigger going, for there followed a sudden rattling noise, the loop was instantly tightened around his ankle, and in a trice Johnny was hanging head down, as helpless as ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas
... Nunez; And is it thus a faithful wife you treat? I wonder in what quarter now the moon is: I praise your vast forbearance not to beat Me also, since the time so opportune is— Oh, valiant man! with sword drawn and cocked trigger, Now, tell me, don't you cut ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... of the situation, Druse now brought the butt of his rifle against his cheek by cautiously pushing the barrel forward through the bushes, cocked the piece, and glancing through the sights covered a vital spot of the horseman's breast. A touch upon the trigger and all would have been well with Carter Druse. At that instant the horseman turned his head and looked in the direction of his concealed foeman—seemed to look into his very face, into his eyes, into ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... was cut. The channel was not very deep, only enough to receive a tenpenny nail with the head projecting half-way above the sides. A notch was cut across the barrel, through this channel, at the trigger end, and a trigger made of heavy iron wire, bent to the shape shown in Fig. 51, was hinged to the gun by a bolt which passed clear through the stock and through both eyes of the trigger. By using two nuts on the bolt, and tightening one against the other, they were prevented from working loose and ...
— The Scientific American Boy - The Camp at Willow Clump Island • A. Russell Bond
... glittering eyes. He well knew the improbability of hitting a vulnerable spot in a swimming alligator; his marksmanship was scarcely equal to the certainty of finding one of those wicked, armor-lidded eyes. It was with a hard gulp of fear in his throat that he pressed the trigger for a second shot. ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... The rifle leaped to his shoulder, the centre of the bear's breast was covered, and the trigger pulled. ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... pointed it ostentatiously at the rock, away from the native canoes, and held up his hand yet again for silence. "We'll give 'em a taste of what we can do, boys," he said, "just to show 'em, not to hurt 'em." At that he drew the trigger twice. His first two chambers were loaded on purpose with duck-shot cartridges. Twice the big gun roared; twice the fire flashed red from its smoking mouth. As the smoke cleared away, the natives, dumb with surprise, and perfectly ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... And then Romain could not repress an involuntary start, albeit he saw what he had half expected to see. The fleshy right hand of Hartley Parrish grasped convulsively an automatic pistol. His clutching index finger was crooked about the trigger and the barrel was pressed into the yielding pile of the carpet. His other hand with clawing fingers was flung out away from the body on the other side. One leg was stretched out to its fullest extent and the foot just touched the hem of the ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine
... Mule knew that as he passed across the summit Casavel would sometimes lie amid the rocks, and cover him with that same gun for a hundred yards or so, slowly following his movements with the steady barrel so that the mail-carrier's life hung, as it were, on the touch of a trigger for minutes together. Pedro Casavel seemed to shift his hiding place, as if he were seeking to perfect certain details of light and range and elevation. Perhaps it was only a grim enjoyment which he gathered ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... a gallant young chamois hunter who had taught him to handle a trigger and load a muzzle, made the very name of Bavaria a terror ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee
... Koren, who evidently had been convinced from the beginning that his opponent would fire in the air, Laevsky thought that, thank God, everything would be over directly, and all that he had to do was to press the trigger rather hard. ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... it is more difficult. There had not been much sympathy between them in recent years, yet he recalled his early boyhood on the farm, and it went against him to aim his piece at her. But after all it was his duty, and with an inaudible sigh he pulled the trigger. It was done. No one could have noticed his reluctance. It was quite likely that some of the soldiers that afternoon felt as much compunction as that. But as Sam went over all this long list of tests and passed them successfully, he felt, almost unconsciously, that he ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby
... the Indian carried his canteen; that he was moving again. Howard lifted his gun, holding it in both hands. He was afraid that even now his quarry would escape him, that Kish Taka would run and that he could not follow. His fingers found the trigger and pressed it as he sought to hold the wavering muzzle steady. There was a loud report that seemed to tear his brain to broken shreds, his arms dropped lax at his sides, the revolver fell, its muzzle burying itself in the sand. His knees sagged and he went down, ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... phrase of Sterne. Not one has a ruling passion, such as we read of in Pope. Who would not have expected them to be insipid likenesses of each other? No such thing. Harpagon is not more unlike to Jourdain, Joseph Surface is not more unlike to Sir Lucius O'Trigger, than every one of Miss Austen's young divines to all his reverend -brethren. And almost all this is done by touches so delicate that they elude analysis, that they defy the powers of description, and that we know them to exist only ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... on guard for something more than two hours when she was startled by three shots from somewhere lower down the mountain. Harriet pointed her rifle into the air and promptly pulled the trigger twice. Two heavy reports from her rifle caused an instant commotion in the camp of the Meadow-Brook Girls. The girls untangled themselves from their blankets and sprang up very much frightened. Their nerves were on edge after all they had experienced, and these shots, fired ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls in the Hills - The Missing Pilot of the White Mountains • Janet Aldridge
... the studied carelessness of her gesture that released the trigger of his indignation and made it leap out beyond control. There was in his mind the vision of those blood-baths of the Somme, where men had drowned in the putrescence and been flattened by shells like flies against ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... birds tearing a cloth with their beaks and feet, shrieking, tugging, and fighting, as if each wanted it for himself. 'Well,' said the Hunter, 'this is wonderful! It is just as the old woman said'; and he took his gun on his shoulder, pulled the trigger, and shot into the midst of them, so that their feathers flew about. Then the flock took flight with much screaming, but one fell dead, and the cloak fluttered down. Then the Hunter did as the old woman had told him: he cut open the bird, found its heart, swallowed ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang
... The four sportsmen pulled trigger almost simultaneously. The baronet and the colonel had each selected the same spot, the eye, as the object of their aim, and both had been equally successful, the shell in each case passing upward through the eyeball into the brain, exploding there and causing instant death. The professor's ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... question whether he can find us, though," said Murray. "By-the-bye, I do not think that the buoy was fired. If we can find the trigger we will let it off, and that will quickly ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... charged me I would imagine a million things. Once when a Mexican tigre, a jaguar, charged me I—But that is not this story. Boschen has the temperament for a great fisherman. He is phlegmatic. All day—and day after day—he sits there, on trigger, so to speak, waiting for the strike that will come. He is so constituted that it does not matter to him how soon or how late the strike comes. To me the wait, the suspense, grew to be maddening. Yet I stuck it out, and in this I claim a victory, ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... fire-place, got up and without saying a word, strode away. Wash Sanders was soon gone, after halting at the door to say that he might not be able to eat enough to keep a setting hen alive, but that he reckoned he could pull a trigger with any man that ever came over the pike. And now the Major, old Gid and the Englishman ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... was forbidden to get up or to touch his luggage. A soldier stood in the corridor of the carriage before the door of each of our compartments which were kept open, revolver in hand and finger on the trigger. The Russian Charge d'Affaires, the women and children and everyone were subjected to ...
— Fighting France • Stephane Lauzanne
... taken and tied, one of the men declared to me that he would have shot me dead just as sure as he lived, if I had moved one step after they commanded us to stop. He had his gun levelled at my breast, already cocked, and his finger on the trigger. The way they came to find us out was from the circumstance of Jack's taking the man's hat in connection with the advertisement. The man whose hat was taken was drunk; and the next morning when he came to ...
— Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, Written by Himself • Henry Bibb
... hear nothing except the noise he made, and as the fit of rage passed away his caution returned. He was putting himself at a disadvantage, because his lurking enemy could hear him and would no doubt try another shot if he came near enough. Stopping behind a fir trunk, with his finger on the trigger of the Browning pistol, he listened. At first no sound came out of the dark, but he presently heard a rustle some distance off. There was another man in the wood beside the fellow who had fired at him, but so long as he kept still and the ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... is more than I bargained for," exclaimed Uncle Denis; "now stand by for a different kind of sound. Don't be alarmed, it's only the barrel of my pistol going to try what sort of noise it can make." He pulled the trigger, when there was a flash and then there came a succession of crashing, thundering sounds echoed from every angle in those enormous vaults. Backwards and forwards tore the sounds, rolling and reverberating from wall to wall with terrific crashes. Half a dozen pieces of artillery fired in the ...
— With Axe and Rifle • W.H.G. Kingston
... good-humouredly, and therefore is so fortunate as to get more than his share of them, accordingly he goes by the name of Target, as every one takes a shot at him. Duke is so bad a shot, he has twice nearly pinked the marksman, so he is called Trigger. He always lays the blame of his want of skill on that unfortunate appendage of the gun, as it is either too hard or too quick on the finger. Then there is young Bulger, and as everybody pronounces it as if it had two 'g's' in it, he corrects them and says, 'g' soft, my ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... signal from the leader of the Boxers, about fifty rifles were fired point-blank at the wall. Fred raised his rifle, pressed the trigger, and the Boxer leader threw up his arms and fell on his face. Fred's shot was taken by the other defenders as the signal to fire, and ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... Nautilus's men presented me with a streamlined rifle whose butt was boilerplate steel, hollow inside, and of fairly large dimensions. This served as a tank for the compressed air, which a trigger-operated valve could release into the metal chamber. In a groove where the butt was heaviest, a cartridge clip held some twenty electric bullets that, by means of a spring, automatically took their places in the barrel of the ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... him to throw up his hands and surrender, when he made a slight movement that aroused Bim. This faithful sentinel sprang up with a loud bark. In the dim light Sheriff Riley had not noticed the dog, and he was so much upset by this unexpected challenge that his finger closed on the hair-trigger of his revolver. Fortunately his aim was so wild that no harm was done by the shot that followed. It was all the signal that the Sheriff's followers needed, and they immediately carried out their part of the ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... pay for it," says Low, wherewith he up with a musket, squinted along the barrel, and pulled the trigger. ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... him a burly fellow whom I knew well, and who had cause to know me afterwards—Max Holf, brother to Johann the keeper, and body-servant to his Highness. They were up to us: the duke reined up. I saw Sapt's finger curl lovingly towards the trigger. I believe he would have given ten years of his life for a shot; and he could have picked off Black Michael as easily as I could a barn-door fowl in a farmyard. I laid my hand on his arm. He nodded reassuringly: he was always ready to sacrifice ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... stepped up close to the car and with my left hand made a grab at him. It was a fruitless attempt. I found my wrist held in a grip of steel. I raised my right with the revolver. I was just a moment late in pulling the trigger, for he knocked up my hand and the bullet went wide. Before I had another chance, he twisted the weapon out of my grasp with a wrench that numbed my arm to the shoulder. How he managed to see in the dark was a mystery to me. He must have eyes like a ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster
... up by tender mother or sister, and lamented over,—how shall we feel romantic in the midst of a shower of bullets? Enough done, if our vanity or sense of duty hold us there in any spirit, so that we do the needed trigger-work, and not turn tail and disgrace ourselves. Even the veteran's satisfaction, since the laying aside of steel armor, is not much, to be sure, or is gathered after the battle. There is some savage ecstasy, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... What did that mean? It was a mystery to us, but the same idea struck us all, that he had been killed, and that the Prussians were blowing the trumpet to draw us into an ambush. We therefore returned to the cottage, keeping a careful look out, with our fingers on the trigger, and hiding under the branches, but his wife, in spite of our entreaties, rushed on, leaping like a tigress. She thought that she had to avenge her husband, and had fixed the bayonet to her rifle, and we lost sight ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... step and halted; he stooped and laid Garry's gun at the foot of a tree and went on again. Once he made out a movement behind a nearer tangle and saw the branches shake before a heavy body that was forcing slowly through them. His own rifle came up; his finger was on the trigger when he thought better of it. Old Tom, more than a half-score of years before, had switched him well, not so very far from that very spot, because he had not made certain first of the target at ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... The myth of their own heavier numbers kept them from panic. Ragged fellows with feet bare in the stirrups leaned over to slash at heads between the tasselled stalks. They squirmed like snakes from under kicking horses, and fainting, got a carbine to the shoulder at aim, and someway, pulled the trigger. Then they were taken in the rear. One-half of the Contra forces, mounted, had waited under the sapling growth of the nearest foothill. Now they sprang from cover, bloodthirsty whelps trailing the ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... am a sinner," exclaimed Sir Everard, springing to his feet, and knocking the butt of his rifle on the ground with a movement of impatience. "Sambo, you young scoundrel, it was all your fault,—you moved your shoulder as I pulled the trigger. Thank Heaven, however, the aim of the Indian appears to have been no better, although the sharp whistling of his ball proves his piece to have been well ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... an experience could trigger so strong a reaction. Yet Fenwick was aware that Baker's attitude toward Ellerbee and his device was not merely one aspect of Baker's character. His attitude in these ...
— The Great Gray Plague • Raymond F. Jones
... cried Grubb! "pitch into him!" and drawing his trigger he accidentally knocked off the bird, while Spriggs discharged the contents of his gun through ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... head slowly. "Crime doesn't out until it's committed," he said. "You'll remember how fast we got here after you pulled the trigger. But you're clean, Hammond. Just come to the inquest ...
— Stop Look and Dig • George O. Smith
... politic to be too quick on the trigger—they could just continue to hang around and be ready to pounce down on their intended prey after the fashion of a hungry eagle striking a fat duck that had been selected out of the flock ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... whether the stone from the cliff should fall on point A or point B—the same sort of process that guided the pen to make legible and effective writing instead of illegible and ineffective scrawls—the same kind of control that determines when and where a trigger shall be pulled so as to secure the anticipated slaughter of a bird. So far as energy is concerned, the explosion and the trigger-pulling are the same identical operations whether the aim be exact or random. It is intelligence which directs; it is ...
— Life and Matter - A Criticism of Professor Haeckel's 'Riddle of the Universe' • Oliver Lodge
... it not a needless jeopardy To meet them thus? The sentiments of these We do not know, and the first trigger pressed May ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... his own bungalow and began cleaning a rifle. He told the servant that he was going to shoot buck in the morning. Naturally he fumbled with the trigger, and shot himself through the head— accidentally. The apothecary sent in a report to my chief, and Jevins is buried somewhere out there. I'd have wired to you, Spurstow, if you could ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... his chest, Dartie had pulled the trigger several times. It was not loaded. Dropping it with an imprecation, he had muttered: "For shake o' the children," and sank into a chair. Winifred, having picked up the revolver, gave him some soda water. The liquor had a magical effect. Life had illused ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... elephants. I had entrusted to them my favourite rifles, and had instructed them in their use; each man paid particular regard to the rifle that he carried, and, as several were of the same pattern, they had marked them with small pieces of rag tied round the trigger guards. This esprit de corps was most beneficial to the preservation of the arms, which were kept in admirable order. Mahomet, the dragoman, rode my spare horse, and carried my short double-barrelled rifle, slung across his back, in the place of his pistols and gun, ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... had fired the first shot against Sumter and returned to his Virginia farm when his State seceded, was a type of these ruined, desperate men. On the day that Lee surrendered he placed the muzzle of his gun in his mouth, pulled the trigger with his foot, and blew his ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... his head. In an overpowering rage he whirled about, throwing his rifle to his shoulder. A man detached from the group was lowering his arm; and, holding the sights hard on the other's metal-buttoned, twill jacket, Howat pulled the trigger. There was only an answering ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... flinging their muskets away, bounded forward sword in hand with a terrific yell. The soldiers had not time to fix their bayonets in the smoking muzzles of their muskets before the claymores were among them and the battle was over.[103] On the left wing scarcely a trigger was pulled: the men broke and ran like sheep. The famous Scots Brigade, in fact, set the example of flight. Their officers behaved like brave soldiers. Balfour, abandoned by his men, defended himself for a time against overwhelming odds, till he was cut down by a young ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... strange," said Bastin, "but all of a sudden my arm and hand are quite well again. I suppose it must have been 'pins and needles' or something of that sort which made me throw away the pistol and pull the trigger when I didn't mean ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... days but the later, final development was completely new and shocking to him. Advertising had pressured more and more people to replace goods before they wore out with other goods that were, essentially, no improvement on their predecessors! Eventually just the word "NEW" was enough to trigger buying panics. ...
— The Junkmakers • Albert R. Teichner
... another downward, the mouth of the purse, which was bound with massive silver plate, opened and gave admittance to his hand. He made me remark, as if to break short the subject on which Bailie Jarvie had spoken, that a small steel pistol was concealed within the purse, the trigger of which was connected with the mounting, and made part of the machinery, so that the weapon would certainly be discharged, and in all probability its contents lodged in the person of any one, who, being unacquainted with ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... saw nothing more; he only knew that he raised his arm and pressed with all his strength upon the trigger. Soon he saw a little smoke before him; his opponent was still standing in the same position, and there was a small white cloud above his head. They had both fired. All was over! His second and the doctor felt him, unbuttoned his garments, and asked anxiously: "Are you ...
— Bel Ami • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... pistol and he looked towards Bellingham with an inexorable face. As the second-hand stole round, he raised his hand, and the finger twitched upon the trigger. ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... goes West to play the bad cowboy, is liable to find that he has been borrowing trouble. He finds out that an altercation is likely to bring him up facing the muzzle of a pistol in the hands of a man much more ready to pull the trigger off-hand than to waste time in preliminary talk. He soon learns the lesson of circumspection and, if he survives the process, his behavior is usually modified to fit his new surroundings. A tragic illustration of the results that may come ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... tallest of the Indians, dismissed his attendants, left the Indian trail, and struck out for the Forks by compass, with Gist as his companion. A misguided red man, hoping for glory from the white chief's scalp, prepared an ambush, and as Washington passed within a few paces, pulled the trigger on him. He did not know that the destiny of half the world hung upon his aim; but indeed the bullet was never molded that could draw blood from Washington. The red man missed; and the next moment Gist had him helpless, with a knife at ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... to do it, Billy. It's to save you torture, old fellow, just to save you useless suffering, Billy." He drew his pistol from his belt, took careful aim just behind the pony's ear, and, turning his head away, pulled the trigger. ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... quickly to the door and opened it and looked out on the night. There was no hall, the sitting-room is straight on the street. He took a great deep breath and came back again, and then he laughed, "Guess I'm a pretty fool," he said; "I've had them pointed direct at me with the finger on the trigger, too, and never turned a hair, but, by the Lord, to see your flower face close to that grim thing makes me kind of sick." It moved me deeply, Mamma; ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... risked the count's. There was one moment when my hand was on my trigger, and my soul very near the sin of justifiable homicide. But my tale is done. The count is now on the river, and will soon be on the salt seas, though not bound to Norway, as I had first intended. I could not inflict that frigid voyage ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
Copyright © 2025 e-Free Translation.com
|
|
|
