"Desperado" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in the room now, Farrington with his trusty lieutenant, and behind them the one-eyed Italian desperado whom Poltavo remembered seeing in the power house one day, when he had been allowed the privilege ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... in the very midst of his earnestness, so that what just before might have seemed to him a thing most momentous, now seems but a part of the general .. joke. There is nothing like the perils of whaling to breed this free and easy sort of genial, desperado philosophy; and with it I now regarded this whole voyage of the Pequod, and the great White Whale its object. Queequeg, said I, when they had dragged me, the last man, to the deck, and I was still shaking myself in my jacket to fling off the water; Queequeg, ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... the invaders, a council of war was held, to decide whether it were best for a hundred and eighty men to pursue five hundred Indians and Canadians, through a region where every mile presented the most favorable opportunities for concealment in ambush. Gerty was a desperado who was to be feared as well as hated. Contrary to the judgment of both Colonels Todd and Boone, it was decided to pursue the Indians. There was no difficulty in following the trail of so large a band, many of whom ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... mirrors blinded his eyes; even the faint perfume seemed to him an unhallowed incense, and turned him sick and giddy. Accustomed as he had been to disease and misery in its humblest places and meanest surroundings, the wounded desperado lying in laces and fine linen seemed to him monstrous and unnatural. It required all his self-abnegation, all his sense of duty, all his deep pity, and all the instinctive tact which was born of ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte
... no harm. I accepted their kindness; they gave me my first start in business, which brought me here. It was not much of a deceit," she continued, with a slight tremble of her pretty lip, "to prefer to pass as the widow of a dead desperado than to be known as the divorced wife of a living convict. It has hurt no one, and it ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... civilised World-Market coveted a country not yet in its clutches, some transparent pretext was found—the suppression of a slavery different from and not so cruel as that of commerce; the pushing of a religion no longer believed in by its promoters; the 'rescue' of some desperado or homicidal madman whose misdeeds had got him into trouble amongst the natives of the 'barbarous' country—any stick, in short, which would beat the dog at all. Then some bold, unprincipled, ignorant adventurer was found (no difficult ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... to the town with a steely eye of distrust; to watch each one furtively, to shadow him in his walks, and to believe during his sojourn that he might be "Red Mike, alias James K. Brown, wanted for safe-breaking at Muskegon, Michigan; reward, $1000," or some like desperado. ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... comrade in that fashion was abhorrent even to the slack conscience of this desperado. So he grudgingly hefted the burden of the senseless figure and plodded under its weight ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... all the prisoners at once, all except Hinkey," Sergeant Noll reported back to his chum and to Lieutenant Prescott. "The leader of the gang is a half-popular fellow with some classes here in the mountains. Despite the fact that he's a desperado, he is often surprisingly good-natured, and always game when he loses. His name is Griller—Butch Griller, he's called. His crew are called the Moccasin Gang, because Griller has always preferred that his men wear moccasins instead of shoes. ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... his. He was too heedless of his good name, and too blind to the truth that though right and wrong may be near neighbours, yet the line that separates them is of an awful sacredness. If Robespierre passed for a hypocrite by reason of his scruple, Danton seemed a desperado by his airs of 'immoral thoughtlessness.' But the world forgives much to a royal size, and Danton was one of the men who strike deep notes. He had that largeness of motive, fulness of nature, and capaciousness of mind, which will always redeem a ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... stop a mob! Can Jack Fairfax stop a mob! Well, I should smile! Ex-desperado—nineteen scalps on his string. Can he! Oh, ...
— A Double Barrelled Detective Story • Mark Twain
... folly of putting any trust in a desperado. It was through Clancy's efforts that Katz had been freed from his dangerous predicament in Captain Hogan's bungalow. But Katz did not give any consideration to that when the time came for him to turn the tables and secure ...
— Owen Clancy's Happy Trail - or, The Motor Wizard in California • Burt L. Standish
... myself saying, as if from far away, perfectly calm and composed, and in English that was almost academic—"my dear man, put up your gun and I will go with you quietly. I am only a tramp and not a desperado." ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... but made no answer. His thoughts were doubtless serious enough, as he recollected that heavy stone which Jeff had not dared drop while descending from the tree; also the ugly look of the desperado's face. ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne
... contained an account of the justifiable killing of the notorious desperado and ex-convict, Australian Pete, by a courageous young miner by the name of Fowler. "An act of firmness and daring," said the "Pioneer," "which will go far to counteract the terrorism produced by those ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... both of them. Esther's being a lady had, she thought, nothing whatever to do with her stealing a necklace, if she happened to like necklaces. She considered herself a lady, but she could also see herself, under temptation, doing a desperado's deeds. Not stealing a necklace: that was tawdry larceny. But she could see herself trapping Esther in a still place and cutting her dusky hair off so that she'd betray no more men. For she began to suspect that Alston Choate, too, was caught in the lure of Esther's inexplicable charm. Lydia was ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... the cut-and-dried, melodramatic sort of thing you read about, or used to read about, in the early days, with a couple of Winchesters poking through the scrub pines to represent the gang in hiding, and one lone, crippled desperado to come down to the footlights in the speaking part. ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... the shock, falling even as I did upon the body under me, stunned me for several moments. My captain lay motionless. Then, when a sudden rush of cool water poured over us, I came to my senses and started to my feet. In another moment I had passed a line around the desperado, and was dragging him under the lee of the windlass, where I finally made him fast to ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... instant force. The deeds of his character could not be represented as the final result of long-inherited proclivities; but they could appear between their motive and their consequence, like the draw—aim—fire! of the Western desperado,—as short, sharp, and conclusive. In other words, the conditions of American life, as he saw it, justified a short story, or any number of them, but not a novel; and the fact that he did afterwards attempt a novel only served to confirm his original position. I think that the ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... strongly opposed to the truce, and confident in his opinions at this crisis, was not a desperado. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... placed the two Jesuses side by side on his platform, what a sight it was! The political desperado, stained with murder, there; the Healer and Teacher, who had gone about continually doing good, the Son of man, the Son of God, here. Now which will you have—Jesus or Barabbas? And the cry came ringing from ten ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker
... Sutherland and Caithness, prevailed upon Murdo Riabhach, Kintail's illegitimate son, to join him, and, according to one authority, became "a common depredator," while according to another, he became what was perhaps not inconsistent in those days with the character of a desperado - a person of considerable state and property. They often "spoiled" Caithness. The Earl of Cromarty, referring to this raid, says that Paul "desired to make a spoil on some neighbouring country, a barbarous custom but most ordinary in those days, as thinking thereby ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... was resurrected to serve as foundations for malicious fabrications. Daylight was frankly amazed at the new interpretation put upon all he had accomplished and the deeds he had done. From an Alaskan hero he was metamorphosed into an Alaskan bully, liar, desperado, and all around "bad Man." Not content with this, lies upon lies, out of whole cloth, were manufactured about him. He never replied, though once he went to the extent of disburdening his mind to half a dozen reporters. "Do your damnedest," he told them. "Burning Daylight's ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... desperado that he was, his consummate aplomb nobody could deny, except Daniel, now capering and swaggering ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... instant the two foreigners sprang at him. One, swinging the porter off his feet, seized the newcomer's right arm, and, helped by his comrade, endeavored to force him back into the vehicle. The effort failed, however, so the second desperado drew a knife and plunged it deliberately into the unfortunate man's neck. It was a fearsome stroke, intended both to silence and to kill, and, with a gurgling cry, its victim collapsed in ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... at the home of Jasper Staggs. Old Jasper, in his earlier days, had been a town marshal, and it was his boast that he had arrested Steve Day, the desperado who had choked the sheriff and defied the law. This great feat was remembered by the public, and old Jasper nursed it as a social pension. But it did not bring in revenue sufficient to sustain life, so he made a pretense of collecting difficult ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... the world!" cried Dan Anderson. "They've got out. You can't keep them in. How did Charlie Allen get killed over at Sumner? Woman in it. When the boys arrested this fellow Garcia over at the Nogales, what was it all about? A woman. What set the desperado Arragon on the warpath so the boys had to kill him? That was a woman, too. What made Bill Hilliard kill Pete Anderson? Woman moved in within fifty miles of them on the Nogales. Here's Curly; good ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... convents, villas and estates; there you will find the most desolate huts of the moujiks and lonely hermit caves in the wilds of Siberia. Here you will meet the most selfish chinovnik, the most fanatic desperado or reckless bureaucrat; there you face the noblest men and women, supermen, physically and mentally. You will find that all Russian life is full of ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... the road grew heavier. The horses had to slow down to a walk and the wheels sank deep into the sand, which now lay in long ridges, like waves, where the last high wind had drifted it. Two hours brought the party to Pedro's Cup, named for a Mexican desperado who had once held the sheriff at bay there. The Cup was a great amphitheater, cut out in the hills, its floor smooth and packed hard, dotted ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... and Iowa were not likely to be of a desirable class. The banks of the Mississippi River had long been hiding-places for pirate bands, whose exploits were notorious, and the "half-breed tract" was a known place of refuge for the horse thief, the counterfeiter, and the desperado of any calling. The settlement of the Mormons in such a region, with an invitation to the world at large to join them and be saved, was a piece of good luck for this lawless class, who found a covering cloak in the new baptism, ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... surprised him still more, as did his bearing. His face was dark, his eye was dark and penetrating and passionate; his mouth was reckless and weak, his build was graceful, and his voice was low and even—the voice of a gentleman; he was the refined type of the Western gentleman-desperado, as Crittenden had imagined it from fiction and hearsay. As the soldier turned away, the old Sergeant saved him the question he was about ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... of Wilson's book is in the Edinburgh for January, 1830, with this reference to Lamb's criticisms: "Captain Singleton is a hardened, brutal desperado, without one redeeming trait, or almost human feeling; and, in spite of what Mr. Lamb says of his lonely musings and agonies of a conscience-stricken repentance, we find nothing ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... brave enough now; a very desperado in the daylight. I laughed at Falkenberg for his superstition, and told him science had disposed of all such ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... this suit you? I'll go down to my stateroom and stop there until we land in Italy; and, if you like, just to be on the safe side with such a desperado as I am, you can put a guard outside my door. But first, you'll send a sheaf of marconigrams for me in both directions. You're welcome to read them, of course, before they go. Then when we get to Naples, my friend, Mr. Herriott, will meet the steamer. He is second secretary ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... of their lands; and on every side English settlers were impinging on the old Irish families. A bold man might indeed keep the forces of law at bay for a time; but James McMurrough, notwithstanding the folly into which he had been led, was no desperado. He had no desire to live with a rope round his neck, to flee to the bog on the least alarm, and, in the issue, to give his ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... Bobby, wasn't it?" sang out a deriding voice that set the crowd jeering anew. "You'll git promoted, you will! See it in all the evenin' papers—oh, yus! ''Orrible hand-to-hand struggle with a desperado. Brave constable has 'arf a quid's worth out of an infuriated ruffian!' My hat! won't your missis be proud when you take her to ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... bouncing desperado, A bomb, a stink-pot, a granado; That's ready primed, and charged to break, And mischief do for ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... did not really believe that Andy O'Malley would attempt any reprisal against him personally. Of course, the Western desperado might feel himself abused by Tom, especially in the matter of Tom's use of his ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Locomotive - or, Two Miles a Minute on the Rails • Victor Appleton
... that the bravest and most dangerous deeds are done by daylight. I could tell you of some, as scaling castles, making prisoners, and the like, where one who shall be nameless hath run higher risk and gained greater favour than any desperado in the train of desperate Charles of Burgundy. And if it please his Majesty to remain behind, and in the background, while such things are doing, he hath the more leisure of spirit to admire, and the more liberality of hand to reward the adventurers, whose ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... once discharged the ruffian from his employ. The man afterwards became a noted desperado, and was quite ...
— The Life of Hon. William F. Cody - Known as Buffalo Bill The Famous Hunter, Scout and Guide • William F. Cody
... his frame tightened. He saw the beginning of the grooves in the barrel of the pistol and the gray cones of the bullets at the side in the cylinder; he saw the cruel, black, drunken eyes of the young desperado. It was all in a flash. He had not a chance for ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... course indicated in the verbal order of the flag-officer. Christy felt that he had had a narrow escape from death, or at least a severe wound, at the hands of the desperado who had invaded his cabin. Flanger had escaped, after he had been put on board of the flag-ship, with the assistance of Galvinne; and he appeared not to have taken the trouble to render the same service to his confederate. The ships' companies of the two steamers were inclined to converse, giving ...
— Stand By The Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... who had not cried yet, began to do so. The elder Toodles, who appeared to have been meditating a rescue, unclenched their fists. The younger Toodles clustered round their mother's gown, and peeped from under their own chubby arms at their desperado brother and his unknown friend. Everybody blessed the gentleman with the beautiful teeth, who wanted to ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... Finally, at the risk of losing an eye which I justly value, I peered around and into the room. There was no desperado there: only a fresh-faced, trembling-lipped servant, sitting on the edge of her bed, with a quilt around her shoulders and the empty ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... devotion than his for Dictator Jaffier, to hear Monkhouse tell it; and how Celestino Rey had reached his ripe years, with such hatred in the world, was by no means the least of Equatorian novelties.... Here was a desperado in the sere, shaking for the need of drink, when he first appeared to Bedient. On the final forenoon of the latter's stay at the Inn, he sat with Monkhouse in the big carriage doorway on the street-level. The old man was elaborating a winsome plan ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... remarked Bill Black, presently. Bill could not keep quiet for long. He was a typical Texas desperado, had never been anything else. He was stoop-shouldered and bow-legged from much riding; a wiry little man, all muscle, with a square head, a hard face partly black from scrubby beard and red from ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... This noted desperado, although not more than twenty-six or seven years old, had the horrible fame of a score of murders. His appearance mated well with his frightful history and reputation. His intensely black eyes, blacker even than the ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... put on the true look of a desperado, resolved on mischief if opposed: but that, after pausing a moment, he began, with a kind of humorous anger, to rub the side of his face, as if it were benumbed] Faith, on recollection, I believe I got a bit of a cold last ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... judged from his companion's manner that he had not been particularly pleased at meeting this alleged desperado in broad daylight, but he courteously refrained from any such insinuation, and as supper was just then announced, the young men adjourned to the dining car, and the experiences of Mr. Rutherford were, for ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... his lawless career this supernaturally gifted desperado, having collected a band of followers, fastened round their ankles such heavy weights that they were at first totally unable to move; but, as the fruit of continual exertions, they by-and-by managed to creep a few paces, later on they were able to walk easily, and ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... light, shot from the train in the darkness, I thought I saw the face of my Dolores, with a white gag across the mouth, but the idea seemed so preposterous that I did not give it another thought, thinking it to be some phantom of an overwrought brain, and the woman some light-o'-love of the desperado. ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties
... this blended command and appeal apparently struck the fugitive curiously. He fixed his lowering eyes on the major as if in gloomy doubt if he were really the reckless desperado he had been represented. That this man—twice an assassin and the ruler of outlaws as reckless as himself—should approach him in this ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... three captains still uncaught, and even one or two men of whom others spoke not too highly, like Craven, and "that man Gleason," to whom Blake would not speak at all. Then there were Steele and Kelly from Wickenberg and Date Creek, and Strong was to come up from Almy, bringing with him in chains the desperado, 'Patchie Sanchez, secreted by his own people when charged with the killing of the interpreter, but tamely sold when a price was set on his head. And the commander sent still another missive to Archer, whom the luckier general held ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... behind his humor—though he used it sparingly. At a certain town in Texas there lived a desperado who had threatened to kill him on sight. The town was not on the route of his speaking dates but he went out of his way to include it. A great concourse assembled to hear him. He spoke in the open air and, as he began, observed his man leaning against a tree armed to the teeth and waiting ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... moral, or acquired courage, is a very different thing. A man who is fortunate in the world and has a sacrifice to make, if he conducts himself with spirit, is also more entitled to our admiration than a mere desperado. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 533, Saturday, February 11, 1832. • Various
... "Forever," and shout it at him! She was desperate enough to try her chances at shooting him if she but had the pistols, and was sure they were loaded—a desperate chance indeed against the best shot on the Pacific coast, and a desperado at that. ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill
... murderer of their companion, came over them in a blind wave of fury. The sun, now well above the horizon, shone warmly down upon them. They were in the midst of an infrequent Winter thaw. The full current of the river was between them and the desperado. It might be days, a week, before ice would again form; yet, connecting the island with the western bank, it was even now in place. Blair had but to wait until cover of night, and depart in peace—on foot, to be sure, but in the course of days a man ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... spectre of the Brocken, with long hair white as snow, appeared close to me, and at the same moment there was the flash of a pistol close to my ear, and I recognized 'Mountain Jim,' frozen from head to foot, looking a century old with his snowy hair. It was 'ugly' altogether, certainly a 'desperado's' grim jest, and it was best to accept it as such, though I had just cause for displeasure. He stormed and scolded, dragged me off the pony—for my hands and feet were numb with cold—took the bridle, and went off at a rapid stride, so that ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... would treat him with the greatest tenderness, then again, at some wayward action of the idiot, he would burst upon him with an awful explosion of passion. The old man had evidently been a reckless desperado in other days, and many in the village suspected strongly that he had once been a pirate. He was addicted to drinking, and now and then, when bitten by the adder, would talk strangely. He would commence narrating some wonderful hurricane he had ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... very last apparition Reginald could have looked for. He had given up all idea of seeing the young desperado any more. ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... wish," said the desperado, "and if you won't walk away quietly wif us, we'uns will have to tote ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick
... safely in that city, Barbara felt it would be a weight lifted from her mind, for she really was not very happy at sharing in an enterprise which, even to her inexperience, seemed more fitted for some desperado ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie
... of this and but done that, of her stupid failure to have pounced, when she had first meant to, in season. She abused the author of their wrongs—recognising thus too Monteith's right to loathe him—for the desperado he assuredly had proved, but with a vulgarity of analysis and an incapacity for the higher criticism, as her listener felt it to be, which made him determine resentfully, almost grimly, that she shouldn't have the benefit ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... de Toledo, treasurer to the queen, and Juan de Belalcazar, a sturdy friar, who were present, grappled and struggled with the desperado, and immediately the guards who had conducted him from the marques de Cadiz fell upon him and cut him ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... foot in. The man with the combustible whiskers. Tad overhears an exciting conversation. His duty not clear to him. Attacked by a desperado. ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Alaska - The Gold Diggers of Taku Pass • Frank Gee Patchin
... will when I've got through with ye," replied the desperado with brutal coolness. "I'll take some more o' that meat—an' don't you let it burn, neither. Where's the sugar for the coffee? I'll get a bigger club if ye don't look spry," and so the tramp was served with his meal. "Now bring me ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... think I don't know those wild mountaineers? They are perfectly chivalrous, and I could feel a great deal safer in leaving my wife in care of that desperado than with one of ...
— A Woman Tenderfoot • Grace Gallatin Seton-Thompson
... desperado in that lawless country, and knowing we had a lot of the yellow ore on board, I knew the outlaw ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XII, Jan. 3, 1891 • Various
... actress dislocated her thigh bone. When she had in part recovered from the accident, the victim made up a purse of sixty pounds, subscribed among her friends, and sent it to the poverty-stricken family of the desperado. How Nance would have laughed at the story had she been at the theatre to hear it told. But there was no more merriment for this daughter of smiles; she was lying cold and still amid the stony grandeur of ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... the moment he entered the cabin, and realized that some devilment was afoot. Every town along this frontier has his record, and I've met him maybe a dozen times in the past three years. He is known as 'Black Bart'; is a gambler by profession, a desperado by reputation, and a cur by nature. Just now I suspect him of being even deeper in the mire ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... made up his pack and struck straight back for the nearest town. There he asked for tidings of a certain Black Jack, and there he got what he wanted in heaps. Everyone knew Black Jack—too well! There followed a brief summary of the history of the desperado and his countless crimes, unspeakable tales of cunning and courage and ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... in the man's hat—they stood out in relief—three white, two green. I observed the crown of his hat, which was of conical shape, according to the fashion supposed to have been favoured by Guido Fawkes. I wondered what he was looking up at. It couldn't be at the stars; such a desperado was neither astrologer nor astronomer. It must be at the high gallows, and he was going to be hanged presently. Would the executioner come into possession of his conical crowned hat and plume of feathers? I counted the feathers again—three white, ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... his own lips that he had been an apothecary. He carried the photograph of his betrothed in a pocket-book, and remarked that it did not do her justice. The cut of his head stood out from among the passengers with an air of startling strangeness. The first natural instinct was to take him for a desperado; but although the features, to our Western eyes, had a barbaric and unhomely cast, the eye both reassured and touched. It was large and very dark and soft, with an expression of dumb endurance, as if it had often looked on desperate circumstances and never ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... against Rome which were perpetually sputtering up and being trampled out by an armed heel. There had been bloodshed, in which he had himself taken part ('a murderer,' Acts iii. 14). And this coarse, red-handed desperado is the people's favourite, because he embodied their notions and aspirations, and had been bold enough to do what every man of them would have done if he had dared. He thought and felt, as they did, that freedom was to be won by the sword. The popular hero is as a mirror which reflects the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... was arraigned before a jury, tried for his life. He proved the accident by an existing friendship-he was honourably acquitted. His employer, after reproaching him for his proceedings, again admitted him into his employment. Such, however, was his inclination to display the desperado, that before the expiration of another year he killed a negro, shot two balls at one of his fellows, one of which was well nigh proving fatal, and left the state. His recklessness, his previous acts of malignity, his want of position, all left him little hope of ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... frightened, any such thing!" said Tom, his eyes flashing. "I am not frightened even now, sir. I was surprised, for they came upon me so suddenly, and the leaped at me as if I were a desperado, and naturally I may have seemed a bit confused in my answers to their questions. But I wasn't ...
— The Dare Boys of 1776 • Stephen Angus Cox
... "A desperado named Vandemark, well known to the annals of local crime as 'Cow Vandemark,' was arrested last Wednesday for leading the riots which have cleaned out those industrious citizens who have been jumping claims in this county. A reporter of the Journal, which finds out everything ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... 1915. Imbros. Left camp after breakfast and boarded the redoubtable Wolverine under that desperado Lieutenant-Commander Keyes. The General Staff came alongside and we made our way to Cape Helles through a blinding dust storm—at least, the dust came right out to sea, but it was on shore ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... had been complied with; that their pay was going on; that they had no special favor to expect, and certainly were not in the way to obtain any by such a rude manner of application. As the fellow became outrageously insolent, the Captain drew his sword, which the desperado snatched out of his hand, broke in two pieces, threw the hilt at him, and made off for the barrack, where, taking his gun, which was loaded, and crying out "One and all!" five others, with their guns, rushed out, and, at the distance of about ten yards, the ringleader shot at the General. The ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... shot resounded, and the ladies that had crowded to the front windows plainly distinguished the cry, "The Judge is killed! Jim Burns has shot Judge Pierce!" and the mob rushed toward the mouth of Danville street in pursuit of the desperado, a noted character ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... burglars made great excitement in Damietta, and the part taken by Ben Mayberry once more placed his name in everyone's mouth. It was he who discovered the criminals, and was the direct means of securing the desperado, Dandy Sam, the leader ...
— The Telegraph Messenger Boy - The Straight Road to Success • Edward S. Ellis
... sometimes on one side of the line and sometimes on the other. There is a possibility always that complications may arise from that sort of thing. Our officers might go over into the Mexican territory and seize a desperado there, or they might come over into ours. Still, I don't think anything will happen to bring on a war such as we had ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr
... every stride, and the fresh horses from Caswell City would probably ride him down before he had gone five miles. Even in case they failed in this, there was the little town of Ganton, which would be ready with its men and mounts. Perhaps they could hem in the desperado from the front and shoot him down there, as he skirted along the river. At the worst they would furnish the fresh horses and the fifteen hardy riders would spur at full speed south along the river. If again, by some miracle, the black stallion lasted out ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... whence the long, low range of buildings, under that tall chimney, was so plainly in view. Still less relishing the idea of a tramp through the woods themselves, the certain haunt—somewhere—of some skulking desperado. No, they would take the shore itself—open to the wide firmament, clear of all snares, and free ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... herself was concerned, she knew that at any time she might still fall a victim to a Venetian desperado, or to a Florentine assassin, and under every friendly guise ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... Desperado Walked on the Prado, And there he met his enemy. He pulled out a knife, a, And let out his life, a, And fled for his own across ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... in the illuminating light of her later insight into Kells and his kind, she had to meet him with all that was catlike and subtle and devilish at the command of a woman. She had to win him, foil him, kill him—or go to her death. She was no girl to be dragged into the mountain fastness by a desperado and made a plaything. Her horror and terror had worked its way deep into the depths of her and uncovered powers never suspected, never before required in her scheme of life. She had no longer any fear. She matched herself against this man. She anticipated ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... outmanoeuvred in the new National Assembly and his authority undermined. To prevent this a fresh assassination was decided upon. The ablest Southern leader, Sung Chiao-jen, just as he was entraining for Peking with a number of Parliamentarians at Shanghai, was coolly shot in a crowded railway station by a desperado who admitted under trial that he had been paid 200 pounds for the job by the highest authority in the land, the evidence produced in court including telegrams from Peking which left no doubt as to who had ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... buccaneer, burglar, depredator, despoiler, footpad, filibuster, forager, desperado, corsair, freebooter, highwayman, picaroon, marauder, pillager, pirate, plunderer, raider, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... Treasure," which, with a high-flown name, and a most melodramatic and commonplace ending, shows yet great power in the delineation and grouping of characters. The young school-girls are as real as those of Charlotte Bronte; and although the typical maidenly desperado is present,—lying and cheating with such hopeless obviousness that it seems as if they must all have had to look very hard the other way to avoid finding her out,—yet there is certainly much promise and power ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... exhibition. As many, it was stolen by moonshiners. For years now, it had remained in secret. Marshal Stone yearned to recapture the Burns still. There was no reason whatsoever for believing it to be in the possession of Hodges, yet it might as easily be with that desperado as with another. There was at least the possibility. The marshal, as he rode north before the dawn next morning, felt a new kindling of hope. It seemed to him almost certain that the opportunity was at hand to satisfy one ambition ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... treadmill,—a viciously brutal invention,—of bread and water and dark cells and the rest of the barbarities which society hit upon with such singular perversity as a means of humanising its derelicts. The prison record of Smith, the "revengeful desperado" who spent half a year in solitary confinement, is probably of as mild a punishment ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... and engaged in conversation, some in a loud, braggadocio, swaggering tone, others in low, murmuring voices, audible only to themselves, and still others in confidential whispers. Of those who have figured heretofore in the incidents of this story, we may mention the hard-featured, desperado-looking fellows who had conceived a dislike to Duval, as being very earnestly engaged in some matter among themselves, doubtless of a vile character; it would seem, too, from their manner, that others than themselves were not to be admitted into their counsels, ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison
... was something lunatic and strange in the youth's glare also; and it will sometimes happen that an oppressed and cowed man in his extremity will shrug his meekness from him and become, in a breath, a desperado. This had its place in the ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... desperado put up a stiff fight against Diggs and myself and, warming up to the subject, I went into the details of a hand to hand struggle that made them all shiver ...
— Back to the Woods • Hugh McHugh
... difficult to believe that this wharf a few months before had been the scene of a bloody tragedy which involved the shooting of "Soapy Smith," the renowned robber and desperado. On the contrary, it seemed quite like any other town of its size in the States. The air was warm and delightful in midday, but toward night the piercing wind swept down from the high mountains, ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... September, 1861, sacked and in part burnt Humboldt, for which dastardly and quite unwarrantable deed, James G. Blunt, acting under orders from Lane, took speedy vengeance; and the world was soon well rid of the instigator and leader of the outrage, the desperado, ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... in his chair with a smile of mockery. His attitude brought up the superfluous flesh about his chin and the roll of fat at the back of his neck. With his moustache en croc, and his shoebrush hair, I have rarely beheld a more sensual-looking desperado. ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... easier to speak out in the first hour of discovery. He almost regretted not having made a row at once. But then the very monstrosity of the disclosure . . . Why! He could hardly face it himself, let alone pointing it out to somebody else. Moreover, with a desperado of that sort one never knew. The object was not to get him out (that was as well as done already), but to step into his place. Bizarre as the thought seemed he might have shown fight. A fellow up to working such a fraud would have ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... night watches, would enter into arguments, to prove that there was nothing to be believed; nothing to be loved, and nothing worth living for; but every thing to be hated, in the wide world. He was a horrid desperado; and like a wild Indian, whom he resembled in his tawny skin and high cheek bones, he seemed to run amuck at heaven and earth. He was a Cain afloat; branded on his yellow brow with some inscrutable curse; and going about corrupting and searing every ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... remember, it is not smart to have a new pipe. So soon as he buys it, the Blade takes his pipe home, puts it on a glowing fire to burn the rim, scrapes this away, burns it again, and so on until it looks a sullen desperado of a pipe—a pipe with a wild past. Sometimes he cannot smoke a pipe. In this case he may—for his stomach's sake—smoke a cigarette. And, besides, there is something cynical about a cigarette. For the very young Blade ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... Originator—The Firm of Majors, Russell, & Waddell—The Route— Organization—Its Paraphernalia—Daring Riders—J. G. Kelley's Story— Colonel Cody's Story—Incidents and Stories—Old Whipsaw and Little Cayuse, the Pawnee—Slade, the Desperado—The Lynching of Slade— Establishment of ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... Santa Rosa, one of my occasional hearers was John I—. He was deputy-sheriff of Sonoma County, and was noted for his quiet and determined courage. He was a man of few words, but the most reckless desperado knew that he could not be trifled with. When there was an arrest to be made that involved special peril, this reticent, low-voiced man was usually intrusted with the undertaking. He was of the good old Primitive Baptist stock from Caswell County, North Carolina, and had a lingering fondness ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... conspirators were on the point of starting for Grosvenor-square, when on a sudden the police entered the room in which they were assembled, and called upon them to surrender. Smithers, an active police-officer, rushed forward to secure the ringleader; but he was pierced through with the desperado's sword, and fell. The lights were now extinguished, and the conflict became general, while some of the gang endeavoured to make their escape. Although, indeed, the police were soon aided by thirty soldiers of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... desperado, as we have before indicated, was radically changed at heart, and he now felt more interest in the welfare of Emily than he had ever before harbored for ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... year younger than he, and her life had been almost as simple exteriorly, but at center she was of far finer development. She had always been introspective, and she had grown self-analytic. She knew that the touch of this young desperado's hand had changed her relation toward the world. As he talked she ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... dancing. Now, strange change, they are in Tom Cribb's parlour, where they don't seem to be a whit less at home than in fashion's gilded halls; and now they are at Newgate, seeing the irons knocked off the malefactors' legs previous to execution. What hardened ferocity in the countenance of the desperado in yellow breeches! What compunction in the face of the gentleman in black (who, I suppose, has been forging), and who clasps his hands, and listens to the chaplain! Now we haste away to merrier scenes: to Tattersall's (ah gracious powers! what a funny fellow that actor was who performed Dicky ...
— Some Roundabout Papers • W. M. Thackeray
... the man was different. He was a desperado, one of the dashing, reckless kind—more famous along the Pecos and Rio Grande than more really desperate men. His attire proclaimed a vanity seldom seen in any Westerner except of that unusual brand, yet it was neither ...
— The Rustlers of Pecos County • Zane Grey
... "Oh, you darling!" and holds her on his lap, with such a look of bountiful and boundless tenderness and care as would charm you to see. I should as soon expect an angel from the sky to descend to a rough scuffle with a desperado as for Julian to disturb or annoy the little Rosebud. Sometimes we go down to the wood near, and baby sleeps in the carriage to the music of pine-tree murmurs and cricket-chirpings, and once in a while of birds, while Una and Julian build piles of tiny ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... the desperado with his pistol, and glaring upon him with determined eye. Palafox, unable to escape, nonchalantly bit a chew of ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... the first time into the business at a period of great depression some six years ago. The name of a distinguished Royal personage had been mentioned by rumour in connection with this sum. "The cowardly desperado" - such, I remember, was the editorial expression - was supposed to have escaped with a large part of this mysterious fund still in ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... pursuits, and opened the way for that ranchero and adobe civilization which, down to the coming of the American, in about 1840, made in this region the most picturesque life that our continent has ever seen. Following this is a period of desperado adventure and revolution, of pioneer State-building; and then the advent of the restless, the cranky, the invalid, the fanatic, from every other State in the Union. The first experimenters in making homes ...
— Our Italy • Charles Dudley Warner
... at defiance, and thy decision in this matter is watched for by tens of thousands; and if this Daniel escapes the punishment of the law, we may as well burn up our statute books and give absolute liberty to every ruffian and desperado. Law and order will be at an end, the union of the provinces will be forever dissolved, and confusion and desolation shall follow. The question now to be settled is not, 'How came this law to be enacted?' but, seeing that it is enacted, is there ...
— The Young Captives - A Story of Judah and Babylon • Erasmus W. Jones
... idleness, as it did in the Southern States of America before the Civil War;[79] no doubt there were plenty of idle ruffians in the city, ready to steal, to murder, or to hire themselves out as the armed followers of a political desperado like Clodius; but the simple necessities of the life of those who had no slaves of their own gave employment, we may be certain, to a great number of free tradesmen and artisans and labourers of ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... "In the Rocky Mountains! My dear Lizzie, every desperado in the country takes refuge in the Rockies. Of course, if you want to take up ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... her brave part in the capture of the famous desperado. But Cap was too sincerely sorry for Black Donald to care ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... desperado's arm just in the nick of time, thus preventing a terrible crime. But the end was not yet. There were five more bullets in the cylinder of the weapon, as the lad knew ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in New Mexico • Frank Gee Patchin
... acted on generous impulse, and the unforeseen result had been to save this desperado from justice. But the worst of it was that she could not find it in her heart to regret it. Granted that he was a villain, double-dyed and beyond hope, yet he was the home of such courage, such virility, ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... let it pass. They flagged the freight train, and one of the robbers, who was doubtless new at the business, caught the passing engine and climbed into the cab. The engineer, seeing the man's masked face at his elbow, struck it a fearful blow with his great fist. The amateur desperado sank to the floor, his big, murderous gun rattling on the iron plate of the coal-deck. Yank, the engineer, grabbed the gun, whistled off-brakes, and opened the throttle. The sudden lurch forward proved too much for a weak link, and the train parted, leaving the rest of the ...
— The Last Spike - And Other Railroad Stories • Cy Warman
... the Deserted Limited held up at a tank station in the great Mojave Desert by a lone, masked bandit who winged the dreaming Butch in the shoulder, the latter being an express guard who resisted. After the desperado, Two-Gun Steve, had forced the engineer to run the train back to a siding, he had ordered Butch to vamoose. Quite naturally, then, the collegian next found himself staggering across the arid expanse, until at last, half dead from a burning thirst, seeking ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... decided against informing Matak until he had lodged Malabanan safely behind prison walls, then to confront him with the Moro and if he proved to be Matak's long sought enemy, he would add the charge of triple murder against the desperado. The day of private vengeance must pass in Mindanao—vengeful killings ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... thoroughly angered, and his voice rose. "I am sent down here subject to your orders, and it seems you are also subject to orders. Here are two murders in a day, capping a climax of twenty years of bloodshed. You have information as to the arrival of a man known as a desperado with a grudge against the two dead men, yet you know of no steps to take. Give me the word, and I'll go out and bring that man, and any others you name, to your bar of justice—if it is a bar of justice! For God's sake, give me something else ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... even the expedition to Italy itself, which in the spring of 536 must not have been anticipated in Rome, would have been averted by the timely appearance of the Romans in Spain. Hannibal had by no means the intention of sacrificing his Spanish "kingdom," and throwing himself like a desperado on Italy. The time which he had spent in the siege of Saguntum and in the reduction of Catalonia, and the considerable corps which he left behind for the occupation of the newly-won territory between the Ebro and the Pyrenees, sufficiently show that, had a Roman army ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... artistry of crime, And he would tell of cracking cribs and cops and doing time; Or else when he was flush of funds he'd carelessly explain He'd biffed some bloated bourgeois on the border of the Seine. So gentle and polite he was, just like a man of peace, And not a desperado and the ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... beatified, pale, unstrung by this calm acceptance of what he had opposed bitterly two years, sat down foolishly, and listened to the pompous utterance of pompous phrases in praise of dead heroes and a living poet. Thought and speech failed together. If only some desperado would break in upon him and try to kill him! if the house would take fire, or a riot begin in the street! The old man finished his reading, congratulated the poet, blessed the pair in the old-fashioned style, informed ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... only afraid that they will blow her up," Will said; "but probably, as they have not done so already, her captain and most of her officers are killed, for it would require a desperado to ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... preparations had been made merely as ordinary precautions in a peaceful trade was by no means probable; and yet there they were, and there stood the bright-eyed, handsome and youthful commander upon the quarter-deck, but he did not look the desperado—such a term would have poorly accorded with his open and manly countenance, hie quiet and gentlemanly mien. A pirate would hardly have dared to lay the course he steered in these latitudes, where an English or French cruiser was very likely to ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... City, too! Willie stayed out by the barb-wire fence; he didn't dast to go in. When I come out I found him ready to cry. That desperado has sure got the heart of a woman. I reckon he'd commit a murder for that ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach
... Then, by a powerful effort, he conquered himself; the villainous expression left his face; the storm of rage subsided. Great incentive there must have been for him thus to repress his emotions so quickly. He looked long at her with sinister, intent regard; then, with the laugh of a desperado, a laugh which might have indicated contempt for the failure of his suit, and which was fraught with a world of meaning, of menace, he left her without so much ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... again, like an ungrateful clock, in order to introduce a chapter in which Richard Skill (who was always being decoyed somewhere) should be decoyed on board that lonely hulk by Lord Bellew and the American desperado Gin Sling. It was fortunate he had not done so, he reflected, since the hulk was now required ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... prompting—arising out of his former cowardice—made him feel for the jack-knife with which one murder had already been committed. Their stock of provisions was so scanty, and after all, the lives of the woman and child were worth more than that of this unknown desperado! But, to do him justice, the thought no sooner shaped itself than he crushed it out. "We'll wait till morning, and see how he shapes," said Frere to himself; and pausing at the brushwood barricade, behind which the mother and daughter were clinging ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... stream, known as Sulphur Creek, has the honor, or the dishonor if you choose, of being the first desperado of the Yellowstone, but one so much greater than its two petty imitators of human times that there is no comparison of misdeeds. Sulphur Creek stole the lake from the Snake River and used it to create the Yellowstone River, which in turn created the wonderful canyon. Here at last is a crime in which ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... sad little woman, in the rusty black gown, the daughter of his oldest friend, the wife of Benton Sharp! Benton Sharp, one of the most noted "bad" men in that part of the state—a man who had been a cattle thief, an outlaw, a desperado, and was now a gambler, a swaggering bully, who plied his trade in the larger frontier towns, relying upon his record and the quickness of his gun play to maintain his supremacy. Seldom did any one take the risk of ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... in March—one of those which almost redeem the reputation of that desperado of a month. Eph was leaning on his fence, looking now down the bay and now to where the sun was sinking in the marshes. He knew that all the other men had gone to the town-meeting, where he had had no heart to intrude himself—that free democratic parliament ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 6 • Various
... by the sudden cessation of chatter among the visiting group. Jones, who seemed to have come to his grating when the suppressed laughter sounded in the dark corridor, heard every word of the official's speech. He was no longer the bearded desperado Jack had seen in the melee at Rosedale—there was a certain distinction in the poise of the head, an inborn gentility in the impassive contemplation with which he met the furtive scrutiny of the curious visitors. Jack he eyed with something of surprise, but ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... to see her picture in the "studio" at the House by the Lock, I was doubly surprised to see it in a locket worn by a young desperado on the other side of the world. Impulsively I withdrew my hand which held the ornament, with the feeling that the man had no right to it—that I could not return it to ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson |
