"Riderless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... faces—the latter only at intervals. They draw nearer and nearer, till at length they are riding within the circle of danger. Our superior elevation gives us the advantage. We begin to see their bodies over the backs of their horses. A little nearer yet, and some of these horses will go riderless over the plain! Ha! they have perceived their danger—one and all of them. Notwithstanding their cries of bravado, and mutual encouragement, they dread to make the final rush. Each fears that himself may be ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... jump was an awkward one: it brought him into breath-taking collision with the upjerking head of the mustang. When he had recovered his feet and his presence of mind, the charging whirlwind had dashed through the shallows of the Pannikin, and a riderless horse was clattering across the ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... riderless, without saddles or bridles (and therefore almost impossible to catch), stampeding straight into a corps H.Q. village. This village is crawling ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson
... Riderless the horse was, and with none to hold his bridle. But he waited patiently, submissively, there where I saw him, at the shabby corner of a certain shabby little street in Chelsea. 'My beautiful, ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... any fair chance of hitting; but their father took a long and steady aim with his deadly rifle, and upon its report a horse and man went down. But the rider was in an instant upon his feet again, soon caught one of the riderless horses which had galloped off with its companions, ...
— On the Pampas • G. A. Henty
... the village two cavaliers and a led horse were waiting for him: the two men were Michelotto and the Count of Benevento. Caesar sprang upon the riderless horse, pressed with fervour the hand of the count and the sbirro; then all three galloped to the frontier of Navarre, where they arrived three days later, and were honourably received by the king, Jean d'Albret, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... door folded back to allow in a small party of horsemen. One saddled but riderless mount galloped along with the rest. Another man held to the high horn with both hands and weaved back and forth while a comrade riding beside him strove to keep him from toppling to the ground. Drew had an impression of bright, ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... his brother's murderers; and, indeed, forbade any man to mention Sir Alexander's name in his hearing. Yet day by day the empty chair stood beside his in the castle hall; and day by day, at the muster call, the young chief's riderless horse fell into its place betwixt that of the father and the second son, ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... pack-mules and ammunition-wagons, officers' spare horses mounted by runaway negro servants, every species of the impedimenta of camp-life, commissary sergeants on all-too-slow mules, teamsters on still-harnessed team-horses, quartermasters whose duties are not at the front, riderless steeds, clerks with armfuls of official papers, non-combatants of all kinds, mixed with frighted soldiers whom no sense of honor can arrest, strive to find shelter from ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... so? Hark I they break already! Peace now—wait and watch." So saying, Walkyn crouched behind the tree, axe poised, what time the dust and roar of battle rolled toward them up the hill. And presently, from out the rolling cloud, riderless horses burst and thundered past, and after them—a staggering rout, mounted and afoot, spurring and trampling each other 'neath the merciless arrow-shower that smote them from the banks above. Horse and foot they ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... risks in addition to the ordinary and inevitable risks of such advances against an army in the field. The cavalry necessarily has to retire before any effective work can be done, and usually comes back pell mell with a lot of riderless horses, and creates infinitely more confusion, consternation, and even danger to the advancing army, than anything the enemy would be likely to do at that ...
— Personal recollections and experiences concerning the Battle of Stone River • Milo S. Hascall
... her grief was personal, and filled, too, with a kind of helpless amazement at this emotional outbreak, the gold-seekers withdrew down the slope, followed by the riderless pony, leaving the old woman crouched close against the sepulcher of her dead, pouring forth the sobbing wail of ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... in a grip of iron, from which he struggled madly to get free, while the horse, with a shrill neigh of terror, started off riderless. ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... uncover on meeting a funeral," she remarked. "This was a private, but if he had been an officer, his helmet and sword would be on the flag, and directly behind the gun-carriage, his orderly would lead his riderless horse. A military wedding is so pretty, Frances. I saw one once in Bath Abbey. The officers were all in full uniform and after the ceremony they formed in the aisle, two lines going way down out of ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... his saddle by a low branch, Count Robert lay stunned upon the ground. The hunting-party swept on, the riderless steed galloping wildly among them. No man turned back; not one loved the ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... neolithic lake dwellings in Switzerland. Agriculture was already practised in a feeble way on small open clearings, cautiously cleaved with fire or hewn with the tomahawk in the native forests. The cow, the sheep, and the goat were more or less domesticated, though the horse was yet riderless; and the pastoral had therefore, to some extent, superseded the pure hunting stage. But what inroad could the stone hatchet make unaided upon the virgin forests of those remote days? The neolithic clearing must have been a mere stray oasis in a desert ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... forth, from thirty iron mouths, a flood of smoke and flame, through which hissed the deadly balls. Their flight was marked by instant gaps in our ranks, by dead men and horses, by steeds flying wounded or riderless across the plain. The first line was broken- -it was joined by the second, they never halted or checked their speed an instant. With diminished ranks, thinned by those thirty guns, which the Russians had laid with the most deadly accuracy, with a halo of flashing ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... Ricardo's horse thundered away, riderless, leaving a squirming, wriggling confusion of forms in the road where the overseer was battling for his life. Martel's voice rose shrilly in a curse, and then Norvin felt himself dragged roughly from his saddle, whether ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... pursued by witches whose persistence put to shame the efforts of those famed ladies of Tam O'Shanter in the long ago; if he had looked over his shoulder, he might have discovered that he was followed by a riderless horse, ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... and for a moment his heart stood still. Far above, on the rim of the bench, silhouetted clearly against the moonlight sky were two figures on horseback. Even as he looked the figures blended together—there was a swift commotion, a riderless horse dashed from view, and the next moment the sky-line showed only the rim of ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... through with luggage and wheels balanced on our shoulders. But just at that moment we perceived, approaching from the distance, what we took to be a mounted Chinese mandarin, and his servant leading behind him two richly caparisoned and riderless horses. At sight of us they spurred ahead, and reached the opposite bank just as we passed the middle of the stream. The leader now rose in his stirrups, waved his hat in the air and shouted, in clear ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... think of our woe and grief when thy palfrey was found standing riderless at the stable door, and Sister Scholastica told us that there he had been since nones! And she had none to send in quest but Cuddie, ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... victim, and gave a gasp. He tried to recover, but Major Lyon was too fast for him. He hit the sword sharply, and in a twinkling it sailed into the trees, to lodge among some small branches. The weapon had hardly left the captain's hand when a riderless horse ran against his own, and he went down, under the runaway's feet. Ceph swerved to one side; and then Deck was carried away from the scene ...
— An Undivided Union • Oliver Optic
... to the doorway, saw the animal leap, but in so quick a flash that she noted nothing but its size, and mistook it for a riderless, runaway horse. Then as it appeared again and with three bounds cleared the beach and plunged into the sea, she knew that it was no horse but a huge stag—even such a stag as she had seen portrayed on menagerie posters—a ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... to a walk, and turning in the saddle, took a parting shot at the Austrians, who now had turned to flee. One threw up his arms, and dropped to the ground, and the horse went on riderless. ...
— The Boy Allies in Great Peril • Clair W. Hayes
... of farmers, each mounted and carrying his gun, dashed forward. When quite close to the foe they halted, and, every man dismounting, knelt and fired. Nearly all the horsemen among the enemy fell to the ground at the discharge, and the riderless steeds galloped over the plain, while numbers of the footmen were also killed and wounded. But most of those savages belonged to a fierce and warlike tribe. Though checked for a moment, they soon returned to the attack more furiously than before. The Dutch farmers, remounting, galloped ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne
... point where he could look down into the valley below, Dave peered long and earnestly for a sight of a riderless horse. To his delight he saw the animal almost ...
— Cowboy Dave • Frank V. Webster
... shapes of cloud, purple and crimson, violet and black. They were Arthur's knights tilting in tournament, while the Queen of Beauty and her attendant ladies looked on. Now and then, as I watched, a knight fell, and a horse tore away riderless, his gold-'broidered trappings floating on the wind. When this happened, out of the illumined sea would writhe a glittering dragon, or scaly heraldic beast, to prance or fly along the horizon after the vanishing charger of the fallen knight. Sometimes the rushing ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... their way up this natural zigzag approach in order to fire upon the retiring picket they were themselves received at 400 yards by a well-directed sputter of musketry, and were glad to make off with five riderless horses, two men upon one horse, and leaving three lying quite still on the ground. Thereafter the picket ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... volley of further and far more trenchant abuse was discharged by Superintendent Cairns, of the New South Wales Police. But Kilbride was already in the saddle; a covert outward kick with his spurred heel, and the third horse went cantering riderless into the trees. ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... his Scripture histories; yet others using the antique as mere pageant shows, allegorical mummeries destined to amuse some Duke of Ferrara or Marquis of Mantua, together with hurdle races of Jews, hags, and riderless donkeys. ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... clinging desperately to the horn of the saddle and his horse's mane, he wrests himself away from his pursuer, aided by the shying of the pursuing horse, which is kicked and bitten by his own animal. But where is the pursuer? His horse is dashing riderless away. Is he trampled to death in that swirling, sandy conflict? No, he is hanging on to the man with the rooster, belabored the while with the now bloody and dilapidated bird. Regardless of this he still clings, although ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... and thundered "Forward!" I reined aside, intuitively, and the column dashed hotly past me. With a glance at the heap of mortality littering the way, I spurred my nag sharply, and followed hard behind. The riderless horse seemed to catch the fever of the moment, and closed up with me, leaving his master the solitary tenant of the dell. For perhaps three miles we galloped like the wind, and my brave little traveller ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... in a small way, a sort of distinct nationality. There was rivalry between each Region and its neighbours, and when the one encroached upon the other there was strife and bloodshed in the streets. In the public races, of which the last survived in the running of riderless horses through the Corso in Carnival, each Region had its colours, its right of place, and its separate triumph if it won in the contest. There was all that intricate opposition of small parties which arose in every mediaeval city, when children followed their fathers' trades from ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... Jim Boone. To his right and a little behind him galloped a riderless horse, a beautiful young animal continually tossing its head and looking as if for guidance at the ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick
... the way, was named Black Bess. It got so accustomed to its cue that it knew when it had to gallop across the stage. One night during the third act this cue was given as usual. Its rider, however, was not ready, and the horse galloped riderless across ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... and throne of the great joss himself, and just behind him a riderless bay horse, intended for his imperial convenience should he tire of being swayed about on the shoulders of his twelve bearers, and elect to change his method of conveyance. Behind this honoured steed came a mammoth rock-cod in a pagoda of his own, and then, heralded by a fusilade ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the horsemen completely by surprise, and they pulled up with a jerk. The action proved their undoing, for as they stood thus for a moment, they gave those in the train the opportunity they desired and the volley that followed turned four more riderless ...
— The Broncho Rider Boys with Funston at Vera Cruz - Or, Upholding the Honor of the Stars and Stripes • Frank Fowler
... three to one; so back fall the videttes and forward charges that advance guard like a thunderbolt, not troubling the column behind. Wild yells, a clattering of hoofs, the crack of pistol-shots, a wild flight, a merry chase, a few riderless horses gathered in from the fleeing Yankees, ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... principal Bazaar, they beheld, much to their consternation, four of the guns of the horse artillery, which immediately opened upon them with grape and canister, which told fearfully among them, as the number of riderless and wounded horses plainly showed, and the irregular horse, not being trained to act in concert with the regular troops, the whole were thrown into confusion, and were unable to reform or advance upon ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... eighty guns on the crest of the gently sloping hill, where attack was threatened. For two hours, from one till three, the cannonade lasted, and the batteries on both sides suffered severely. In both the Union and Confederate lines caissons were blown up by the fire, riderless horses dashed hither and thither, the dead lay in heaps, and throngs of wounded streamed to the rear. Every man lay down and sought what cover he could. It was evident that the Confederate cannonade was but a prelude to a great ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... the combatants approached, the Indians being driven before the soldiers. By this time the sergeant and his party, who had gone up the brook with Kit, were taking the enemy on the flank. Presently we saw a few of the Indians rushing wildly through the woods, and occasionally a riderless horse came into view. We realized that the savages had been routed, scattered, and dispersed. We saw them swimming across the river, and skulking into the woods. Lieutenant Jackson ordered his men to form in front of the breastwork, for ...
— Field and Forest - The Fortunes of a Farmer • Oliver Optic
... beating its head upon the ground, groaning horribly the while, I emptied the five cartridges of the repeater into those Black Kendah, pausing between each shot to take aim, with the result that presently five riderless horses were galloping loose ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... too, had opened his eyes and shown other signs of returning consciousness. His wounds were clearly of no very serious nature. There was no danger of their pursuing me even should they wish to do so, for their horses had trotted off to join the numerous other riderless steeds who were wandering all over the moorlands. I mounted, therefore, and rode slowly away, saving my good charger as much as possible, for the morning's work had already told somewhat heavily ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... She looked again at the glove, the whips and the two horses standing riderless; then she sprang on her horse with an intense longing to leave this place. She started back to Les Peuples at a gallop. Her brain was busy reasoning, connecting different incidents and thinking it ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... into the air, as the man went plunging over. I sprang to the horse's bit, the frightened animal dragging me nearly to the fence before I conquered him. But I dare not let go—once free he would join the troop horses, his riderless saddle sure to alarm the guards. With lacerated hands, and shirt torn into shreds, I held on, jerked and bruised by the mad struggle, until the fellow stood trembling. Using the bridle rein for a halter strap I tied him to the fence, and, sore all over and breathing ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... his proud and martial dress, Uncurbed, unreined, and riderless, With darting eye, and nostril spread, And heavy and impatient tread, He came; and oft that eye so proud Asked for ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... substance in the waves; but they fancied it some detached fragment of earth or stone, and turned to their tent, in the belief that the daring rider had escaped the peril he had so madly incurred. That night the riderless steed of Godolphin arrived at the porch of the Priory, where Constance, alarmed, pale, breathless, stood exposed to the storm, awaiting the return of Godolphin, or the messengers she had despatched in ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... flowers, spread before the house. I saw many strange things, and with that comprehensive, sweeping glance of feverish excitement; two horses covered with foam, their saddles empty and bridles dragging, trampled down the flower-borders. One horse was Raymond's, returned riderless! Doubtless brought home by the servant ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... awaiting his return and told him that the two horses had returned riderless some little time before, that of ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... The riderless pony brought the news to the 195th, though there had been consternation in the Colonel's household for an hour before. The little beast came in through the parade-ground in front of the main barracks, where the men were settling down to play Spoil-five till ...
— Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II • Rudyard Kipling
... who looked upon that wonderful panorama can ever forget it. On the great field were riderless horses and dying men; clouds of dust from solid shot and bursting shell occasionally obscured the sky; broken caissons and upturned ambulances obstructed the way, while long lines of cavalry were pressing ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... groom grinned a broad and foolish grin. "Said I not," he cried joyfully, "that thou wert a better man than the other? For he was but small and fierce and hath met sorrow, or his horse had not come back riderless." ...
— A Boy's Ride • Gulielma Zollinger
... Dean and the Gold City gang. Andrew Malden saw the change and yet did not understand it. He never talked with people enough to hear the rumors afloat of the Sunday horse-races, or of the midnight revel on the Fourth of July at the Yellow Jacket. The night that Bess came home saddleless and riderless, with the white foam on her, and when he searched till near morning, to at last find Job stretched in a stupor by the wayside down the Chichilla road, he thought the boy's after story was true—that story of a frightened runaway—and ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... in the second because our English saddles are made for bigger horses. You need not mind much about the appearance of your animal. Anything will do for riding about at Dongola, and learning to keep your seat. In the first fight you have with Dervish horsemen, there are sure to be some riderless horses, and you may then get a good one, for a pound or two, from some Tommy who ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... into the larger valley. Then she saw other horses, among them Lem Billings's bay mustang. Columbine faltered on, when suddenly she recognized the horse Jack had ridden—a sorrel, spent and foam-covered, standing saddled, with bridle down and riderless—then certainty of something awful clamped her with horror. Men's husky voices reached her throbbing ears. Some one was running. Footsteps thudded and died away. Then she saw Lem Billings come out of the willows, look her way, and hurry toward her. His awkward, cowboy gait seemed too slow ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... rainbow. In one place a whole forest of gums had been ring-barked, and were just as though they had been painted white, without a leaf or a living thing for miles. And the first living thing I did meet was the sort to give you the creeps; it was a riderless horse coming full tilt through the bush, with the saddle twisted round and the stirrup-irons ringing. Without thinking, I had a shot at heading him with the doctor's mare, and blocked him just enough to allow a man who came galloping after to ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... intelligently upon his own initiative. He had not been satisfied, he said, to remain behind at the ranch and let Wade go to the timber tract alone, and so after a period of indecision he had followed him. Near the edge of the timber he had come upon Wade's riderless horse, trailing broken bridle reins. He had followed the animal's tracks back to the point of the assault, but there was no sign of Wade, which fact indicated that he had been carried away by ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... looked just the same. Mulvaney, riderless, was battling toward them through the torrent, but the stress and struggle of the second before had been instantly cut short. There was no spreading ripples, no break in the gray surface of the stream to show where the two had fallen. The stream swept on, infinite, ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... old woman, for whom the spectacle of Rob the Grinder returning down the street, leading the riderless horse, appeared to have some extraneous interest that it did not possess in itself, surveyed that young man with the utmost earnestness; and seeming to have whatever doubts she entertained, resolved as he drew nearer, glanced at her daughter with brightened eyes and with ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... apparently of his own accord, turned down to the right, either seeing or hearing the hounds, and knowing that the ploughed ground was to be avoided. But his rider soon changed his course. She went straight after the riderless horse, and when Silverbridge had reduced himself to utter speechlessness by his exertions, brought him back ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... little Mavis pieced the story together. Mr. Barradine had been out riding late yesterday, and the riderless horse had given the alarm some time about nine o'clock in the evening. But, although a wide-spread search continued all through the night, the body was not found ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... to his men to ride up. As he called out, a rifle cracked from the box-elder trees ahead of him. The sheriff fell, shot through the head, and a deputy springing from his saddle to pick him up was shot in precisely the same way, through the head. The riderless horses bolted; the posse, thrown into a panic, did not fire a shot, and for an hour dared not ride back for the bodies. After dark they got the two dead men and at midnight rode with ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman
... before daylight, Kate Channing's horse walked riderless up to the sliprails of Calypso Downs, and the stockman who had kept awake awaiting her return, went out to let his ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... practice would the sergeant-major occasionally allow him to let the stirrups down. There were days on which he had more than twenty falls from his horse; and at last it was always in fear and trembling that he went to riding instruction. Whenever his horse dashed away riderless after a jump, Frielinghausen rejoiced in the few minutes' respite that shortened by that much the hour of his lesson. He could never manage to go over a hurdle with his hands placed on his hips; at every jump they snatched at the horse's mane. Heppner raged over this cowardice; ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... one horse," answered Marmaduke, hurrying to the door. "'Tis a riderless horse," he added, ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... second shot despatched him. Another man fell; then another horse; out of the whole troop there was but one fellow left, and he on foot; only, in different directions, the noise of the galloping of three riderless horses was dying fast into ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... with flying manes Wind-tost, the riderless steeds of the sea. Neigh to her, call to her, dreadless and free, "Fear not to follow us; these thy domains; Welcome, welcome, our Lady and Queen! O Princess, oh daughter of kingliest sire! Under its frost girdle throbbing and keen, A new realm awaits ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... time Lady Purcell, pursuing her peaceful way home in her donkey chaise, was startled by the sound of neighing and by the rattle of galloping hoofs behind her, and her consternation may be imagined when the foxy mare and the colt, saddled but riderless, suddenly ranged up one on either side of her chaise. Having stopped themselves with one or two prodigious bounds that sent the mud flying in every direction, they proceeded to lively demonstrations of friendship towards the donkey, which that respectable animal received very ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... from around the bend in the road, a horse dashed riderless, covered with foam, and so near him that he had to spring aside or its hoofs would have been buried in his brain. One glance, and a cry of horror broke from his lips. It was ...
— Pretty Madcap Dorothy - How She Won a Lover • Laura Jean Libbey
... descending. The company was ordered into ambush on each side of the road, while the Uhlans with upturned eyes and the occasional popping of a carbine at the balloon, dashed along the road unconscious of the hidden enemy. As they rode past the ambush, the order was given to fire. Twenty riderless horses dashed madly up and down the road, while the balance of the Uhlans sought safety in flight. The balloon descended but a short distance from thee scene of the engagement and was found to contain a man named Du Norof. He had with him dispatches from Paris which ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... morning Sidney Buller walked forth from the buildings of the ranch and struck for the open prairie. The sun was up, but the morning was still cool. Before he had gone far he saw, approaching the ranch, a single riderless horse. As the animal came nearer and nearer it whinnied on seeing him, and finally changed its course and came directly toward him. Then he saw that there was a man on its back; a man either dead or asleep. His hand hung ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... headed toward the village, and was nine and three-quarter miles nearer to it than the mines. He had found another good cigar somewhere, and was humming the selfsame tune as on the previous afternoon; but the riderless horse was not ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... Tara of Helium seen a man afoot in this great building; but when at a turn, U-Dor led them to the third floor she caught glimpses of chambers in which many riderless thoats were penned and others adjoining where dismounted warriors lolled at ease or played games of skill or chance and many there were who played at jetan, and then the party passed into a long, wide hall of state, as magnificent an apartment as even a princess ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... prayed for this man's safety. A circle of dust began to collect. Dimly, as through a yellow veil, Jane saw Lassiter press the leaders inward to close the gap in the sage. She lost sight of him in the dust, again she thought she saw the black, riderless now, rear and drag himself and fall. Lassiter had been thrown—lost! Then he reappeared running out of the dust into the sage. He had escaped, ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... left side, his hat still shading the glazing eyes, Keith lying flat, his face in the crook of an arm whose hand still gripped a revolver. There was a grim smile on his lips, as if, even as he pitched forward, he knew that, after he had been shot to death, he had gotten his man. The riderless horses gazed at the two figures, and drifted away, slowly, fearfully, still held in mute subjection to their dead masters by dangling reins. The sun blazed down from directly overhead, the heat waves rising and falling, the dead, desolate desert stretching to the sky. An hour, ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... the fiery tunnel came tearing his terrified horse, riderless; out of the billowing, ruddy vapours reeled Berkley, dragging ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... every moment of it—even the long walks back up the hill. Once the double-runner struck into a riderless sled that had drifted on to the course, and was overturned immediately. Nobody was hurt. Rosie, Dicky and Arthur were cast safely to one side in the soft snow. But Maida and Billy were thrown, whirling, on to the ice. Billy kept his grip ...
— Maida's Little Shop • Inez Haynes Irwin
... of a riot and passed a night in the basement of Platt's Hall. But preparedness was all that was needed. A few days later we took part in a most imposing procession. All the military and most other organizations followed a massive catafalque and a riderless horse through streets heavily draped with black. The line of march was long, arms were reversed, the sorrowing people crowded the way, and solemnity and grief on every hand told ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... cardinals with their retinues, these knights and grandees of Rome in dazzling cavalcades, these troops of archers and Turkish horsemen, the palace guards with long lances and glittering shields, the twelve riderless white horses with golden bridles, which were led along, and all the other pomp and parade!" Weeks would be required for arranging a pageant like this at the present time; but the Pope could improvise it in the ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... out at one of the ports, and, sure enough, there was the white horse running riderless about, and his wounded master was being carried behind the levee. The officers continued to fire as often as a rebel showed himself, but the latter seemed to have lost all desire for fighting, for they retreated to the plantation-house which stood back from the river, out of range of the ...
— Frank on the Lower Mississippi • Harry Castlemon
... street, and form in file, pushing back the crowd to the pavements. With drawn swords and at full gallop the dragoons ride back through the double line. Then there is a shout, or rather a long murmur. All faces are turned up the street, and half a dozen broken-kneed, riderless, terror-struck shaggy ponies with numbers chalked on them, and fluttering trappings of pins and paper stuck into their backs, run past in straggling order. Where they started you see a crowd standing round one of the grooms who held them, ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... The riderless steeds, wild with wounds and with fear, Dash away o'er the field in unbridled career; Their stirrups swing loose and their manes are all gore From the mad cavaliers that shall ride them no more. Of the hundred so bold that rode down on us there But few rode away ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... upon them, the foe afore and behind them, The king borne back in the melee; all, all is vain; They fly with death at their heels, fierce sun-rays blind them, Riderless steeds affrighted, tread down ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow
... from our own and the Mexican guns, tearing up the earth around me. I tried to raise my horse so as to extricate my leg but I had already grown so weak with my wound that I was unable, and from the mere attempt, I fell back exhausted. To add to my horror, a horse, who was careering about, riderless, within a few yards of me, received a wound, and he commenced struggling and rearing with pain. Two or three times, he came near falling on me, but at length, with a scream of agony and a bound, he fell dead—his ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... they had reached the gate of the Palms, and their appearance startled the sentry on post into a state of undisciplined joy. A riderless pony, the one upon which Jose' had made his escape when the firing began, had crept into the stable an hour previous, stiff and bruised and weary, and had led the people at the Palms ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... deelish, beside the sea I stand and stretch my hands to thee Across the world. The riderless horses race to shore With thundering hoofs and shuddering, hoar, Blown ...
— The Fairy Changeling and Other Poems • Dora Sigerson
... sniping and harassing our cavalry-patrols at night. Every day these would return to camp bearing the body of a comrade, killed without seeing the hand that killed him; and once, saddest of all, two riderless horses, famished and almost mad with thirst, dashed up to the watering-troughs in camp. Their ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... grass ever rolling in shadow and sunshine, Bright with luxuriant clusters of roses and purple amorphas. Over them wander the buffalo herds, and the elk and the roebuck; Over them wander the wolves, and herds of riderless horses; Fires that blast and blight, and winds that are weary with travel; Over them wander the scattered tribes of Ishmael's children, Staining the desert with blood; and above their terrible wartrails Circles and sails aloft, on pinions majestic, the vulture, Like the implacable ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... bellowing herd of long-horned cattle as they break away in a stampede, among whom is danger and sudden death and the glory of motion and conquest; or with horses thundering over the plain in hundreds, like a riderless squadron shaking the ground with waving manes, long flowing tails, and flashing eyeballs, whom one can love and delight in, and shout to with a strange, vivid joy that sends the blood tingling to the heart and ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts
... swinging stirrups and driven by the spur, plunged madly along the road. So long as the road was straight, Martin let the horse go, but at the first bend, when there was no chance of his pursuers seeing him, he checked the animal a little, slipped from his back, and with a blow sent him careering riderless along the road. ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... lantern shone very red. Christina ran towards it, and as she approached she saw faces like miniatures grouped above it. They did not heed her until she was close upon them, until she had noticed one man holding a riderless horse apart from the group and another coiling up a stout rope. Then Esteban, who was holding the lantern, raised his ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... helpless; for at least a dozen Arab steeds roamed the plain riderless. English archers, for they were from England, were ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... matter of saving my legs and dodging branches. The imperative need of this came to me with convincing force. I dodged a branch on one tree, only to be caught square in the middle by a snag on another. Crack! If the snag had not broken, Satan would have gone on riderless, and I would have been left hanging, a pathetic and drooping monition to the risks of the hunt. I kept ducking my head, now and then falling flat over the pommel to avoid a limb that would have brushed me off, and hugging the ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... on his elbow, suddenly straightened. He pointed toward the doorway. The saloon-keeper saw the motion from the corner of his eye. He lowered his paper and rose. In the soft radiance a riderless horse stood at the hitching-rail, his big eyes glowing, his ears pricked forward. Across the horse's shoulder was a ragged tear, black against the tawny gold of his coat. The men glanced at each other. It was the horse of the ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... The charge halted in its tracks. The entire front rank was shot away. Horses and men went down together, and the horses uttered neighs of pain, far more terrific than the groans of the wounded men. Many of them, riderless, galloped up and down ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler
... and beheld the long line of riderless horses, attended by the guides, slowly wending their way around the shelving, precipitous side of Mount Monroe. The company collected together and agreed to set out and meet them; so, returning to the hotel among the rocks, they partook of a finely-prepared lunch, ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... he continued on his way, and in less than half an hour approached a village, which he learned from a man he met was Gulnach. He waited by the roadside for a quarter of an hour, and then saw a man galloping towards him, leading a riderless horse. He drew ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... enemy's rifles, and a heavy volley of lead flew round the heads of the fugitives. Helmar gave the word, and again the carbines rang out, simultaneously several of the rebels' horses ran off riderless. The fight now waxed furious; the deadly aim of Helmar and his two friends was telling rapidly, whilst the rebels were ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... preconcerted word, the Winchesters of both parties spoke, and the cowboys, turning at a sharp angle, galloped off out of range with one riderless horse, and two men, clinging, desperately wounded, ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... horse, riderless and with trailing reins, was careering alongside him like a rudderless ship in ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... discharge riderless horses were seen galloping over the plain, and riders disengaging themselves from their wounded steeds. Before long, however, the combat became one of hand to hand; the Mexicans behind their carts, the Indians trying ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... The riderless brute had fallen in at the tail of the line now, behind Cadet Corporal Haslins, and was going along peaceably enough—-until Bert Dodge made a lunge for the bridle. Then the beast ...
— Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point - Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life • H. Irving Hancock
... pace behind me. The Dane's sword was out first; but I was upon him in time. His horse swerved as mine plunged forward, and I rode him down, horse and man rolling together in the roadway. Then the man to my right cut at me, and I parried the blow and returned it. Then that horse was riderless, and I heard Kolgrim laugh as his man went down with a ...
— King Alfred's Viking - A Story of the First English Fleet • Charles W. Whistler
... followed the constable. So this was desert law? No word of warning or inquiry, but a hail of shots, a riderless horse,—two men stretched upon the sand and the burning sun swinging in a cloudless ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... came, Bringing the sad, sad story— A riderless horse: a funeral march: Dead on the field ...
— Diddie, Dumps & Tot - or, Plantation child-life • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... was difficult—if not impossible. By all military rules French was "hemmed in." To a lesser man retreat would have seemed inevitable, though disastrous. Once again it was French v. The Impossible. A member of his staff relates how, sweeping the horizon with his glass, while riderless horses from the guns galloped past, he muttered, squaring the pugnacious jaw, "They are over here to stop us from Bloemfontein and they are there to stop us from Kimberley—we have got to break through." In an instant ...
— Sir John French - An Authentic Biography • Cecil Chisholm
... discovered until the morning succeeding the murder. His riderless horse was then seen standing at the door of the stable at Five Forks, and in great terror. Judge Conway set out rapidly to look for his brother, who was supposed to have met with some accident. Two ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... his carbine at him, and, without checking his horse's pace, fires. The heavy Sharpe's bullet tears a gaping hole through the Rebel's heart. He drops from his saddle, his life-blood runs down in little rills on either side of the knoll, and his riderless horse dashes away in ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... growing thicker, and by the time the stock farm was reached it was raining in torrents. But the boys did not mind this discomfort as they rode along, leading the two riderless saddle horses. They had other things more weighty ...
— The Rover Boys on the River - The Search for the Missing Houseboat • Arthur Winfield
... and rode back rapidly. The scene was bewildering. Officers galloped this way and that, shouting to their men; riderless horses careered madly about; slightly-wounded troopers were hobbling to the rear; others, more unfortunate, lay on the ground groaning and calling for water; while here and there mounted men were escorting groups of prisoners toward ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... be "breather of thoughtful breath" Has the giver and taker of dreadful death. See where comes the horse-tempest again, Visible earthquake, bloody of mane! Part are upon us, with edges of pain; Part burst, riderless, over the plain, Crashing their spurs, and twice slaying the slain. See, by the living God! see those foot Charging down hill—hot, hurried, and mute! They loll their tongues out! Ah-hah! pell-mell! ...
— Captain Sword and Captain Pen - A Poem • Leigh Hunt
... you, would go where he was told not to go; and one day he went into a bush (that very bush you rode through to-night), and he shot seven elephants, and the next day he went in to fetch the ivory, and about night his horse came into camp riderless, and was dead from the fly before the sun went down. The Englishman is in that bush now; anyway, he never came back. And now anybody who ventures into that bush is chased by the white horse. I wouldn't go into that bush for all the ivory in the land. The English are not brave, but foolish; ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... steer dashed into his horse. Both were going so fast that they came down together. Fortunately the boy was thrown clear and was not hurt. The steer rolled over and over and then picked itself up and joined the rush. The riderless horse ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... not be too quick for Ned, who ran swiftly, avoiding another look at the silent and motionless figure on the ground. The riderless horse was crashing about among the trees. From a point three or four hundred yards behind there came the sound of much shouting. Ned thought it to be an outburst of anger caused by the return of the ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler
... over the border into the land where troubles just begin. She won't know how to sew, or bake, or make good coffee, for such arts are liable to be overlooked when a girl makes a career for herself, and so love will gallop away over the hills like a riderless steed, and happiness will flare like a light in a windy night. Oh, no, my little country maid, stay where you are, if you have a home and friends. Be content with fishing for trout in the brook rather than cruising a stormy sea for whales. ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... that followed at a run heard his beast clatter over the drawbridge of the moat. We rolled a great stone on to the bridge that none could draw it up, and, with the Normans following behind, pursued him into his cover. The good steed stood riderless before the gate. With all our weight we burst the door, and ran in a great body into the hall wherein I had visited my ...
— The Fall Of The Grand Sarrasin • William J. Ferrar
... about the place until a cavalry brigade came through. The General commandeered me to find his transport. This I did, and on the way back waited for the brigade to pass. Then for the first time I saw that many riderless horses were being led, that some of the horses and many of the men were wounded, and that one regiment of lancers was pathetically small. It was the 2nd Cavalry Brigade, that had charged the enemy's guns, to find them protected by ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... centre of the lists. The white knight's lance hit the shield of Sir Palomides full in the centre, and with the shock the pagan knight was lifted from his saddle, carried beyond his horse, and fell with a great thud to the ground, while his horse careered onward riderless. ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... neighed, and Garin, hearing the sound, reined in and peered forward into the gloom, to descry the horse's head and back outlined above the blur of the hedge. His men halted behind him whilst he approached the riderless beast and made—as well as he could in the darkness—an examination of the saddle. One holster he found empty, at which he concluded that the rider, whoever he had been, had met with trouble; from the other he drew a heavy pistol, which, ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... Wherever the trotting, treacherous pasture faltered between hobbly, rock-strewn glare and soft, lush-carpeted spots of shade, she chose the hobbly, rock-strewn glare! On and on and on! Till dust turned sweat! And sweat turned dust again! On and on and on! With the riderless gray thudding madly after her! And Barton's sulky roan balking frenziedly at each new ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... arm, nearly severing it from his shoulder. But on the instant, the white-plumed hero wheeled, with his avenging sword uplifted, and the next thing the drummer-boy saw, as he lay bleeding on the ground, was a great black horse dashing riderless away. ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood
... pushed on through the wood, the Abbot began to see signs of a fight; riderless horses crashing through the copse, wounded men straggling back, to be cut down without mercy by the English. The war had been "a l'outrance" for a long while. None gave or asked quarter. The knights might be kept for ransom: ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... on the roadside I saw a few riderless horses running terror-stricken to the rear. These were, I believe, the animals that Jackson and his aides had ridden to the front. It is recorded that he was wounded by some soldiers of the 18th North Carolina regiment who were in the brigade ...
— Reminiscences of a Rebel • Wayland Fuller Dunaway
... sideways. How Beach-Hay managed to keep his seat no one could tell; it was marvellous the way he stuck on. At last the spirited animal contrived to get the rider well forward on his neck, and then Hay slipped off and the horse was away over the plain at full gallop, riderless. He was chased and caught at last after a long run. Then up stepped a wily old trooper of the 5th Dragoon Guards who used to be a jockey. He saw that the horse was now tired out and got on his back without difficulty, and as the animal by this time was utterly fagged, he found ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... solitary rifle-shot, doubtless supposing their own man had come upon the quarry. We fired too fast, for the Armenians were not drilled men, but we dropped two horses and five Kurds, and the remaining four fled, with the riderless animals stampeding in ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... a tangle of his horse's harness and of embroidered trappings, the Sieur de la Montaigne lay stretched upon the ground, with his saddle near by, and his riderless horse was trotting aimlessly about at the ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... the path of a wolf, Rostov gave rein to his Donets horse and galloped to intersect the path of the dragoons' disordered lines. One Uhlan stopped, another who was on foot flung himself to the ground to avoid being knocked over, and a riderless horse fell in among the hussars. Nearly all the French dragoons were galloping back. Rostov, picking out one on a gray horse, dashed after him. On the way he came upon a bush, his gallant horse cleared it, and almost ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... you their shout in your quarters, Eugene? In vain on Prince Vaudemont for succour you lean! The bridge has been broken, and, mark! how, pell-mell Come riderless horses, and volley and yell! He's a veteran soldier—he clenches his hands, He springs on his horse, disengages his bands— He rallies, he urges, till, hopeless of aid, He is chased through the gates ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... drag himself on his hands and knees through the bush towards the station, a terrible journey, for he had not a drop of water or food of any kind with him. Some hours passed before the people at the station, seeing his horse come home riderless and guessing an accident, set out to trace the tracks of the horse through the bush by the light of a lantern, and found him with ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... us with every moment. Yet not so thick had they become but that I could see a coach at a standstill in the hollow, some three hundred yards beneath us, and, by it, half a dozen horses, of which four were riderless and held by the two men who were still mounted. Then, breathlessly scanning the field between the road and the river, I espied five persons, half way across, and at the same distance from the water that we were from the coach. Two men, whom ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini |
