"On all fours" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of the room—then darted swiftly out between the legs of Lund and Rainey, on all fours, like a great dog. Curlike, it sprawled on the floor with a white face and pop-eyes, with hands outstretched in pleading, knees drawn up in some ludicrous attempt at protection, calling shrilly, in the voice ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... with familiar growls. The woman turned about in her distress; waving her hands helplessly before her, and then clapping them to her face. But now the great beast became impatient; it struck the door sharply, and snarled warningly. The woman shrank back as though she herself were about to drop on all fours and answered him. "No, no!" she cried, and considered a moment. Then the door was burst in with one tremendous blow, and Master Bruin rolled over the threshold and leaped toward them in clumsy jumps, his head thrown ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... States, trading in the kingdom of Siam, shall respect and follow the laws and customs of the country in all points'—conceding not only interterritoriality to the fullest extent; but making it the duty of American traders to creep on all fours when in the presence of a high functionary of that kingdom, and to become orthodox Buddhists! Inadvertently, no doubt, going farther than Joel Barlow, who thought it expedient in his treaty with Tripoli (1797) to insert a sort of disclaimer against Christianity, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... hunting to sleep. While intently watching some moving body at a distance, we could not yet tell whether of men or animals, I heard a faint noise behind me and slowly turned my head. Behold! a grizzly bear sneaking up on all fours ...
— Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... ingenious device for decoying them. He disguised himself as an antelope, by means of a cloak of cotton cloth (manta) painted to resemble the colouring of the animal. This covered his body, arms, and legs. On his head he placed the antlers of a stag, and by creeping on all fours he could approach the antelopes quite closely and thus successfully shoot them. The Apaches, according to the Mexicans, were experts at ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... the third storey, and there, in the deep shade of the inner room beyond the room where I had watched over the wounded Mason, ran backward and forward, seemingly on all fours, a figure, whether beast or human one could not at first sight tell. It snatched and growled like some wild animal. It was covered with clothing; but a quantity of dark, grizzled hair, wild as a mane, ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... his furs. How that little piece of woods must have rung to the savages' war-whoops! But all was silent now. He led his horse a short distance into the bushes and dismounted, following the trail of an Indian who had crept up on all fours toward the place where the doomed men were concealed, and presently came into a valley in which the undergrowth had been trampled in every direction. Near the middle of the valley were two men who were stretched out on the ground, dead. There was nothing ...
— Elam Storm, The Wolfer - The Lost Nugget • Harry Castlemon
... all the heathen, who have any superstition at all. For, as if for the humiliation of our proud human nature, there are really some human beings who seem to have too little intellect even to rise to the height of a superstition. Such are the Andaman Islanders, who crawl on all fours, wear nothing but a plaster of mud to keep the musquitos off, eat bugs, and grubs, and ants, and turn their children out to shift for themselves as soon as the little wretches can learn to crawl ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... could not tell them what was the matter. Stonor thought she was dreaming. Then she began to cry in English: "Door! Door!" and to point to it. Stonor made for the door, but Clare with a cry clung to him, and Mary herself, scrambling on all fours, clutched him around the knees. Stonor felt ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... Mrs. Bailey rose and seized the lamp. Pete got up stiffly and followed her out. One of the men was down on all fours, jumping about in ludicrous imitation of a bucking horse; and another was astride him, beating him not too gently with a quirt. As Ma Bailey came in sight the other cowboys swung their hats and shouted encouragement to the rider. ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... said, 'I am, ye men, a full thousand years of age today, but I have never seen a dead creature, male or female or of ambiguous sex, revive after death. Some die in the womb; some die soon after birth; some die (in infancy) while crawling (on all fours); some die in youth; and some in old age. The fortunes of all creatures, including even beasts and birds, are unstable. The periods of life of all mobile and immobile creatures are fixed beforehand. Bereaved of spouses and dear ones ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... dance. At twenty minutes past three an uninteresting performance called the "bear dance" began. A man entered on all fours; his face was painted white; he wore around his loins and over his shoulders pieces of some dark pelt which may have been bear skin, but looked more like the skin of a black sheep. The fire had now burned low and the light was dim. He was accompanied ...
— The Mountain Chant, A Navajo Ceremony • Washington Matthews
... Joe into one of the elevators and crowded in behind him, and as I turned to start it down I could hear police sirens from the street and also from the landing stage above. In the hall outside the meeting room, four or five of Ravick's free-drink mercenaries were down on all fours scrabbling for coins, and the rest of the pursuers from the meeting room were stumbling and tripping over them. I wished I'd brought a camera along, too. The public would have loved a shot of that. I lifted the radio and spoke ...
— Four-Day Planet • Henry Beam Piper
... that he found it difficult to secure a foot-hold. At this point the ridge became so attenuated that the youth saw at the first glance that it was impossible to proceed in an upright position; he therefore crept along on all fours, or sat astride the ridge and urged himself on ...
— Harper's Young People, November 11, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... moment the wild rider came bounding out from among them, and moving now erect, now on all fours, came sideling up to Martin, flinging his arms and legs about, wagging his head, grimacing and uttering whinnying and other curious noises. Never had Martin looked upon so strange a man! He was long and lean so that you could have counted his ribs, and he was ...
— A Little Boy Lost • Hudson, W. H.
... and skipping from bough to bough on the large trees that sheltered his home, he bounded from a branch to the roof of a three-storied house adjoining, and running across, jumped from one of the angles to the court below, landed on all fours, stopped a second or two to decide if he were really alive or not, then quietly trudged home to his cage. If he wanted a change, Dick had odd ways of showing himself dissatisfied with his condition. In the summer, when his house was too much exposed to the rays of ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth
... trembling when he dropped into the saddle. With both hands he clung to the horn. Up went the bronco on its hind legs. It pitched, bucked, sun-fished. In sheer terror Bob clung like a leech. The animal left the ground and jolted down stiff-legged on all fours. The impact was terrific. He felt as though a piledriver had fallen on his head and propelled his vital organs together like a concertina. Before he could set himself the sorrel went up again with a weaving, humpbacked twist. The rider ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... heads were soundly knocked together, and finally, like a pair of arrows sent right and left, Laurence sped forth at the window in the gable end and found himself in the midst of a gooseberry bush, whilst Sholto, flying out of the door, fell sprawling on all fours almost under the feet of a horse on which a young man sat, smilingly watching ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... he was still thinking it, was blotted from his mind. He was thrown suddenly to the sandy earth; the sand was slipping swiftly from beneath his feet; he was scrambling on all fours, clawing wildly for some anchorage that would keep him from ...
— Two Thousand Miles Below • Charles Willard Diffin
... are governed to-day, and there is every reason to believe that they will continue to be governed, by masterful-looking resultants, masters of nothing but compromise, and that little fancy of an inner conspiracy of control within the machine and behind ostensible politics is really on all fours with the wonderful Rodin (of the Juif Errant) and as probable as anything else in ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... it came to free movement in this narrow tunnel, contrived by some acrobatic feat to turn himself about and face the pit from which they had started this adventure. Then he crawled back towards the hut on all fours, listening to the suspicious sounds which he had heard, wondering who caused them, fearing that the German guards had come to make a nearer investigation of the pit and tunnel. Yes, it was that, without a doubt; for there came to his ears ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... stress which you lay on man walking on two legs, whilst the quadrumana go on all fours, permit me to remind you that no one much values the great difference in the mode of locomotion, and consequently in structure, between seals and the terrestrial carnivora, or between the almost biped ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... explanation. He did not refer to orders or disorders. He simply adjourned the House till six that evening. And the House adjourned—some of it nearly on all fours. ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... stage-road crossed it, and was about to turn into the road when, on looking up the bank, I saw on the crest of the slope some dark objects. At first I thought they were ponies, for they were moving on all fours, and directly toward the road. I ran up the bank, and had not gone more than ten yards, when I heard voices, and looking around, saw within a dozen steps of me five or six Indians lying on the grass, and talking in low tones. They had noticed ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... time he would eat nothing but raw flesh, but Tanoo gradually taught him to eat balls of rice and pulse. In about six weeks after he had been tied up, and after much rubbing of his joints with oil, he was made to stand and walk upright, whereas hitherto he had gone on all fours. ...
— Harper's Young People, August 3, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... succession, the whole nation rejoiced, and Henry became somewhat reconciled to his unattractive spouse. The king was exceedingly fond of this child. One day the Spanish embassador, a dignified Castilian, was rather suddenly ushered into the royal presence at Fontainebleau. The monarch was on all fours on the floor, running about the room with the little dauphin on his back. Raising his eyes, he said to ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... latter now shouted that there were no enemy left on the hill, so we chose the lower road, and gradually worked our way down, joining the grassy spur lower down—only it wasn't grassy here at all, but chiefly precipice. We got down somehow, chiefly on all fours, but by the time we had reached the sangars, the enemy had bolted, and they were occupied by our men. It had taken us nearly an hour to get down. Here I came across Colonel Kelly, and after shaking hands, I looked at my watch ...
— With Kelly to Chitral • William George Laurence Beynon
... Then, clinging like a monkey, she swung herself from limb to limb until the lowest branch was reached. The drop to the ground was—even for Pollyanna, who was used to climbing trees—a little fearsome. She took it, however, with bated breath, swinging from her strong little arms, and landing on all fours in the soft grass. Then she picked herself up ...
— Pollyanna • Eleanor H. Porter
... catch sight of a whole tribe of the murtherin' villins creepin' up on all fours, loike so minny big rats towards us, and didn't they turn tail an' scamper off when ...
— With Axe and Rifle • W.H.G. Kingston
... could I get up on the top?" I offered to lift him, but he declined rather hastily and said my leg would be all right if I didn't mind putting it out a bit sloping: and he then ran up it on all fours—he was quite a perceptible weight—and got on to the table from my knee ...
— The Five Jars • Montague Rhodes James
... to foot in his walk, filled me with compunction at having been brutal to so pitiful a creature, and I hurried to open the door for him. The animal clawed vigorously inside, and the instant I pushed back the ill-fitted slabs, it strained through and rushed on all fours to the fire. Madame de Ferrier fled backward, for what I liberated could hardly be seen ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... "That's about my usual at the old game." And therewith I made my tee, drove and went into the garden to cut a cabbage leaf. * * * * * After hoeing the vegetables with a mashie for a hot two hours, I fought my way out of the rhubarb on all fours, with a golf-ball between my teeth, and then strode doggedly back to the tee and drove into the virgin artichoke forest. While I toyed there with the sub-soil, the unwearied James went to earth among the marrows. Hastily I heeled my ball ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug. 22, 1917 • Various
... farther on they passed a large building, with lights still twinkling in the windows. Presently the tall Highlander stood up and sniffed. Then motioning Waverley to do as he did, he began to crawl on all fours toward a low and ruinous sheep-fold. With some difficulty Edward obeyed, and with so much care was the stalk conducted, that presently, looking over a stone wall, he could see an outpost of five or six soldiers lying round their camp-fire, ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... called Velly Mallai Hills, in the Coimbatore District, and trying to meet with one, I determined to ascend this mountain. I traveled up its steep sides and arrived at an opening, narrow and low, into which I crept on all fours. Going up some twenty yards I reached a cave, into the opening of which I thrust my head and shoulders. I could see into it clearly, but felt a cold wind on my face, as if there was some opening or crevice—so I looked carefully, but could see ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... whisky-keg, and a small tin pail of pork. Just as I reached the rock, Mr. M——, who was feeling his way along the top, and warning me to be careful, slipped, turned, and, vainly trying to grasp the rock, went down on all fours with a run and splash into the lake. Away went Frank after him, shouting with a laugh, ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon
... eyes and ears and that sense of "feel," which is—contradictory as it may seem—utterly intangible. Once the Indian picked up a stick freshly broken. This was examined by both, and the Indian smelt it and tried his tongue on the broken edge. Then both fell on all fours, creeping under the branches of the thicket and ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... another typical troubadour, who was a crusader, an exceedingly ingenious verse-smith, a great lover, and a proficient in the fantastic pranks which rather brought the school into discredit, inasmuch as he is said to have run about on all fours in a wolfskin in honour of his mistress Loba (Lupa); Gaucelm Faidit and Arnaut de Maroilh, Folquet of Marseilles, and Rambaut of Vaqueras; the Monk of Montaudon and Bertrand de Born himself, who with Peire ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... water, and shouted all together:—"She's going!" Forward the forecastle doors flew open, and the watch below were seen leaping out one after another, throwing their arms up; and, falling on hands and knees, scrambled aft on all fours along the high side of the deck, sloping more than the roof of a house. From leeward the seas rose, pursuing them; they looked wretched in a hopeless struggle, like vermin fleeing before a flood; they fought up the weather ladder of the poop one ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... hanging out, go home and stretch himself at full length on the cool tiles of the hall. How wise he was to scorn this pebble-gazing! I would come in half-roasted, as brown as a berry, to find my friend Bull wedged into a corner, his back to the wall, sprawling on all fours, while, with heaving sides, he panted forth the last sprays of steam from his overheated interior. Yes, he was much better-advised to return as fast as he could to the shade of the house. Why does man want to know things? Why ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... last, I rolled off the table, landed on all fours, leaped to Carna's side, and released the buckles of the straps. As she sat up, her face level with mine, she pursed her lips, and I gave her a hearty smack. As her arms went about my neck, I picked her up, raced through the doorway, ...
— Valley of the Croen • Lee Tarbell
... Lord of dogs who made the Out-of-doors And fashioned mutts to gambol on all fours, Grant us a respite from the city's stones! Grant us a grassy place to bury bones!—A grassy spot to roll on now and then, Oh, Lord of dogs who also fashioned men, Accept our thanks for this brief breath of air, And grant, Oh, Lord, a humble ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... to reach the Eden, a couple of miles from our starting-point, and we were on all fours ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... well in sight. They found the ascent much "harder on the collar" than they expected: fortunately the sole of the huge gutter yielded a trickle of water. The upper part was, to their naive surprise, mere climbing on all fours; and they reached the summit, visible from our halting-place, in two hours. Here they also were summarily stopped by perpendicular rocks on either side, and by the deep gorge or crevasse, shedding ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton
... cooking-pot, teapot, and wallet, laid her on her back, and strove to bend her knees upwards in the direction of her body. Meanwhile she sought to repel me with blows on face and breast, and at length rolled on to her stomach. Then, raising herself on all fours, she, sobbing, gasping, and cursing in a breath, crawled away like a bear into a ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... land, out of his well, noticed that the other animals did not leap, but walked on their legs. And, not wishing to be eccentric, he likewise began briskly walking upright on his hind legs or waddling on all fours. ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... finally riveted Matthews' attention and brought him to a temporary halt. "Got th' gun down!" he exclaimed. On finding that Lancaster was gone, he had decided not to produce a weapon. Now, however, he quickly felt for one and dropped on all fours. "That biggest gal 'd no more mind pumpin' lead into me than nothin'," he declared, wagging his head wisely. "I could tell that by the shine in her eyes." He ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... tubing near the point of union with the metal tube. It is important not to raise the animal's head too high on account of the danger of the dose entering the lungs. The nose should not be raised higher than the level of the eyes. The animal may be dosed either standing on all fours ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... further!" I shout into the line of sharpshooters. The battalion commander shouts it at the same time. He wouldn't let any one rob him of the honor of advancing in the foremost row of riflemen. We crawl forward on all fours. After thirty meters, halt. Still nothing to be seen. The land rises in front of us. Fifty meters further; eighty; a hundred. At last we have a clear ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... steadiness and made another speech, short this time, but aimed point-blank at us, after which, through the center of a sort of kick-off formation I saw approaching four of the most exquisite women in the world. When ten feet away they fell on all fours and, using the Australian crawl-stroke, crept slowly toward us, exhaling sounds of passionate endearment mingled with the heart-stopping fragrance of alova. Beyond the glimmering lights, an unseen choir burst into the "a-a-a" of the ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock
... distinction which Endemann thinks was productive of very important results in the later teaching on the subject.[2] The last question treated in the treatise is the measure of the campsor's profit, and here the contract of exchange is shown to be on all fours with every other contract, because the essential principle laid down for determining its justice is the observance of the equivalence ...
— An Essay on Mediaeval Economic Teaching • George O'Brien
... rule and made careful measurements of both prints; the result he set down in a note book. I was quite as excited now as Terry. We crawled along on all fours until we reached the open trap; there was no trace here of either spider-webs or dust. We scrambled into the loft without much difficulty, and found a large room with sloping beams overhead and two small windows, innocent of glass, ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster
... with his uncased rifle in one hand, his hat in the other, an empty bandolier over one shoulder and a bag slung by a strap swinging out behind him. He made a leap for the second-class compartment in front of us, and landed on all fours on the platform. We opened the door of our compartment ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... Wentworth; "and sometimes he tosses the biscuit in the air when they say 'Trust,' sometimes when they say 'Paid for,' but generally he drops on all fours and eats ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... The case was on all fours with that of the Vatican. When the Italian Government declared that they would not sit in the Conference if an invitation were sent to the Holy ...
— Boer Politics • Yves Guyot
... and grown-up people, who seasoned their bread with pinches of chopped raw onion, of which a small quantity was lying on a battered plate. Besides Lejbele, there were two younger boys sitting on the floor, a two-year-old child crawled about on all fours, and a baby a few months old was suspended in a cradle near the ceiling, and rocked by one of the elder girls. Another girl was busy with the goats, and a third was feeding a blind old woman, Shmul's mother. She broke the bread in pieces, sprinkled onion upon it, ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... padding of feet and a hurry-scurry behind them, and from the outside darkness beyond the flame-stalks came a crowd of little brown creatures running, jumping, scrambling, tumbling head over heels and on all fours, and some even walking on their heads. They joined hands as they came near the fires and danced around ...
— The Book of Dragons • Edith Nesbit
... question of condemning the ship the Chief Justice held that there was not sufficient evidence to warrant confiscation. He cited the case of the Hook,[17] which was condemned in 1801, but held that the case of the Mashona was not on all fours with the conditions of that decision. He took the view that the case of the Mashona was more nearly analogous to the cases of the Minna and the Mercurius,[18] and consequently declared for the restoration of ...
— Neutral Rights and Obligations in the Anglo-Boer War • Robert Granville Campbell
... of which were dimmed by the rain. The children would play at hide-and-seek in the tall walnut wardrobe and underneath Mother Chantemesse's colossal bed. There were also two or three tables in the room, and they crawled under these on all fours. They found the place a very charming playground, on account of the dim light and the vegetables scattered about in the dark corners. The street itself, too, narrow and very quiet, with a broad arcade opening into the Rue de la Lingerie, provided them with ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... up the passage on all fours, momentarily expecting to feel the claws of their enemy. Six arms and six legs revolved wildly. Jerry held grimly to the lantern, and it's ...
— The Camp in the Snow - Besiedged by Danger • William Murray Graydon
... is on all fours, his cheek almost to the ground. He is watching for the meeting of those two ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... that Master Chiron was not really very different from other people, but that, being a kind-hearted and merry old fellow, he was in the habit of making believe that he was a horse, and scrambling about the schoolroom on all fours, and letting the little boys ride upon his back. And so, when his scholars had grown up, and grown old, and were trotting their grandchildren on their knees, they told them about the sports of their school days; and these young folks took the idea that their grandfathers ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... suppose it has got to be bacon and hardtack again. I'm—" but Charley did not finish the sentence. His pony had put its foot in a hole and stumbled, while Charley, taken unawares, pitched over the animal's head and landed on all fours in a little heap of sand beside the hole that had caused the mischief. To the surprise of his companions, he did not rise, but remained in the position in which he had fallen, ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... on all fours, the ascent, from familiarity, grew less formidable. At least the stones decreased in size, although their tilt remained the same, but the angle looked less steep from above than from ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... to think. You were too excited, and, besides, I was nearer to the man than were the rest of you girls. He simply dropped down on all fours and ran off the porch like a dog ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls in the Hills - The Missing Pilot of the White Mountains • Janet Aldridge
... long eyelashes. Then the jerboa raises himself to his full height and playfully measures his cage by one bound from corner to corner. Soon after, the fresh food receives due attention, the animal either jumping toward it in rabbit fashion or crawling slowly on all fours. When it has reached its goal it again assumes the upright position, in which it is evidently most comfortable, and begins to eat it in his own peculiar way; that is, sitting on his hind legs he quickly seizes a piece of bread, turnip or other food ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various
... On all fours, save when he clung to his spectacles, Beetle wormed into the gorse, and presently announced between grunts of pain that he had found a very fair fox-track. This was well for Beetle, since Stalky pinched him a tergo. Down that tunnel they crawled. It was evidently a highway ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... rites of purification, she is again free to mingle with her fellows."[79] The gradual change of this ceremony, from a getting rid of a dangerous supernatural infection to returning thanks for a natural danger passed, is on all fours with what takes place in other directions in relation to religious ideas ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen
... Sam fired a second time, this time hitting the bear in the left hind leg. The beast dropped on all fours and came to a halt while ...
— The Rover Boys In The Mountains • Arthur M. Winfield
... thought he'd die. He was crazy as a loon. I watched with him one night and he talked every thing you could think of, about a grave hid away somewhere—under his bed, he seemed to think—and made me go down on all fours to look for it. I suppose he was thinking of his grandfather so lately buried. And then, he kept talking about Bessie and asking ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... till they were within one hundred and fifty yards of the lodges, in a thick cluster of young spruce, which completely secured them from discovery. Shortly afterward Malachi and the Indian woman, creeping on all fours, disappeared in the surrounding brush wood, that they might, if possible, gain more intelligence from listening. In the meantime, the party had their eyes on the lodges, waiting to see who should come out as soon as the ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... ammoniacal liquor, and then crystallizing it." "Oh!" Mr. Croll said, "we know what that will produce." I replied: "Yes; but I would like to do it with the precise acid and liquor we have been using, so that we may have the experiment on all fours with yours, barring your process." These experiments were made at his country residence. I was staying there for the night. So next morning I got down before him, went at my experiment, saturated 8 oz. of acid (and a ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 611, September 17, 1887 • Various
... went down on all fours and ran his fingers across the floor boards in a semi-circle. They had not travelled very far before encountering the hard edge of a boot sole. That was good enough for Richard. Judging the distance nicely he seized its owner's ankle in an ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... go round to the gate, but he surprised her by going down on all fours and crawling through a gap in the privet. He looked like a monstrous baboon shuffling towards her. When through, he stood up again, a shaggy lock of hair falling across his forehead, and looked at her with ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... of the dust cloud, and two red-faced, perspiring troopers emerged from the jam, dragging the yet reluctant mule by main strength behind them. As they cleared the line of the column, Bungay rolled off the animal's back, and, in his eagerness, came down on all fours. ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... for the unsuspecting deer. When he shoots one, he immediately skins it, but takes care to leave the head attached to the skin; then ramming a pole into the head at the neck, he drapes the skin over the pole and getting down on all fours places the skin over his back and pretends to be a caribou. Thus he will approach the band, and should he tire of crawling along on his hands and knees he will even lie down to rest in sight of the deer, but he always ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... edge of the road, dug her little heels into his flanks, and flicked him sharply with the morale or elongated lash of the reins. Without hesitation the pony stepped off the grade, bunched his hoofs and slid down the precipitous slope. So steep was the hill that a man would have had to climb it on all fours. ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... being unable to understand a word said to them in Mechlenberg. An English-speaking foreigner, it is true, would find himself equally nonplussed among the Yorkshire wolds, or in the purlieus of Whitechapel; but the cases are not on all fours. Throughout Germany it is not only in the country districts and among the uneducated that dialects are maintained. Every province has practically its own language, of which it is proud and retentive. An educated Bavarian ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... out at the other end for the tail. Now pass the needle through a white card, and through the seed near the tail, and again through the card, and draw down snugly to the card; repeat the same at the ear end, and the little chap stands on all fours, a very realistic mouse. Two or three tiny muslin bags, filled with cotton, marked, "The malt that lay in the house that Jack built," and sewed on one corner of the card, with half a dozen or so of these miniature pests ...
— Harper's Young People, April 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... interests are intimately concerned, and on all topics which are habitually the subjects of conversation among the criminal classes. The language of the Stock Exchange with its Bulls, Bears, Contangos, and other short and comprehensive expressions for various kinds of stocks, is on all fours with the slang of criminals, and it is not necessary to resort to atavism in order to explain it. It arises to supply professional needs, and criminal argot springs up from ...
— Crime and Its Causes • William Douglas Morrison
... seen a man who had been hurt by one of these bears. This was an Indian. He had come on the beast close up in a thick wood, and had mortally wounded it with his gun; it had then closed with him, knocking the gun out of his hand, so that he was forced to use his knife. It charged him on all fours, but in the grapple, when it had failed to throw him down, it raised itself on its hind legs, clasping him across the shoulders with its fore-paws. Apparently it had no intention of hugging, but merely sought ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... the waist, and raised me from the ground, while I shook my arms and legs in time to the music. The concert of these ladies awoke the sleeper, who stared wildly at me, frightened at my gestures, then sprang up and ran with all his might, followed by my brother, who crept on all fours, representing a dog, I think, which belonged to this strange person. As I was then a mere child, I have only a confused idea of all this; but the society of Madame Bonaparte seemed to be much ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... went down on all fours and crawled off, begging them to let him alone, and he rolled himself up in his blanket and wallowed in under the old pine table, still a-begging; and then he went to crying. I could hear him through ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... But when I speak of a beginning, I do not mean an absolute beginning, a beginning of all things. Again and again the question has been asked whether we could bring ourselves to believe that man, as soon as he could stand on his legs, instead of crawling on all fours, as he is supposed to have done, burst forth into singing Vedic hymns? But who has ever maintained this? Surely whoever has eyes to see can see in every Vedic hymn, ay, in every Vedic word, as many rings within rings as are in the oldest tree that was ever hewn down ...
— India: What can it teach us? - A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge • F. Max Mueller
... could not resume the journey. When Cotterell went to dress him he found his master taken with vomits, and reeling like a drunkard. The valet ran to fetch Sir Lewis, and when they returned together they found Sir Walter on all fours gnawing the rushes on the floor, his face livid and horribly distorted, ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... a cat, on all fours, clawing energetically as he urged his upward progress, his comrade paying out the rope carefully. At first his speed was good, but gradually it dwindled. Now he was fifteen feet from the peg, now ten, ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... man came upon a trail. It was of another man, who did not walk, but who dragged himself on all fours. The man thought it might be Bill, but he thought in a dull, uninterested way. He had no curiosity. In fact, sensation and emotion had left him. He was no longer susceptible to pain. Stomach and nerves had gone to sleep. Yet the life that was in him drove him on. He was very weary, but ...
— Love of Life - and Other Stories • Jack London
... himself. Intercourse was in act of becoming normal and easy. So far it had been quite absurdly hind-leggy—and for him, him, to be forced into being hind-leggy by a girl of barely eighteen! Now he prepared to trot gaily, comfortably, off on all fours, when she spoke, bringing him up to the perpendicular again ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... shout. 'You are raking in the money and buying your wife silk handkerchiefs, but the poor farm labourers have to creep on all fours. It's "Cut the corn, Sobieska and Maciek, and I will brag about like a gentleman!" You will see, he will soon call himself "Pan Slimaczinski."[1] He is the devil's own son, for ever ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... till Simon had gone and my foot swoll up so s I couldn't walk and I wouldnt a minded its hurtin Miss Hildy but it s like there wornt no bones in it Pink says I sprante it bad and I started to go over to the Farm on all fours to tell ye but I didn't know anythin g agin and Pink made me come back. We couldnt nether on us get hold of Will but now we got him I hope he l go straite, Miss Hildy Pink wanted to write this for me but I druther write myself you aint punk tuated it she says. She can punk tuate it herself ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... was a goodly sight to see half a dozen regiments disporting themselves in the tepid waters of the James. But no reader can possibly understand what enjoyment it afforded, unless he has slept on the ground for fourteen days without undressing, and been compelled to walk, cook, and live on all fours, lest a perpendicular assertion of his manhood should ...
— The County Regiment • Dudley Landon Vaill
... vacillating so, nor fallen into fear toward God and toward me; but like a faithful son, ready for obedience, you would have gone and done what you could. And if you could not have gone upright, you would have gone on all fours; if you could not have gone as a Frate, you would have gone as a pilgrim; if there is no money for us, one would have gone begging. This faithful obedience would have accomplished more in the sight of God and in the hearts of men than ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... figure, she becomes the dream of all. The Witch takes mischievous delight in making her abuse her goddesship, in tempting her to make game of the men she humbles and befools. She goes to all lengths of boldness, even treating them like very beasts. Look at them being transformed! Down on all fours they tumble, like fawning monkeys, absurd bears, lewd dogs, or swine eager to ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... word, then get up on all fours, but don't straighten up till you feel the trunk about you. We'll make a showman of ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... Deity and to see it disappear before gaining salvation by just touching it! So terrible became the scramble, so extraordinary the confusion, that the Swiss Guards were swept away. And ladies were seen to dart after the Pope, to drag themselves on all fours over the marble slabs and kiss his footprints and lap up the dust of his steps! The tall dark lady suddenly fell at the edge of the platform, raised a loud shriek, and fainted; and two gentlemen of ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... in command of the fabric of the fore all day. Had it come on to blow so as to oblige the captain to shorten sail, the deuce a seaman durst have gone aloft to stow the canvas. The second mate, standing in the top, was in the act of lifting his rifle, when the monster, running on all fours out to the dizzy topgallant yard-arm, stood erect a breathless instant, poised—in human posture—a marvellous picture of the man-beast against the liquid blue, then ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... direction. In the middle of the hubbub a small dump of bombs was struck by a shell and started to explode behind me. The blast of the explosion caught me up and hurled me down fifteen stairs of the dug-out I had been trying to discover. I landed on all fours in a place full of darkness; a door banged behind me. I don't know how long I lay there. Something was squirming under me. A voice said plaintively, "I don't know who you are, but I wish you'd ...
— The Glory of the Trenches • Coningsby Dawson
... the finer particles drifted freely, rising high in the air, while the larger portions of the crystals rolled like sand. I frequently sank to my armpits between buried blocks of loose lava, but generally only to my knees. When tired with walking I still wallowed slowly upward on all fours. The steepness of the slope—thirty-five degrees in some places—made any kind of progress fatiguing, while small avalanches were being constantly set in motion in the steepest places. But the bracing air and the sublime beauty of the snowy expanse thrilled every nerve and made ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... amusing to see the keepers when they suspect poachers are in their woods. When the leaves are off they can see at a great distance, and with their keen, trained eyes make out quite well when a moving object is a hare, or a roebuck, or a person on all fours, creeping stealthily along. They have powerful glasses, too, which help them very much. They, too, have their various tricks, like the poachers. As the gun-barrel is seen at a great distance when the sun strikes it, they cover it with a green stuff that ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington
... cliff, with the sea at its feet, the villagers have formed their cultivated patches. The patches, wildly irregular in form, some on such steeply sloping ground as to suggest the idea that they must have been cultivated on all fours, are divided from each other by ridges and by masses of rock, deep fissures in the earth, strips of bramble and thorn and furze bushes. Altogether the effect was very singular the huge rough mass of jumbled rock and soil, the ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... who had only an ax with him. Jack raised his rifle and fired, and as the bear dropped on all fours fired ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Yukon • Ralph Victor
... was un keepun' wuth the way ut ate. Ot a year ut was the size o' a bairn of two. Ut was slow tull walk an' talk. Exceptun' for gurgly noises un uts throat an' for creepun' on all fours, ut dudna monage much un the walkun' an' talkun' line. But thot was tull be expected from the way ut grew. Ut all went tull growun' strong an' healthy. An' even old Tom Henan cheered up ot the might of ut an' said was there ever the like ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London
... in words, but, taking a firm hold on the back of the chair, he suddenly pulled it out from under Benson. So swiftly was the thing done that Jack went down on all fours on the porch. But, thoroughly aroused, and his eyes flashing indignantly now, that boy was quickly on his feet. Dan, however, with a satisfied grin, had dropped ...
— The Submarine Boys on Duty - Life of a Diving Torpedo Boat • Victor G. Durham
... hearing of his son's illness, answered with indifference, 'that he could do nothing for him,' and left him to his fate. The other, when the accounts reached him, hurried down, and watching for a favourable moment, crawled on all fours along the weather gunwale to his son, who was in the mizen rigging. By that time, only three or four planks of the quarter deck remained, just over the weather-quarter gallery; and to this spot the unhappy man led his son, making him fast to the rail to prevent his being washed away. Whenever the ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... across on all fours the remaining beams cracked beneath our feet and the Belgian engineers called on us to hurry. "Oh, Tiber! Father Tiber," we thought as the last of us got across; but unlike Horatius at the bridge, we were on the right side when engineers applied the match to a small ...
— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green
... type of giant dinosaur is the less completely known "chambered saurian," the Camarasaurus of Cope or Morosaurus of Marsh, an animal more quadrupedal in gait or walking more habitually on all fours, like the great Cetiosaurus, or "whale saurian," discovered near Oxford, England. With its shorter tail and heavier fore limbs, it is still less probable that this animal had the power of raising the anterior part of its body from the ground. Of a related type, perhaps, ...
— Dinosaurs - With Special Reference to the American Museum Collections • William Diller Matthew
... meek gentlemen and ladies made. He uttered the greatest commonplaces a leer and a wink, which imported a vast deal of meaning into the words, and had evidently so well studied his part that he could not even sit down on the chair or walk out of the room without tumbling on all fours or upsetting one or two ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... to run with breathless speed, until, having gained a considerable distance away from any probable line of fire, I flung myself down upon the snow, and was somewhat startled at finding Zach very close upon my tracks, tearing along on all fours with a vague sense of danger of some kind, and looking, in his strange envelope, like an infuriated bull-moose in the act of charging a hunter. A shot struck the corner of the target just as we got away from it, slightly splintering it, so as to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... by love, at once took advantage of her opportunity. She crept on all fours towards the rock on which Alice lay, in such a manner that it came between her person and ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... Yeager walked down to the river-bed, followed the bank for a couple of hundred yards, and crept forward on all fours through the alfalfa pasture to the barb-wire fence that paralleled the road at some distance. He crawled beneath the lowest wire and moved through the mesquite to a point from which he could see the building where Farrar and ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... On all fours he reached the margin of the rivulet, and felt his way along the brink till his head struck the opposite wall. He turned round, took up a position that he guessed was three feet nearer the door, and again traversed the room, becoming so eager in the search that he forgot for the moment the horror ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... and spontaneous, and often unrecognized, except as an element blended with all his thoughts, a natural movement, like the drawing of his breath or the beating of his heart, is a very different thing. You may teach a quadruped to walk on his hind legs, but he is always wanting to be on all fours. Nothing that can be taught a growing youth is like the atmospheric knowledge he breathes from his infancy upwards. The American baby sucks in freedom with the milk of the ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... the air with a crack and a burr that might be heard rods away. Though these sounds did not reach the men, busy with the snow-shack, they did reach listening ears—a great white bear, wandering the floes in search of some sleeping seal, stood first on all fours, then on his haunches, to listen. Then, with many a misgiving and many a pause, he made his cautious way to the edge of that particular ice-flat where the plane rested. Thence, after more misgivings, he trundled his awkward body across the flat and took a position close to the plane, where, on ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell
... tantamount to freemasonry. He was not strict in his lines of definition. He endured without impatience many different shades of Anglo-church conservatism; but with the Slopes and Proudies he could not go on all fours. ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... that," cried the man, giving me a shove, just as the woman flung her shawl over my head. I stepped back, for the shove was no light one; but just behind me the boy had crouched on all fours (he had evidently practised the trick), so that I went headlong over him, and had a nasty fall ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... talking, across the beach. When they reached the trail they dropped on all fours and pulled themselves noiselessly along. The slightest sound, the snapping of a twig, the flutter of a bird, brought them to quiet. ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... not require this illustration to go on all fours. All that I mean is this: A right thing may be wrong, if done unseasonably, or in disregard of ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... not stop. Instead, he began to back, and then of a sudden he leaped high up in the air, to come down on all fours with a thump that nearly ...
— The Rover Boys on the Plains - The Mystery of Red Rock Ranch • Arthur Winfield
... given up hope of standing erect, and began to move painfully on all fours across the snow to where a log of rotten wood was lying. Having reached it, he tried to raise it, but there was not the strength in his hands. He tried to fasten his teeth upon it, to drag it back with him; but his jaws seemed paralysed. ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... gifts are of God, Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit. The world does not perceive this truth, though it, too, enjoys the gifts of God. For God remembers all his creatures, though, like swine that enter the trough on all fours with no thought but of eating and rooting therein, not even lifting their eyes, they cannot raise their thoughts to the source of all their good and have not a thought as to whom they should thank for it. ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... easy. If the Skis are slipping back, you are going too steep and should turn off and traverse instead. No time is saved by too steep a climb; the man who goes easily gets to the top first, while the other clambers up almost on all fours, gets hot and exhausted and has gained nothing. If I am leading an elementary run uphill, I can soon pick out the experienced runners by the line they take and the pace at which they climb. The puffing, panting, stumbling people, who ...
— Ski-running • Katharine Symonds Furse
... all precautions he rolled to the bottom of a grassy ditch. There he lay quiet to rest his bruises, and watch whether any alarm was raised. Luckily for him, the moon was down, and no one had observed his venture. Crawling on all fours along a hollow place, he passed the outposts, and ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... myself constrained here to allude to the treatment given to Catiline by Dean Merivale in his little work on the two Roman Triumvirates. The Dean's sympathies are very near akin to those of Mr. Beesly, but he values too highly his own historical judgment to allow it to run on all fours with Mr. Beesly's sympathies. "The real designs," he says, "of the infamous Catiline and his associates must indeed always remain shrouded in mystery. * * * Nevertheless, it is impossible to deny, and on the whole it would be unreasonable to doubt, that ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... were terribly afraid of him, and whenever they passed him as he sat on his verandah, they would almost go down on all fours. He told me how on one occasion when he was sitting on the upper verandah of the Club Hotel in Suva with two of his servants squatting near by, the whisky he had drunk had made him feel so sleepy, that he nearly fell into the street below, ...
— Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines • H. Wilfrid Walker
... who fell behind were butchered by the Afghans. A fortnight sufficed to cut the whole column to pieces. Of the entire force of 4,000 soldiers and 12,000 followers, one single survivor succeeded in reaching Jellalabad. He was a British surgeon named Brydon, who dragged himself on all fours out of reach of the Afghans; but he lived to tell the tale for more ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... the way with the Romans in their provinces. Yet Cicero, who had come among these poor wretches as an unheard-of blessing from heaven, is held up to scorn because he "trifled with equity!" Equity with us runs glibly on all fours. With Appius in Cilicia it was utterly unknown. What are we to say of the man who, by the strength of his own conscience and by the splendor of his own intellect, could advance so far out of the darkness of his own age, and bring himself ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... sat up, from far away, but not quite so far away, his rounded ears, almost buried in fur, caught faintly—very, very faintly—a sound that brought him down on all fours, and sent him away again at a gallop with a strange new light burning in his little, wide-set eyes. It was the unmistakable sound of a horse sneezing—once. Gulo did not wait to hear if it sneezed twice. He was gone in an instant. Man, it seemed, had not been long in answering that challenge of the ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars |
