"Trigger" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... less vague; but I followed the dog about until at last I made him out standing on a pile of boards a little way off. It was my chance. I raised the gun quickly and took aim. I had both barrels cocked and my finger on the trigger, when something told me quite distinctly not to shoot; to put down the gun and go closer. I did so, and found, not the dog as I thought, but my enemy whom I had threatened but an hour or two before, ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... caught up the rifle, planning to shoot up at the cliff in a venture to frighten them away. She aimed, pulled the trigger, and the rifle-shot rang out making the echoes roar and roll through the chasm as ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... respeck," sez she, "your intellectle part, But you wun't noways du for me athout a change o' heart: Nothun religion works wal North, but it's ez soft ez spruce, Compared to ourn, for keepin' sound," sez she, "upon the goose; A day's experunce'd prove to ye, ez easy 'z pull a trigger, It takes the Southun pint o' view to raise ten bales a nigger; You'll fin' thet human natur, South, ain't wholesome more 'n skin-deep, An' once't a darkie's took with it, he wun't be wuth his keep." "How shell ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... to effect such a change in a pinch of dust that it becomes a free avenue instead of a barricade. Through that avenue a powerful blow from a local store of energy makes itself heard and felt. No device of the trigger class is comparable with this in delicacy. An instant after a signal has taken its way through the coherer a small hammer strikes the tiny tube, jarring its particles asunder, so that they resume their normal state of high resistance. We may well be astonished at the sensitiveness of the metallic ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... combatants swayed, straining every muscle to bring their pistols into play for the fatal shot. By an almost superhuman effort, Fitzgerald at last wrested his right arm free. His pistol was pointed at the Colonel's head. But before he could press the trigger, a shot rang out, and he fell back dead, shot through the heart. Lord Kingsborough had killed his daughter's betrayer ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... connection I'll confess that I must hurry home and help mother with some sewing. Did you want anything especial of me?" Her smile had vanished, and in her tone there was a clink of the metallic that was as subtly suggestive of "On guard" as the click of a trigger. ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... told me to set up and await execution order. I preset two forward radiators for forty kilometers at low condensation, with a three kilometer radius at surface. I then put the controls on automatic trigger, notified the captain, and went on with my normal duties. At 0221, we came out of trans-light, and I adjusted my equipment ...
— Indirection • Everett B. Cole
... of terrifying oaths Lighthouse Harry thrust a shell into the breech of the quick-firing gun. Without waiting to aim it, he tugged at the trigger. Nothing happened! He threw open the breech and gazed impotently at the base of the shell. It was untouched. The ship was ringing with cries of anger, of hate, with ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... safe out of the corner where he had me trapped, with all the deck to dodge about. Just forward of the mainmast I stopped, drew a pistol from my pocket, took a cool aim, though he had already turned and was once more coming directly after me, and drew the trigger. The hammer fell, but there followed neither flash nor sound; the priming was useless with sea water. I cursed myself for my neglect. Why had not I, long before, reprimed and reloaded my only ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... dish, I have no doubt the cougar looked upon me as the subject of a future supper. Rays of light darted from his large eyes, he showed his teeth like a negro in hysterics, and he was crouching on his haunches ready for a spring; all of which convinced me that unless I was pretty quick upon the trigger, posterity would know little of the termination of my eventful career, and it would be far less glorious and useful than I intend to ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... compartment and was forbidden to get up or to touch his luggage. A soldier stood in the corridor of the carriage before the door of each of our compartments which were kept open, revolver in hand and finger on the trigger. The Russian Charge d'Affaires, the women and children and everyone were subjected to ...
— Fighting France • Stephane Lauzanne
... in which he handled it George was alarmed. It was an automatic, and if the Chief once pulled the trigger there would be trouble for some one. George held up a warning hand, and the Chief ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Adventures on Strange Islands • Roger Thompson Finlay
... send bullets into the gray masses which fell back only to come on again. Nothing but modern weapons, machine guns from which missiles fairly flowed in an unending stream, and rifles which a man fired as fast as he could pull the trigger could check them. "Why don't they stop! Why don't they stop!" John was shouting to himself through burned lips, and again he shuddered with sick horror, when he saw a whole line of men blown away, as if they had been ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler
... he was downstairs, undoing the bolts and bars of the door. On the other side stood M'Adam, his blunderbuss at his shoulder, his finger trembling on the trigger, waiting. ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... like the monster's many legs. I took it into my head to try to shoot from there into the water of Glen Canyon beneath us, and borrowed Bishop's 44-calibre Remington revolver for the purpose. When I pulled the trigger I was positively startled by the violence of the report, a deafening shock like a thousand thunder-claps in one; then dead silence. Next, from far away there was a rattle as of musketry, and peal after peal of the echoing shot came back to us. The interval of silence ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... he had seemed to me to be but pot metal and putty, and here, poised, alert, ready—a wire-drawn, hard-hammered Damascus blade of a man—all changed and transformed and glorified, he was coming down on Dave Dancy, finger on trigger, thumb on hammer, eye on target, dominating the ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... pay for it," says Low, wherewith he up with a musket, squinted along the barrel, and pulled the trigger. ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... now faced. He too heard the steps of the three warriors coming in their direction, cautiously feeling a way through the great bank of mist. It was true that they could pass near without seeing, but chance might bring them straight to the little group. He shifted his fingers to the lock and trigger of his rifle, and looked at the sleeping three whose figures were almost hidden, although they were not a yard away. He felt that they should be awake and ready but in waking, Grosvenor, at least, might make enough noise to draw the warriors ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Billy. It's to save you torture, old fellow, just to save you useless suffering, Billy." He drew his pistol from his belt, took careful aim just behind the pony's ear, and, turning his head away, pulled the trigger. ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... passing thought. But I need not enlarge. Here they both stand. The man has just seen the deer. As quick as thought his eye passes over the ground, sees the prey is within proper distance, takes aim, pulls the trigger, that loosens a spring, which forces the flint against the steel; this produces a spark, which ignites the charcoal, and the sulphur and nitre combined, explode and force the wad, which forces the ball from the gun, and is borne thro the air till it reaches the deer, ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch
... affording the farmer an opportunity of loading his grain direct into cars through flat warehouses, if he chose, and shipping where he liked. But because many farmers did not know with just what the new weapon was loaded or how to pull the trigger, the railways and elevators merely stepped up and smilingly brushed the whole thing aside as something which were better hanging on a high peg ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse
... passion, such as we read of in Pope. Who would not have expected them to be insipid likenesses of each other? No such thing. Harpagon is not more unlike to Jourdain, Joseph Surface is not more unlike to Sir Lucius O'Trigger, than every one of Miss Austen's young divines to all his reverend brethren. And almost all this is done by touches so delicate, that they elude analysis, that they defy the powers of description, and that we know them to exist only by the general ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... trifling for me to doubt the fatal effects of the discharge; for I was determined to take deadly aim, in hopes that the fall of one man might save the lives of many. But at the very moment, when my hand was on the trigger, and my eye was along the barrel, my purpose was checked by M'Leay, who called to me that another party of blacks had made their appearance upon the left bank of the river. Turning round, I observed four men at the top of their ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... quickly round, grasping at something which lay upon a shelf near him, and Phineas saw that he was armed with a pistol. Phineas, who had hitherto been seated, leaped to his legs; but the pistol in a moment was at his head, and the madman pulled at the trigger. But the mechanism of the instrument required that some bolt should be loosed before the hammer would fall upon the nipple, and the unhandy wretch for an instant fumbled over the work so that Phineas, still facing his enemy, had time to leap backwards ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... fire for some moments. D'Esterre first changed his position, moving a pace towards the left hand, and then stepped towards O'Connell. His object was to induce him to fire, more or less, at random. He lifted his pistol, as if about to fire. O'Connell instantly presented, pulled the trigger, and ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... English writers call those large muskets calivers; the harquebuss was a lighter piece, that could be fired without a rest. The matchlock was fired by a match fixed by a kind of tongs in the serpentine or cock, which, by pulling the trigger, was brought down with great quickness upon the priming in the pan, over which there was a sliding cover, which was drawn back by the hand just at the time of firing. There was a great deal of nicety and care required to fit the match properly to the cock, so as ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... a great though suppressed passion, "pray, Mr. Bobus, how often have I to tell you that it is not by Mr. Linden that my days are to terminate: you are sure that Carabine saw to that trigger?" ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Jack held the flashlight "gun." It was one of those patent affairs, arranged to fire a charge of magnesium powder by the explosion of a cap when the trigger was pressed. ...
— The Submarine Boys on Duty - Life of a Diving Torpedo Boat • Victor G. Durham
... in rapid succession came quickly up into the alley from the basement stair. Sharply Brennan ordered John to follow Murphy and Smith into the automobile while he remained with Benton, who stood poised with his finger on the trigger of the flash gun. ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... African explorers, big-game hunters, ex-revenue-officers, and Indian-fighters, besides any number of others who have led the wildest kinds of life, all chock-full of stories, and ready to fire 'em off at a touch of the trigger. Teddy hasn't come yet, and so I haven't been able to do anything for you; but you must trot right out, all the same, and join our mess. Besides, I want you to pick out a horse for me, something nice and quiet, 'cause I'm not a dead ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe
... Central Tura, together with the Arab servants who preferred Hamed's imbecile haste to Thani's cautious advance. Our first night in Unyamwezi was very exciting indeed. The Musungu's camp was visited by two crawling thieves, but they were soon made aware by the portentous click of a trigger that the white man's camp was ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... generations the faithful description of one who delighted their fathers, and who can never be replaced, will surely prove welcome. He made his first appearance in Boston at the Howard Athenaeum, Oct. 5, 1846, as Sir Lucius O'Trigger in the "Rivals" (the same character that W. J. Florence is now personating with the Jefferson combination). Mr. Warren remained at the Athenaeum but one season, and during that time commanded the admiration of his audiences. Mr. Charles W. ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 23, October, 1891 • Various
... him from afar. More than once on the trail Wentworth unconsciously stood with the sights of Alex Thumb's rifle trained upon his head, or his heart. But such was his hatred that Thumb always stayed the finger that crooked upon the trigger—and bided ...
— The Challenge of the North • James Hendryx
... took a quicker aim and pulled trigger. A puff of dust right at the feet of the buck showed where Roy's lead had struck this time. With a single bound, wonderful to see, the big deer was out of sight behind trees and brush. The ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... in loops upon a belt, and when this belt is introduced to the gun, and some five or six cartridges have been drawn in by as many reciprocations of a handle, the gun is ready to commence firing. After the first shot, which must be fired by the pulling of a trigger in the ordinary way, the gun will automatically continue to send out shot after shot, until the whole of the cartridges on the belt are exhausted; and if care is taken before this happens to link on to the tail of the first belt ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various
... uncontrolled action to the children. Just to learn to wait, even after the thought is formed into words, until it shall be my turn or my opportunity to speak is a fine discipline of control. To do that every day, year after year, tends to break up the hair-trigger ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope
... sounds of battle—for the report of Mukoki's revolver, or the whoops of the victors. If there had been an ambush it was all over now. Each moment added to his conviction, and as he thrust the muzzle of his gun ahead of him, his finger hovering near the trigger and his snow-blinded eyes staring ahead into the storm, something like ...
— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... had a good chance to get me. But he must have flinched when he pulled the trigger. As I dodged down I saw him run through the trees. He had a rifle. I've been expectin' that kind of gun play. I reckon now I'll have to keep a little closer hid myself. These fellers all seem to get chilly or shaky when they draw a ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... family of the ifs, a peace-maker. My Lady Delacour, I was going to observe that my principal has met with an unfortunate accident, in the shape of a whitlow on the fore-finger of her right hand, which incapacitates her from drawing a trigger; but I am at your service, ladies, either of you, that can't put up with a disappointment with good humour.' I never, during the whole course of my existence, was more disposed to bear a disappointment with good humour, to prove that I ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... here?" he asked, suddenly stopping and looking at the company before him. "Why there's Lieutenant Canfield as sure as I am alive, and if that ain't my dear little daughter yonder, I hope I may never lift my sword for Mad Anthony again. And there's Oonomoo, the best red-man that ever pulled the trigger of a rifle, with a little pocket edition of himself, and grinning Cato too! Why don't you come to the arms of your father, sis, and let him ...
— Oonomoo the Huron • Edward S. Ellis
... but my bullet struck the bough the nest was resting on; we fired again, and the bullet passed through the nest without touching the bird. I then asked the king to allow me to try his Whitworth, to which a little bit of stick, as a charm to secure a correct aim, had been tied below the trigger-guard. This time I broke the bird's leg, and knocked him half out of the nest; so, running up to the king, I pointed to the charm, saying, That has done it—hoping to laugh him out of the folly; but he took my joke in earnest, and he turned to his men, commenting on the potency of the charm. ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... is a means of insuring success on the morrow. Max remains sceptical until Caspar hands him his rifle and bids him shoot at an eagle flying overhead. The bird is plainly out of rifle range, a mere black dot against the twilight sky; but Max, scarcely aiming, touches the trigger and an eagle of gigantic size comes hurtling through the air and falls at his feet. Max is convinced that there is a sure way to win his bride on the morrow. He asks Caspar if he has more bullets like ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... sorely tempted to level and pull trigger; but, still fearing that even at that close distance the snipe-shot would scatter and do no ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... Dave said a moment later, and the lad, whose rifle was resting on the rock in front of him, pulled his trigger, and almost immediately Dave fired again. Another moment and the mouth of the Canyon was clear. Another Indian lay by the side of the first who ...
— The Golden Canyon - Contents: The Golden Canyon; The Stone Chest • G. A. Henty
... off of himself, but this was merely a feint. By skillful maneuvering unknown to Ensal he got hold of his pistol and sought to so aim it that he could shoot Ensal through the heart. Concluding that he now had the pistol at the right angle, he pulled the trigger. The trembling condition of his hand could not insure a steady aim and the pistol falling down sent the bullet crashing into his own side. Ensal leaped up, but Earl ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... saw several dark forms dash out on the ice behind him. He broke into a run, but the pack rapidly overtook him. Raising his gun to fire, he was thunderstruck to find that in some way he had jammed the trigger and that it would ...
— Bob Hunt in Canada • George W. Orton
... an hour's walking, Dick and Joe plunged into a forest of gum-trees, their eyes alert on all sides, and their fingers on the trigger. There was no foreseeing what they might encounter. Without being a rifleman, Joe could handle ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... veturilfaristo. Coachman veturigisto. Coal karbo. Coalesce kunigxi. Coalition kunigxo. Coarse (manner) vulgara. Coast marbordo. Coat vesto. Coat of arms blazono. Coat (walls, etc.) sxmiri. Coax logi. Cobalt kobalto. Cobweb araneajxo. Cock (trigger) cxano. Cock (tap) krano. Cock (rooster) koko. Cockerel kokido. Cock's comb kresto. Cocoa kakao. Cocoa-nut kokoso. Cod gado. Code legxaro. Codicil kodicilo. Coddle dorloti. Coerce devigi. Coercion devigo. Coffee kafo. Coffee-house ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... suffers nothing but itself to impose its limits. In that sense the North would soon have his old crony on the pavement again, with one yellow finger in his button-hole, and another nervously playing at a trigger behind the back. For the North was paying roundly in men and dollars to renew that pleasurable intercourse, to get the dear old soul out again as little dilapidated as possible, with as much of the old immunities and elasticities preserved as an ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... away to some other country where it was safe, 'nen I was goin' to try'n keep straight like you would want. I would a'got trough all right, but I seen her,—the pretty lady,—your girl,—standing in the aisle right ahin' the c'ndct'r, jes' es I wuz pullin' the trigger knowed her right off, 'ith her eyes shinin' like two stars; an' I couldn't run no resks. I ain't never bin no bungler at my trade, but I hed to bungle this time 'cause I couldn't shoot your girl! So I turned it jes' in time an' took it mese'f. She seen ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... outer rail. Grayling, the favourite, had drawn the inner rail. Jake, obeying orders, swung his weight on Alibi's bit and dragged the rearing, plunging creature into the middle of the line. At that instant the starter jerked the trigger and yelled: ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan
... did not realize. Then, slowly, I comprehended. The Thing was stooping again. It was horrible. I started to load my rifle. When I looked again, the monster was tugging at the stone—moving it to one side. I leant the rifle on the coping, and pulled the trigger. The brute collapsed, on ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... pull, and instantly a most surprising event came to pass. That jerk at the rope must have set a hair-trigger going, for there followed a sudden rattling noise, the loop was instantly tightened around his ankle, and in a trice Johnny was hanging head down, as helpless as ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas
... of the fuel and I can build one easily enough," replied Loring. He turned to Mason. "Go below and suit up to go into the reaction chamber," he ordered. "Get an extra lead suit out. I'll go in and help you. And find something we can use for a trigger and a fuse." He smiled at Roger. "It might be a little crude, but it'll be fancy enough for what we want. I'm going to blast the Polaris from here back to ...
— Danger in Deep Space • Carey Rockwell
... cover if they can help it," said Emson; and his words proved true, for as they rode slowly round with finger on trigger, scanning the openings, the cunning brutes glided in and out among the great boulders, and crawled through the bushes, so that not a glimpse of ...
— Diamond Dyke - The Lone Farm on the Veldt - Story of South African Adventure • George Manville Fenn
... quite still. I could not exactly see what was best to be done, for the man's hand was steady, and I scarcely saw how I could escape if indeed he pressed the trigger. ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... good marksman, a resolute mind, a fixed determination, and my world for it, you will never return home without sounding your horn with the breath of a new victory. And so with every other undertaking. Be confident that your ammunition is of the right kind—always pull your trigger with a steady hand, and so soon as you perceive a calm, touch her off, and the ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... and then the prophet, in Jehovah's name, bursts into a wonderful song of triumph over the defeated invader. 'I have heard.' That is enough. Hezekiah's prayer has, as it were, fired the fuse or pulled the trigger, and the explosion follows, and the shot is sped. 'Whereas thou hast prayed, ... I have heard,' is ever true, and God's hearing is God's acting in answer. The methods of His response vary, the fact that He responds to the cry of despair driven to faith by extremity ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... suddenly emerged from the forest. The lordly animal paused for a few seconds and looked around. Dane was fully alert now. With his gun resting across a fallen log, he trained his eye along the smooth dark barrel. Then as the moose stepped forward and its right side was presented to view, he pulled the trigger. The loud report resounded through the silent forest reaches, and sent the ducks scurrying wildly out of the water. With a snort of pain and surprise the moose threw back its great head, lifted its fore feet from the ground, reeled for an instant, and crashed over ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody
... however, was at his belt, and his hand reached for it. But the range was already too far for any hope of accurate pistol fire. His hard eyes gazed along the short, black barrel. His steady finger pressed back against the trigger. ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... less than five seconds. I only had to veer my gun two inches. My hand was on the trigger, and with a perfect "bead" on his left shoulder—right where the old guide had said the night before was the ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith
... thickening towards the butt, at which was a square chamber firmly welded to a socket for receiving the pole, formed the gun itself. Within the chamber aforesaid a nipple protruded from the base of the tube, and in line with it. The trigger was simply a flat bit of steel, like a piece of clock spring, which was held down by the hooked end of a steel rod long enough to stick out beyond the muzzle of the gun three or four inches, and held in position by two flanges ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... expanded during descent. The car is fastened to the centre cord, and the whole attached to the balloon in such a manner that it may be readily and quickly detached, either by cutting a string, or pulling a trigger. Consequently, in the East, where the Umbrella has been from the earliest ages in familiar use, it appears to have been occasionally employed by vaulters, to enable them to jump safely from great heights. Father ...
— Umbrellas and their History • William Sangster
... Garland was another matter. Instinctively the spy knew his danger. This was not a man to hesitate about pulling a trigger, and his life, in the hollow of Stair Garland's hand, would weigh no heavier than a puff of dandelion smoke which a gust of wind carries along with it. So from his first acquaintance with him the spy had given Stair ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... the movement; for at once, even with his head down in the grasses, he hesitated and came to a full stop. Suddenly, as my fingers felt for the trigger-guard, my heart began ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... were by the high grass and the trunks of the trees, they did not at first perceive us, and earnestly I hoped that they might pass by without doing so. Pullingo crouched down, eagerly watching them, but without uttering a word. Mudge's hand moved towards his pistols; and I kept my finger on the trigger of my gun, ready to fire should they appear to have any intention of attacking us. They were more savage-looking fellows than any we had before seen—their countenances distorted with rage, and every action exhibiting the fury ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... is seven twelfths of a hole in length and one quarter in thickness. So also its socket-piece. The trigger or handle is three holes in length and three quarters of a hole in breadth and thickness. The trough in the pipe is sixteen holes in length, one quarter of a hole in thickness, and three quarters in height. The base of the standard ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius
... refrain a grin when I thought of the wasted possibilities of that deadly revolver in the hands of an untutored warrior of the stone age. Had he but reversed it and pulled the trigger he might still be alive; maybe he is for all I know, since I did not kill him then. When he was about twenty feet from me I flung my javelin with a quick movement that I had learned from Ghak. He ducked to avoid it, ...
— Pellucidar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... his shoulder, aims at the wayfarers whom he has stopped on the road. Generally they kneel down, tender their purses, and the shot is not fired. But the gun is cocked, nevertheless, and, to be certain of this, we have only to look at the shriveled hand grasping the trigger. We are reminded of those swarms of banditti which infested the country under the ancient regime;[3229] the double-girdle of smugglers and receivers embraced within twelve hundred leagues of internal excise-duties, the poachers abounding on the four hundred leagues of guarded captaincies, the ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... of weapons the first which my hand reached. It was a musket. Instinctively, for there was no time to reason, I cocked, presented in a sort of charge-bayonet attitude, the only one possible, and pulled trigger. The old weapon went off with a deafening report, sending out a blinding sheet of flame in the darkness. One thief fell headlong at my very feet; the other, turning, fled blindly towards the staircase. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... Levell'd so right, it thump'd upon 520 His manly paunch with such a force, As almost beat him off his horse. He lost his whinyard, and the rein; But, laying fast hold of the mane, Preserv'd his seat; and as a goose 525 In death contracts his talons close, So did the Knight, and with one claw The trigger of his pistol draw. The gun went off: and as it was Still fatal to stout HUDIBRAS, 530 In all his feats of arms, when least He dreamt of it, to prosper best, So now he far'd: the shot, let fly At random 'mong the enemy, Pierc'd TALGOL's gaberdine, and grazing 535 Upon his ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... exclamation Tim O'Rooney sighted his rifle at the aborigine, and taking a tedious, uncomfortable aim, pulled the trigger, and then lowered his piece and stared at his target to watch the result. The Indian stood as motionless as a statue, and finally the Irishman drew a ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis
... remarked his comrade, "and the minute you cross that spot you come within his range. He'll put a bullet through you before you can level a rifle or press a trigger." ...
— And Thus He Came • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... aim and bore against the trigger. There was no explosion. A depressing sense of unreality rolled ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... quiver in your own! Confess no more that when his blood was shed, And you so sympathetically bled, The bow that spanned the mutual cascade Was but the promise of a roaring trade In offices. Your fingering now the trigger Shows that you knew your Negro was a nigger! Ad hominem this argumentum runs: Peace!—let us fire another ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... he was the commander of the enemy. Ned sprang to his feet, made a long stride forward, snatched from the breast of his overcoat the revolver he had been hiding there, cocked it and leveled it at the Rebel's breast. Before he could pull the trigger Orderly Sergeant Charles Bentley, of his Company, who was watching him, leaped forward, caught his wrist and threw the revolver up. Others joined in, took the weapon away, and handed it over to the officer, ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... Paulvitch immune. A sneer curled his bearded lip as his forefinger closed upon the trigger of his revolver. There was a loud report. A little hole appeared above the heart of the sleeping boy, a little hole about which lay a ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... a revolver. He picked it up. It was loaded. Idly he tried the trigger. It worked. He looked at Zaidos. How he hated him! They seemed all alone on that field of dead and dying. The tide had swept away and left ...
— Shelled by an Unseen Foe • James Fiske
... or a mountain wolf," mutters Maxime Valois. He resumes his tramp along the rocky ramparts of the Californian Coast Range. His eyes are strained to pierce the night. He waits, his finger on the trigger ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... justice had to be done, ruat clum: and so it came about that one day the nephew issued forth to correct him with a matchlock. The innocent old man was cultivating his paternal acres; so the nephew was able, unperceived, to get a steady sight on him. His finger was on the trigger, when suddenly there slipped into his mind the divine precept: "Allah is merciful!'' He lowered his piece, and remained for a little plunged in thought; meanwhile the unconscious uncle hoed his paddy. Then with a happy smile ...
— Pagan Papers • Kenneth Grahame
... the upper edge of the barrel a V-shaped channel was cut. The channel was not very deep, only enough to receive a tenpenny nail with the head projecting half-way above the sides. A notch was cut across the barrel, through this channel, at the trigger end, and a trigger made of heavy iron wire, bent to the shape shown in Fig. 51, was hinged to the gun by a bolt which passed clear through the stock and through both eyes of the trigger. By using two nuts on the bolt, and tightening one against the other, they were prevented ...
— The Scientific American Boy - The Camp at Willow Clump Island • A. Russell Bond
... creeping toward the bow, as if desirous of seeing all that went on; when Jack, feeling that he was certainly privileged to defend his property against pirates, pulled the trigger which his trembling finger had been pressing; and a sudden roar awoke the echoes ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel
... read it, and rushed out and hitched up a horse and drove like mad to my brother-in-law's, but I got there too late, the poor boy had taken a shot-gun to his room, and put the muzzle into his mouth, and set off the trigger with his foot. In the letter he told me what was the matter—he had got into trouble with a woman of the town, and had caught syphilis. He had gone away and tried to get cured, but had fallen into the hands of a quack, who ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... doctor led the way in front of and between the two sections. The cavalry moved slowly, keeping pace with the climbers. Soon the crest was reached, and the main body began to descend gradually, when the dominie slipped and his piece went off, the trigger having caught in his red window cord, startling the echoes. Then came the diffusive boom and crackle of the blunderbuss, and the doctor, inwardly anathematizing Wilkinson, hurried his men on. They heard axes at work, as if trees were being felled; it was the Captain and the Richards at the ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... the butt of the bowsprit, Ridgeway, washing her yellow face under the moon. I didn't make any bones about it this time. I put the bad end of that gun against the scar on her head and squeezed the trigger. It snicked on an empty shell. I tell you a fact; I was almost deafened by the report that ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... with him down the Nevski Prospekt he would be questioned, of course, but as soon as they learned who he was and that he had nothing to do with you, they would let him go. But if he were with us, say here, when we were pounced upon, and you had no time to pull the trigger of the pistol pointing into that keg of powder in the cupboard, he would be hurried away with us to one of the fortresses, and the chances are that not a soul would ever know what had become of him. Still it cannot be helped now; he may be useful, and as ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... birds would wait and watch, all the while glancing from side to side, and dip, dip, dipping their bills in the water with infinite wary quickness of movement, and yet with an air of audacious unconcern; but the pull at the trigger seemed to touch some nerve in them, and by the same act you fired your shot at them ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... catch a flashing vision of a tall Mexican creeping toward him, a long, slim knife glittering in his upraised hand. The fellow was so close that another step would bring him within striking distance, and without hesitation Buck's finger pressed the trigger. ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... of the day he led us in silence down the trace, his eye alert to penetrate every corner of the forest, his hand near the trigger of his long Deckard. I followed in boylike imitation, searching every thicket for alien form and color, and yearning for stature and responsibility. As for poor Weldon, he would stride for hours at a time with eyes fixed ahead, a wild figure,—ragged and fringed. And we knew that the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... "If ye obsarve the top o' the trap, ye'll see the rope that suspended it from the limb o' that oak. Inside there was a bit o' beef, so fixed up, that when Mister Caleb laid hold of it, he pulled a sort o' trigger, an' down came the trap, shuttin' him in slick, as ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... to Robert interminable, though it was not more than half an hour, passed, and then he saw dimly a gigantic figure, made yet greater by the dusk. He knew that it was Tandakora and his hand slid to the trigger and hammer of his rifle. But he knew also that he would not fire. It was no part of their plan to give an alarm so early. The Ojibway vanished and then he thought he caught the gleam of a uniform. So, a Frenchman, probably an ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... brother how the survivor might do, provided one of the guns should fail; (for they were determined upon going together;) but forgetting, perhaps, in the perturbation of the moment that the gun was cocked, when he touched trigger with the rod the gun fired, and he fell, and died in a few minutes—and was with George in the eternal world, where the slave is free from his master. But poor Isham was so terrified with this unexpected occurrence ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... matter, Lady Hickle," said the lad blithely. "All you'll have to do'll be to bob up and down in the tiger-grass in the approved style; keep your trigger away from the bush, and so as to feel thoroughly creepy, your eye out for pugs; which, in case some of you don't know, means tiger-tracks, not the dog with the beastly curly tail—and—oh, jolly!—here come ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... not own either. His father had brought from Holland an old musket, used before the country was erected into a kingdom for Louis Bonaparte, more than eighty years ago; but when Nick rammed a charge down its dusty throat one day, forgetful that one had been resting there for months, and pulled trigger, it hung fire a long time; but, when it did go off, it did so in an overwhelming fashion, bursting into a dozen pieces and narrowly missing killing the astounded lad ...
— Through Forest and Fire - Wild-Woods Series No. 1 • Edward Ellis
... world and its wife is too. She warn't there this year, and it sarves folks right. If I was an angelyferous queen, like her, I wouldn't go nowhere till I had a tory minister, and then a feller that had a "trigger-eye" would stand a chance to get a white hemp-neckcloth. I don't wonder Hume don't like young England; for when that boy grows up, he'll teach some folks that they had better let some folks alone, or some folks had better ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... a mere truism to state that many a chain of grave and far-reaching events is set in motion by some insignificant trifle. The touching of a trigger by a child explodes a gun which extinguishes a valuable life, and perhaps throws a whole neighbourhood into difficulties. The lighting of a match may cause a conflagration which shall "bring down" an extensive firm, ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... By shooting down some of our best neighbors. I say a bullet ought to let daylight through his onery carcass, and I'll be the one to fire it." With this remark he raised his gun to his shoulder and pulled the trigger; but before the weapon went off Jasper knocked the barrel up in the air, and the lead went flying ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick
... failed, at least without honor, filled himself full of brandy, cocked a forty-five-calibre revolver, put the muzzle in his mouth, pulled the trigger, blew off the back of his head, and was "accidentally shot while cleaning ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... Williams cut up rough with Johnson, and drawed a knife on him, which Johnson gripped with his left while he pulled trigger.— Williams, I heerd, was in the wrong; I hain't perhaps got the right end of it; anyhow, you might hev noticed the Sheriff hes lost the little finger off his left hand.—Johnson, they say, got right up and lit out from Pleasant Hill. Perhaps the folk in Mizzoori ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... shoot; be only felt a vague desire to hear a shot and to kill something; but nothing came before his gun. The birds had already migrated. Only a squirrel was climbing about the branches of a pine-tree, staring at him with brilliant eyes. He raised the gun and pulled the trigger; but the nimble little beast was already on the other side of the trunk when the shot hit the tree. But the ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... trigger. A tongue of flame leapt forth and burst upon the night with a terrific explosion; and as Caleb fell backwards with the shock, the clumsy engine slipped from his fingers and fell with a clatter ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... there was a cayman of the small species, measuring about five feet in length; I saw it in the same place for months, but could never get a shot at it, for, the moment I thought I was sure of it, it dived under the water before I could pull the trigger. At last I got an Indian with his bow and arrow: he stood up in the canoe with his bow ready bent, and as we drifted past the place he sent his arrow into the cayman's eye, and killed it dead. The skin of this little species is much harder ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... allow. That much, however, he would do, and like him whose resources are reduced, and yet who desires to spend the little that he has to best advantage, he levelled the weapon boldly at the advancing Marquis, and pulled the trigger. But Bellecour was an old campaigner, and by an old campaigner's trick he saved himself at the last moment. At sight of that levelled barrel he pulled his horse suddenly on to its haunches, and received the charge in the animal's belly. With a shriek of pain the horse ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... deliberately. At his second shot the man he had fired at ran forward three or four steps, and then pitched flat on his face. For a flash Aldous thought that it was Mortimer FitzHugh. Then, along his gun barrel, he saw FitzHugh—and pulled the trigger. It ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... or tourney without hearing a chronicle of her virtues go round the lists, shouted by wheezy heralds and taken up by roaring swashbucklers! Perdition overpower such ostentatious wooers! Marry! shall I shoot the amorous feline who nightly iterates his love songs on my roof, and yet withhold my trigger finger from yonder pranksome gallant? Go to! Here is an orange left of last week's repast. Decay hath overtaken it,—it possesseth neither savor nor cleanliness. Ha! cleverly thrown! A hit—a palpable hit! Peradventure I have still a boot that hath done me service, ...
— Urban Sketches • Bret Harte
... and that cast on purpose, will ever lay it," continued a third. But Spike disregarded all. This time he was resolved that his aim should be better, and he was inveterately deliberate in getting it. Just as he pulled the trigger, however, Don Juan Montefalderon touched his elbow, the piece was fired, and there stood the immovable figure as before, fixed against the tower. Spike was turning angrily to chide his Mexican friend for deranging his aim, when the report of an answering musket ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... wonder through his simple reply of "Why, Christmas Day!" The boy who is "as big," he says himself, as the prize turkey, and who gets off at last quicker than a shot propelled by the steadiest hand at a trigger! Scattered up and down the Boz fictions, there are abundant specimens of a genus that, in one instance, is actually termed by the Humorist, "a town-made little boy"—this is in the memorable street scene where ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... told Mr. Gorman a few things, when all of a sudden Zimick drew his 45 colt revolver remarking as he did so, "Here is the last of Jack Zimick." He placed the gun to his head and before we could reach him he pulled the trigger, and his brains were scattered all over ...
— The Life and Adventures of Nat Love - Better Known in the Cattle Country as "Deadwood Dick" • Nat Love
... any door fitted with a spring lock is shown in the accompanying sketches. A fairly stiff spring, A, is connected by a flexible wire cord to the knob B. The cord is also fastened to a lever, C, which is pivoted at D and is released by a magnetic trigger, E, made from the armature and magnet ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... of Henriette and Maurice's sentence, they were giving it a preliminary trial. "The trigger's been slipping—not working well," the head fellow explained to the master of ceremonies. Back and forth the terrible guillotine knife hissed and whistled until they pronounced ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon
... late. The barrel of the revolver gleamed blue in the lurid glare of a big H.E. which burst behind them, and Dennis had already pressed the trigger! ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... now left, to force his way through the congestion at the door, like a harried rabbit at a wattled fence. A touch on the shoulder simultaneously with the click of a trigger at his ear brought his face round over his shoulder. He made the instinctive pioneer motion to his hip, looked into the bore of the Colonel's pistol, and under Keith's grip dropped his "gun-hand" ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... cocked at safety on my lap, I turned the muzzle of it toward the Tarjum, and purposely let my hand slide down to the trigger. He became uncomfortable. His ...
— An Explorer's Adventures in Tibet • A. Henry Savage Landor
... Johnny depressed a control. Paresi nodded slightly as he saw the pilot's hand move, for he knew that the autopilot had done it, and that Johnny's movement was one of trained reflex. The youngster was intense and alert, hair-trigger schooled, taught to pretend in such detail that the pretense was reality to him; a precise pretense that would become reality for all of them if ...
— Breaking Point • James E. Gunn
... it was conscience. They were a pair of villains. I know that Gourlay had a secreted card, whereby he was to blackleg Graeme, and that it was disappointment, shame, and conscience, working all together, that made him draw the trigger to end a villanous life. But the game is up," he continued, as he rose and got hold of his hat; then standing erect and fearless, he held out his finger, pointing to me—"Rymer!" he said impressively, but with devilish calmness, "let your ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... long with that expensive toy which he keeps locked up somewhere among his cocked-hats and white gloves. I can assure you he has not even allowed me to see the trigger since I have been on board. But 250-ton swivellers do cost money, and the John Bright must steam away, and play its part in other quarters of the globe. What do you intend to do when he shall ...
— The Fixed Period • Anthony Trollope
... but—you will pardon me, Burke?—she was hasty; she was hasty. It is easier to set forces of love or hate moving than to check them in motion. Sometimes I think, Burke, that people were in certain ways less reckless in the good old days when they had perpetually before their eyes the vision of a hair-trigger God, always cocked and ready to shoot if they crossed the line of duty. But Nelly is coming bravely through a severe test of character. May I offer you ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... pause a few paces beyond the doorstep, his forefinger ready upon the trigger of the automatic pistol, was alone ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... Lopes in summing up described as an "absolute surmise" the theory of the accidental discharge of the pistol. He asked the jury to take Peace's revolver in their hands and try the trigger, so as to see for themselves whether it was likely to go off accidentally or not. He pointed out that the pistol produced might not have been the pistol used at Banner Cross; at the same time the bullet fired in November, 1876, bore marks such as ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... grim crime beneath the surgeon's knife, The honorable gentlemen deplored the loss of life; Bear witness of those chanting choirs that burk and shirk and snigger, No man laid hand upon the knife or finger to the trigger! ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... as ill-equipped for highwaymanship as I was for farming with my Georgics. "Stand and deliver," quoth I to myself, "or I'll double your weight with swan-shot." Were the unknown horseman a resolute man armed with a hair-trigger, I was as ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... but there was no motion, no life,—he was dead! The awful truth forced itself upon me. Mad and blind with rage, I had turned the weapon upon him and it had discharged,—whether by some sudden movement of his hand, or by the accidental pressure of my own fingers upon the trigger, God alone knows, I do not! One fact I could not then, nor ever can, forget; it was my hand that gave the weapon its deadly aim, however blindly or unwittingly, and the blood of my brother whom I had wronged and defrauded now lay at ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... more concerned over other people's troubles than his own. He goes serenely unsuspicious of the brick under the silk hat, even when the silk hat is on the head of a Mayor or City Councilman. He will pull every trigger he meets, regardless that the whole world is loaded and aimed at him. He will keep on running for the 5:42 train, even though the timetable was changed the day before yesterday. He goes through the revolving doors ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... felon hand, between the goal and him, Reached from behind his back, a trigger prest,— And those perplexed and patient eyes were dim, Those gaunt, long-laboring limbs were ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various
... first caught sight of the prisoner gliding through the trees—I saw him as plainly as I see you now—I covered him with my musket—I wouldn't have given a copper pfennig for his life, when paff! at the very moment I pulled the trigger, out steps a fellow from behind my shoulder, knocks up my musket, and disappears like a flash of lightning—Heaven only knows where, for I never laid eyes on ...
— Monsieur Maurice • Amelia B. Edwards
... pressed trigger, a light sighing eased itself from the slim barrel. Something flicked through the leaves; and, almost on the instant, the phenomenon of the little phosphorescent spot repeated itself, though in a different place from ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... raised his rifle. He had covered the calf, and was about to pull the trigger, when, with a sagacity far beyond his experience as hunter, he ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... into his mind. In his hand he still held the revolver. He pressed it upwards against the thing that was smothering him, and pulled the trigger. Again he pulled it, and again, for it was a self-cocking weapon, and even there deep down in the water he heard the thud of the explosion of the damp-proof copper cartridges. His lungs were bursting, his senses reeled, only enough of them remained to ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... "if you knew where there was a gun, would that make you want to put it up agin your head and pull the trigger?" ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... sight Il Duca glanced at Patsy. She was holding the revolver rigidly extended, and her blue eyes blazed with the excitement of the moment. It was a wonder she did not pull the trigger inadvertently, and the thought that she might do so caused the brigand ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... the Rutherford girl had stepped into the conspiracy, it became one of finesse and not bloodshed. Was this the reason that her father had sent her—to stay the hands of his associates already reaching toward the prisoner? There was no question that Meldrum's finger had been itching on the trigger of his revolver for a week. One of the young Rutherfords had been beside him day and ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... objects which were wasting away. Their disintegration is identical with our own. They have their decay, their ruptures, their tumors, their madnesses. A piece of furniture gnawed by worms, a gun with a broken trigger, a warped drawer, or the soul of a violin suddenly out of tune, such are the ...
— Romance of the Rabbit • Francis Jammes
... disappeared Maitland stepped to the door, raised his revolver, and pulled the trigger twice. The shots detonated loudly in that confined space, and rang coincident with the clash and clatter of shivered glass. A thin cloud of vapor obscured the doorway, swaying on the hot, still air, then parted and dissolved, dissipated ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... and experience had taught him the value of instantaneous action. And so, even with the stinging pain in his left shoulder, his hand swept his gun lightly upward, and before it had reached a level he had begun to pull the trigger. But to his astonishment only the metallic click, click of the hammer striking the steel of the cylinder rewarded his efforts. Once, twice, thrice; so rapidly that the metallic ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... observed Macallan, "that I saw an animal hitherto undescribed—I fired at it, but an antelope bounded by as I pulled my trigger, and received the ball—I never regretted anything so much in my life. ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... him home, bag and baggage, sir. He is not entitled to the dignity or consideration of the usual formalities. Moreover, he is the trigger of the United States so long as he remains at liberty in it. I estimate that there is a new Jacobin club formed daily. At any moment he may do something which will drive these fools, under their red caps ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... exclamation, "Ah, mon Dieu! je suis mort!" Lord Cochrane and several officers rushed to the Prince's cabin, there to find him lying in a pool of blood, and writhing in agony. His servant had been cleaning his pistols, and he had just loaded one of them to hang it on a nail, when, the trigger being accidentally struck, the weapon discharged and a ball entered his body and settled in the groin. Dr. Howe, an American surgeon, famous for his services to Greece and for later philanthropic labours, being at hand, came to his relief until Dr. Gosse could be sent ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... and the point must be tied by a leather thong around the thigh to keep it in correct position; and of course it was hung on the right side and low down on the hip, so as to be easily got at. Only when riding fast was a small loop and silver button passed through the trigger guard to prevent the gun from jolting out and being lost. The chambers were always kept full and the weapons themselves in perfect working order. Very "bad" men tied back or removed the trigger altogether, cocking and releasing the hammer with ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... band had perfect confidence in his courage and his skill. Silently, sternly, sublimely, in a mass as compact as possible, they moved slowly on. Every eye was on the alert; every man had his finger to the trigger. Their guns were heavily loaded, that the balls might be thrown to a great distance. Not an Indian could expose his body but that he fell before the unerring aim ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... himself firing at inanimate targets thrown into the air and had perfected himself in the use of firearms without realizing that he had done so. Now indeed would he hunt big game. A slow smile touched his lips as his finger closed gradually upon the trigger. The rifle spoke and a German machine gunner collapsed behind his weapon. In three minutes Tarzan picked off the crew of that gun. Then he spotted a German officer emerging from a dugout and the three men in the bay with him. Tarzan was careful to ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... The truth is, he must have been as tired as I was. As the Kaffirs approached to lay hands on me he had growled menacingly, but when I spoke again he had stopped. Henriques' voice had convinced him of a more urgent danger, and so soon as the trigger hand of the Portugoose rose, the dog sprang. The bullet went wide, and the next moment dog and man were ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... quietly. "That's why I must insist that you raise your hands. Instantly!" His voice hardened and his finger tightened on the trigger. "Shoot without ...
— The Boy Allies with Haig in Flanders • Clair W. Hayes
... The foe is wickedly spurring and yanking the bridle and cursing his horse. Every thrust of the spur into Nat's gaunt flanks pricks Rodney as well. He aims to kill and his finger is on the trigger, when, like a flash of light, he recalls Zeb's words: "Killin' even an enemy is serious, an' not pleasant to ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... matches, and, taking one of these, he broke the end off and rubbed in on the fore-sight very gently, careful not to let it explode, and succeeded in making the little projection so luminous that he could align it with the back-sight and the Arab's body. Then he pulled the trigger, and saw the dark figure leap forward and fall prone. Saw it, indeed, but only in a fraction of a second, for he stole back to the sand ridge, slipping in ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... been far ahead of their powers of performance. Thus, in one of Gerald Griffin's novels, there is a scene in which a young Irish student, fresh from his scholastic ethics, amazes the company at his father's table, who are all devout believers in the virtues of the hair-trigger, by an eloquent declamation against the folly and the sin of duelling. At last one of the set gets sufficient breath to call him a coward. The hot Irish blood is up in an instant, a tumbler is thrown at the head of the doubter ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... a scream, and a female figure sprang out from the shadows and rushed before Jack just as Thornton pulled the trigger. ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... of a pre-existing energy which it finds at its disposal. Now, it finds only one way of succeeding in this, namely, to secure such an accumulation of potential energy from matter, that it can get, at any moment, the amount of work it needs for its action, simply by pulling a trigger. The effort itself possesses only that power of releasing. But the work of releasing, although always the same and always smaller than any given quantity, will be the more effective the heavier the weight it makes fall and the greater the height—or, in other words, the greater the sum of ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson
... joined them. He was a two-year-old, young, tender, with the velvet just off his antlers. Thorpe aimed at his shoulder, six inches above the belly-line, and pressed the trigger. As though by enchantment the three woods creatures disappeared. But the hunter had noticed that, whereas the doe and fawn flourished bravely the broad white flags of their tails, the buck had seemed but a streak of brown. By this he knew ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... but in an instant he saw that they had strangely bridged the distance between his wife and himself. He felt her close on him, like a panting foe; and her answer was a flash that showed the hand on the trigger. ...
— The Touchstone • Edith Wharton
... simple," he said. He shot the outer barrel back along the inner one. "That loads it and cocks it, you see. And then all I have to do is pull the trigger, eight times, as fast as I can quiver my finger. See that safety clutch. That's what I like about it. It is safe. It is positively fool-proof." He slipped out the magazine. "You see how ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... grasp the handle firmly; cover it with your whole palm, but don't squeeze it to death; just grip it evenly—tuck it away. And keep your elbow down; and crook your wrist, in a drop, until your trigger knuckle is pointing very low—at a man's feet if you're ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... when the thread has become fine enough to need another cocoon. The stop, T, and the lever serve as two parts of an electric contact, so that when they touch each other a circuit is completed, which trips a trigger and sets in motion the feed apparatus by which a new cocoon is added. In practice the two drums or pulleys are mounted on the same shaft, D (Fig. 1), difference of winding speed being obtained by making ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 620, November 19,1887 • Various
... rose up and brought a rifle to his shoulder. At that I let out a yell, and he turned to me like a flash, and pulled his trigger. But he was in too much of a hurry, an' the ball ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... in the rear with the rifle. As he passed this spot, a spear came out from behind one of the boulders. He was not expecting an ambush, and the spear struck his shoulder, entering the top of the lungs and breaking off. He dropped the rifle. As it left his hand he must have pulled the trigger, for there was a report. Sax was running just in front of Mick. He heard the report, looked round, and saw the stockman stagger. He dashed back. His act saved Mick's life, for, as the white boy stooped to pick up the rifle, he saw Coiloo standing behind the rock with ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... residence of Lander in the country, a good mode of astonishing a tiger was practised with success. A loaded musket was firmly fixed in a horizontal position, about the height of his head, to a couple of stakes driven into the ground, and the piece being cocked, a string from the trigger, first leading a little towards the butt, and then turning through a small ring forwards, was attached to a shoulder of mutton, stuck on the muzzle of the musket, the act of dragging off which, drew the trigger, and the piece loaded with two balls, discharged ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... was in readiness Robinson bade Friday follow him. They went slowly out into the forest along the stream. Soon Robinson espied a rabbit sitting under a clump of grass. Robinson raised his gun, took careful aim, pressed the trigger. There was a flash and loud report and there lay the rabbit dead. But Friday, too, was lying on the ground. He had fainted from astonishment and fright. Robinson dropped his gun and raised the poor fellow up to a sitting position. He quickly recovered. ...
— An American Robinson Crusoe - for American Boys and Girls • Samuel. B. Allison
... life, and that, was an owl, of which he took the advantage of daylight and his stocking feet to knock off a tree in the deanery grounds, very early after his arrival. In his trials with John, he sometimes pulled trigger at the same moment with his companion; and as the bird generally fell, he thought he had an equal claim to the honor. He was fond of warring with crows and birds of the larger sort, and invariably went provided with small balls fitted to the bore ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... apparently done much for him. His colour was good, his step elastic as of old, and his head was thrown back as if he were buckled up for the fray and wanted all to know it. Yet there was something in the eye, in the setness of the jaw, in the hair-trigger calm, yet fiercely savage grip in which he closed his strong hands on the arms of his chair, that told me more plainly than words that this was not the optimistic, soft-hearted Bob Brownley I had known and loved. I could not help feeling that if I had been a leader of the ...
— Friday, the Thirteenth • Thomas W. Lawson
... hardly hold his gun; seeing which the farm hand made bold to snatch it out of his hands, and aiming directly at the place where the fugitives were just then in the act of mounting the fence in their panicky flight, he pulled the trigger. ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy
... sighted across the meadow. There was no sound of explosion when he fired, only the click of the mechanism as the bullet was sped, the empty cartridge ejected, a fresh cartridge flipped into the chamber, and the trigger re-cocked. A big, dun-colored squirrel leaped in the air, fell over, and disappeared in the grain. Dick waited, his eye along the rifle and directed toward several holes around which the dry earth showed widely as evidence of the grain which had been destroyed. ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... grating sound of the yett turning on its rusty hinges was but too plainly heard. What was to be done? I thought of our both running away; and then of our locking ourselves in, and firing through the door; but who was to pull the trigger? ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... significance of the situation, Druse now brought the butt of his rifle against his cheek by cautiously pushing the barrel forward through the bushes, cocked the piece, and glancing through the sights covered a vital spot of the horseman's breast. A touch upon the trigger and all would have been well with Carter Druse. At that instant the horseman turned his head and looked in the direction of his concealed foeman—seemed to look into his very face, into his eyes, into his ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... that the rain had ceased, and the whole night hushed its thousand voices. He found his lower jaw set so stiffly that the muscles ached. Levelling his weapon at the eaves of the bunk-house, he pulled trigger rapidly—the bang, bang, bang, six times repeated, sounding dull and dead beneath the blanket of mist that overhung. A shout sounded behind him, and then the shriek of a Winchester ball close over his head. He turned in time to see another shot stream out of the darkness, ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... gamekeeper replied in the affirmative, and looked with some surprise from Mr. Winkle, who was holding his gun as if he wished his coat pocket to save him the trouble of pulling the trigger, to Mr. Tupman, who was holding his as if he was afraid of it—as there is no earthly reason to doubt ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... the noble authour and his editor. 'Sir, he was a scoundrel, and a coward[787]: a scoundrel, for charging a blunderbuss against religion and morality; a coward, because he had not resolution to fire it off himself, but left half a crown to a beggarly Scotchman, to draw the trigger after his death[788]!' Garrick, who I can attest from my own knowledge, had his mind seasoned with pious reverence, and sincerely disapproved of the infidel writings of several, whom, in the course of his almost universal ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... twitch, like a primitive warrior starting on an expedition from the mountain top to the valley. Before throwing his haik over his shoulders, he drew his revolver from his belt, scrupulously examining the cartridges, and the working of the trigger. Everything all right! The first man to make an attempt against him would get all six shots in the head. He felt like a savage, implacable, like one of those Febrers, lions of the sea, who landed on hostile shores, killing to ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... I don't blame him. I think he did a smart thing. He might have said you were my grandmother, if it would have served you, for that low fellow is as fractious as the devil, and dead sure on the trigger.' ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... doctor clutched his revolver, with his finger on the trigger. In spite of his pledged word, he did not hesitate. If the adversary touched the end of the bed, the shot would be fired ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc |
