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More "Muzzle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his helm was still lashed, and bestowing a hearty kick on his prostrate quartermaster stuck fast to the pitchy seams of the deck, took the wheel himself, and easing off before the wind to bring the vessels broadside to broadside, commanded that the guns be shooed to the muzzle, an order that was barely executed before the brigantine came within close range. Aboard her was all order and readiness; the men at her guns fuse in hand, an erect and pompous figure of a man, in a cocked hat, on the break of her poop. He raised ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... thing to face death in a fierce struggle, but quite another to advance coldly upon it toward the muzzle of a pistol held so steadily that there could be no chance of escape. The gleam of determination in the man's eyes convinced me he meant what he said. I did not consider then, nor have I considered since, that the next five ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... average-sized ox, with horns proportionally large. The horns of these animals are strikingly like those of the Rocky Mountain sheep of America, except they are much larger. They spring up from the forehead, tilt backward, then boldly curve below the muzzle, before finally again pointing upward and tapering into a sharp and delicate point. They are hollow, though exceedingly stout and elastic, and strengthened on the outside by a number of ridges or horny rings set very close together. ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... determined to capture one of the insects alive, muzzle its lance and suction pad, and give it sufficient freedom to find its way back to its hiding place. By following the shackled monster the scientists hoped ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various
... An officer sent to warn the Senhores of the mischief they did, received, before he could fulfil his mission, a French and a Portuguese bullet, and the Eighth continued their reckless discharge. But no cross-fire could daunt the men of Connaught. "Push home to the muzzle!" was the word of their gallant lieutenant-colonel, Wallace; and push home they did, totally routing their opponents, and nearly destroying the French Thirty-sixth, a pet battalion of the Emperor's. Stimulus was not wanting; Wellington ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... the Lord open their eyes, and make them holy Christians. Saith David, "Come ye children, hearken unto me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord" (Psa 34:11). He doth not say, I will muzzle you up in a form of prayer; but "I will teach you the fear of the Lord"; which is, to see their sad states by nature, and to be instructed in the truth of the gospel, which doth through the Spirit beget prayer ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... idea, of the theory. Condorcet, its able constructor, has outdone himself. Impossible to design on paper a more ingenious or complicated mechanism. The Girondists, in the closing article of this faultless constitution, believe that they have discovered a way to muzzle the beast and allow the sovereign people to ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... quantity disengaged at once is too large to find its way through the pores of the metal, it must therefore make an effort to escape on every side; and, as the resistance all around, excepting towards the muzzle, is too great to be overcome, this effort is employed for expelling ...
— Elements of Chemistry, - In a New Systematic Order, Containing all the Modern Discoveries • Antoine Lavoisier
... a brass gun was lying, of about 9lbs. calibre, with vent and muzzle uninjured. In the interior of the fort, shells of dwelling-houses, distributed angularly, denote the part of the building which was devoted to domestic purposes. In these the woodwork of the windows may ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... was because of the darkness that he kept his eyes shut, and perhaps it was for fear he would see the terrible gash on the cheek of his visitor; but, be this as it may, it is a fact that, unseeing, he opened his ammunition box, put a heavy charge into the muzzle of the shotgun without spilling a particle, rammed it down with double wads, and then put everything away ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... where Buonamico worked; there he was kept till the whole was finished; and no imagination could conceive the leaps and flings of the creature thus enclosed in his cage, nor the contortions he made with his feet, hands, muzzle, and whole body, at the sight of others working, while he was not permitted ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... with one braced leg thrust behind, and one arm thrust forward, curling round towards the muzzle of the gun, there was seen the loader, performing his allotted part; on the other side of the carriage, in the same stooping posture, but with both hands holding his long black pole, pike-wise, ready for instant use—stood ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... pipe into one nostril, and closing the mouth and the other nostril, and very gently blowing through it about 15 times in a minute; but it is a better plan to use a small pair of bellows, putting its muzzle into the nostril, at the same time the body should be wiped dry, and be assiduously rubbed with hot cloths; hot bricks and bottles of hot water should be put into the armpit, between the thighs, ...
— Young's Demonstrative Translation of Scientific Secrets • Daniel Young
... owners as will arise from the gratitude of the poor. And God will provide that the land shall more willingly produce what shall be for the nourishment of its fruits, in case you do not merely take care of your own advantage, but have regard to the support of others also. Nor are you to muzzle the mouths of the oxen when they tread the ears of corn in the thrashing-floor; for it is not just to restrain our fellow-laboring animals, and those that work in order to its production, of this fruit of their labors. Nor are you to ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... Anjou was to be a kind of Italian or Frisian podesta. "The Duke is not to act according to his pleasure," said one of the negotiators, in a private letter to Count John; "we shall take care to provide a good muzzle for him." How conscientiously the "muzzle" was prepared, will appear from the articles by which the states soon afterwards accepted the new sovereign. How basely he contrived to slip the muzzle—in what cruel and cowardly fashion he bathed his fangs in the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... head and stared into the ashes also, as if it saw something there that no man saw, for the bristles lifted on its neck, and it whined a little. O'Donnell dropped his hand to the thin muzzle, and the dog was quiet again. But after that the men stared at the fireplace with ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones
... small bore and with long-barreled rifles which they loaded from the muzzle by the use of the ramrod; equipped with powder horn, charges made of cane for loading, bullet molds and wadding, but bravely arrayed in home-spun of blue, and belted with cutlass and broadsword by the side, cockade on the hat and courage in the heart, her revolutionary soldiers ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head
... he gasped, as he looked into the muzzle of the revolver. From down the mountain side came the shout of ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... astonishment. Then, oh! then Hans did something to the end of his great bamboo stick, turned it gently upside down and out of it slid the barrel of a rifle neatly tied round with greased cloth and stoppered at the muzzle with a ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... arranged tangentially to an arc of a circle whose center was occupied by the pivot of the gun, and consequently at right angles with the latter. The piece employed was a 6 in. gun, 35 calibers in length. The distance of its muzzle from the plates attacked ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 794, March 21, 1891 • Various
... that had been advanced by Godfrey Hurdlestone. He related his accidental meeting with Mr. Anthony Hurdlestone on his way to the miser's cottage, but he omitted the conversation that passed between them; only stating, that he observed the muzzle of a pistol protruding from the pocket of the prisoner—a circumstance which, knowing the peaceable habits of the prisoner, ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... replying to the observation that the animals were very greedy, by stretching his arms to heaven, showing the empty troughs, lifting ends of wood, tearing up tufts of grass which he carried to his lips, grunting as if he had his muzzle full. ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... shall never forget the stifling struggle—every detail remains, his sunburned face, wet with sweat and powder-smeared; his irregular teeth showing when I got him by the throat, and the awful change that came over his visage when Jack Mount shoved the muzzle of his rifle against the struggling fellow and shot ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... growth of hair covered the mouth below an eaglenose, and on their shaggy heads they wore soft red bonnets. One was followed by a tall camel, slowly marching along with an ape perched on his hump; the other led a brown bear with a muzzle on his snout. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... A cold muzzle thrust against his cheek, and at its touch his soul leaped back to the present. His hand shot into the fire and dragged out a burning faggot. Overcome for the nonce by his hereditary fear of man, the brute retreated, raising a prolonged call to his brothers; and greedily they ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London
... Frank, leaning on the muzzle of his gun, and wiping the perspiration from his forehead, "we're minus that 'coon, easily enough, unless we wait until morning, and cut the ...
— Frank, the Young Naturalist • Harry Castlemon
... glance to be a cat-o'-nine-tails on a rather thick stem, Peter made out to be, as he built some hasty comparisons, the Maxim silencer attached either at the end of a revolver or of a rifle; for the black cylinder on the muzzle was circumscribed at regular intervals with small, sharp depressions, the ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... so Harry must pounce upon him, or he would not have a chance. He did it rather cleverly, and the meal of the Arab was suddenly interrupted by finding the muzzle of a revolver within a yard of his head, while, at the same time, his rifle, which rested against a rock beside him, was thrown to ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... the syllogism, is equally valid against all ratiocination. You must therefore either withdraw your objection altogether, or advance it at your peril; the difficulty is of your making, you must solve it as you can. Gentlemen, you must muzzle your own dog. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... muzzle the mouths of negro teachers, and he who proclaims too loudly the doctrine of equality as taught by Thomas Jefferson, will soon be ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... gripped his shoulder as though in a vise, and swung him around; the muzzle of an automatic confronted him, and behind it the threatening eyes of Joe ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... rush out immediately; instead, they waited to be sure that their victim did not rise. Then they came rapidly from their concealment, and bent over him. It was soon apparent that he was not dead. One of the men put the muzzle of his gun to the back of Tarzan's head to finish him, but another waved him aside. "If we bring him alive the reward is to be greater," explained the latter. So they bound his hands and feet, and, picking him ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... their prisoner, and when they have used him they will iron and brand and starve him. Even a sub-chief of the Dakotas shall not live to be their tool. Thunder Hawk rides back with us at once or dies here and now." And around came the ready weapon, muzzle to the front, with Red Dog's hand ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... named Irwin, throwing up the muzzle of the pistol, "none o' this work, you drunken brute. Don't be alarmed, M'Loughlin, you shan't ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... at the prince; but Rameri, who from his childhood, had been his father's companion in many hunts and field sports, gave the furious brute such a mighty blow on the muzzle that he rolled over with ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... strength all the while. When the ground is uneven, the course is a series of graceful curves, conforming to the shape of the surface. He runs as though there were not a bone in his back. Occasionally dropping his muzzle to the ground for a rod or two, and then tossing his head aloft, when satisfied of his course. When he comes to a declivity, he will put his forefeet together, and slide swiftly down it, shoving the snow before him. He treads so softly ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... nose, one long-drawn facial extension, ere he turned and bounded away with manes all over him and hoofs all under him and tails all round him. A solemn-nosed, stern-eyed cow would amble and stamp in his wood to find a flyless shadow; or a strayed sheep would poke its gentle muzzle ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens
... Bailey interrupted. "The horse with the muzzle. I remember, dear, what I said, but I hope Morris didn't ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... from Paris on their way to Algiers, and their passage through the country did not a little to excite the inhabitants. At Marseilles the National Guard lined the Allees de Meillan, each man with a bouquet stuck into the muzzle of his rifle, which he took out and threw into the barouche in which I sat with General Gazan, so that I was soon fairly buried, with nothing but my head sticking out, while the crowd shouted at the top of its voice: "Vive le Prinnche!—Long live the Prince!" ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... black dog, stretched at his wife's feet, muzzle on paws and blinking yellow eyes, growled discontentedly at the noise. Mrs. Travers laughed a faint, bright laugh, that seemed to escape, to glide, to dart between her white teeth. D'Alcacer, concealing his amazement, was looking down at her gravely: and after a slight ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... pond which abounded in huge sleepy crocodiles, sacred animals which were tended by a holy fakir, and one of Burton's amusements was to worry these creatures with his bull terrier. Tired of that pastime, he would muzzle a crocodile by means of a fowl fastened to a hook at the end of a rope, and then jump on to its back and take a zig-zag ride. [65] The feat of his friend, Lieutenant Beresford, of the 86th, however, ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... may be finished daily. The guns are made of a metal recently invented by the Austrians, and recommended to the Confederate Government by Mr Mason. They are tested by a charge of ten pounds of powder, and by loading them to the muzzle with bolts. Two hundred excellent mechanics are exempted from the conscription, to be employed at the mills. The wonderful speed with which these works have been constructed, their great success, and their immense national value, are convincing proofs of the determined energy ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... as she had left it, save that Camp stood on the tiger-skin before the fire, his fore-paws and his great, grinning muzzle resting on the arm of Richard's chair. Camp whined a little. Mechanically the young man raised his hand and pulled the dog's long, drooping ears. His face was still dead white, and there were lines under his eyes and about the corners of his mouth, as of one who tries to subdue ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... Guns.—In the common sporting or scatter gun, with which accidents so commonly occur during the shooting season, the charge of small shot or pellets leave the muzzle of the gun as a solid mass which makes a single ragged wound having much the appearance of that caused by a single bullet. At a distance of from four to five feet from the muzzle the pellets begin to disperse so that there are separate punctures around the main central ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... another crash against the door while two gray paws and the tip of a pointed muzzle could be seen on one of the ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower
... resting the cold muzzle of his weapon against the boy's forehead, "at the word three your brains are on the floor if you don't tell me where your people ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne
... though they had eaten nearly every horse and mule in the place. The idea which seemed general, that Plumer had a big force with him, was very amusing to them, considering they actually only numbered a few hundreds, and had, I think they said, two old muzzle-loading guns only with them. Having been enlisted a month before the war, they are the oldest Volunteer ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... found that he was peering into the muzzle of a double-barrelled gun, probably loaded with buck-shot. The ranchman was pointing it directly at his head, with both triggers cocked. Brown saw he was in earnest, and asked if that was the charter. The ranchman ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... Dombey. He is warm. This is an occasion, Sir, that calls forth all the honest sympathies remaining in an old, infernal, battered, used-up, invalided, J. B. carcase. And I tell you what, Dombey—at such a time a man must blurt out what he feels, or put a muzzle on; and Joseph Bagstock tells you to your face, Dombey, as he tells his club behind your back, that he never will be muzzled when Paul Dombey is in question. Now, damme, Sir,' concludes the Major, with great firmness, 'what do ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... skill in grouping, Mr Mulready has not attempted any great interest in this illustration. It represents the family, with their friend Burchell, interrupted in their enjoyment by the chaplain, or rather the chaplain's gun; for that only presents its muzzle. "So loud a report, and so near, startled my daughters; and I could perceive that Sophia, in the fright, had thrown herself into Mr Burchell's arms for protection." We do not recognize the alarmed and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... vineyard and eats not the fruit of it? or who feeds a flock and eats not of the milk of the flock? [9:8] Do I say these things in the manner of men? or does not the law also say the same? [9:9]For it is written in the law of Moses, You shall not muzzle the ox that threshes. Does God care for oxen? [9:10]or does he speak entirely for our sakes? For our sakes, doubtless, it was written, that he who plows should plow in hope, and that he who threshes in hope should partake of it. [9:11]If ...
— The New Testament • Various
... flew to his hip almost before Mr. Lane had finished his sentence. But Wash was not quick enough. Like a flash Jim's hand was withdrawn from inside the hickory shirt, and the giant looked squarely into the muzzle of Jim ...
— The Shepherd of the Hills • Harold Bell Wright
... A broad glistening muzzle showed itself above the edge of the bank, and the Otter hauled himself out and shook the ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... black belt about his waist. Attached to the belt were at least a dozen weapons: several grenades, a pistol, another pistol with a flaring muzzle, a long knife, a glassy looking tube fitted to a pistol-butt, and a blue-black ugly thing which was shaped like an ...
— Hunters Out of Space • Joseph Everidge Kelleam
... the Court circle a good deal of lively atheism. The Empress was much amused, but some of her councillors suggested that it might be desirable to check these expositions of doctrine. The Empress did not like to put a direct muzzle on her guest's tongue, so the following plot was contrived. Diderot was informed that a learned mathematician was in possession of an algebraical demonstration of the existence of God, and would give it him before all the Court, if he desired to hear it. Diderot gladly consented: ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... history of the chase—I captured six hares with a single bitch. We were then hunting on the meadow of Kupisko; Prince Radziwill could not keep his seat upon his horse, but, dismounting, embraced my famous hound Kania,49 and thrice kissed her on the head. And then, thrice patting her on the muzzle, he said, 'I dub thee hence-forward Princess of Kupisko.' Thus does Napoleon give principalities to his generals, from the places at which ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... the chief whirled his own pony across Tad's path. From under his blanket, he permitted the boy to see the muzzle of a revolver that was ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... that there was little to do but to wait, and soon they would see which was to win, they or the fire; so they shifted their line of hose to the eastern front of the building—out of harm's way, for a little time, at least—and held the muzzle steady, watching its work. And in truth it was not long before they understood which would conquer. The southern and western portions of the building had flung out great flames that fluttered and flared on the ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington
... turned his monstrous head to one side and looked along his muzzle at his master. If he had possessed a tail he would have wagged it, or thumped the hard ground with it a few times; but he had none. He had probably lost it in some wild battle of his stormy youth, fought almost to death against the huge Campagna sheep-dogs; ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... and started back in astonishment. The church was literally stuffed with hay like a cannon charged to the muzzle. ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... up to the mare, Then they rushed to wild shouting through a whirl of blown air; Then Gavotte died to nothing; Soyland came once again Till his muzzle just reached to the ...
— Right Royal • John Masefield
... ago, you could take an old muzzle-loader and knock over plenty of ducks in the city limits, and Chicago wasn't Cook County then, either. You can get them still, but you've got to go to Kankakee and take a hammerless along. And when I started in the packing business it was all straight sailing—no frills—just ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... and her elder daughter in the muzzle department of the Army and Navy Stores the next week. That was one of the annoying aspects of the muzzling order; one met in muzzle shops people with whom neither temperament nor circumstances ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... to benefit the heathen. She wasn't really worrying about the heathen: he had all the rest of his benighted life to get himself saved in, hadn't he? All the while she sat there and talked about him, she was really loaded to the muzzle with pertinent remarks to ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... counsel on the way to Lentone and thence to their camp on the lake. Arrived there, he did not waste much time. Taking a number of sheets of paper, he shot at them from varying distances with the revolver found in Miller's room. Beginning by holding the muzzle an inch from the cards, he gradually increased the distance inch by inch until he was shooting from a distance of twelve inches. Then he shot from a distance of fifteen, twenty, ...
— Death Points a Finger • Will Levinrew
... alone over the fire in the twilight, in a somewhat forlorn mood, when the door was pushed ajar, and the muzzle of a gun entered, causing her to start up in alarm, scarcely diminished by the sight of an exultant visage, though the words were, 'Your money ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... strange how, in moments of stress and trial, even in times of tragedy, the most commonplace thoughts will intrude themselves and the mind separate itself from the immediate events. As Merode put the cold muzzle of the revolver to Ailsa's temple and she ought, one would have supposed, to have been deaf and blind to all things but the horror of her position, one of these strange mental lapses occurred, and her ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... they were of such savage aspect that none of us dared to take one away, thinking that they were poisonous: they are of the bigness of a kid, and in length an ell and a half: their feet are long and thick, and armed with big claws: they have a hard skin, and are of various colors: they have the muzzle and face of a serpent: and from their snouts there rises a crest like a saw which extends along the middle of the back as far as the tip of the tail: in fine we deemed them to be serpents and venomous, and (nevertheless, those ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Volume I. - Voyages Of Discovery And Early Explorations: 1000 A.D.-1682 • Various
... and from it drew a small powder-spraying outfit such as I have seen used for spraying bug-powder. He then took out a sort of muzzle with an elastic band on it and slipped it over his head so that the muzzle protected his ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... killed or made prisoners, and the rest put to rout. The duke, after the victory, rode to congratulate Soissons, whose force had not been engaged. He found the count dead, having accidentally shot himself while pushing up the visor of his helmet with the muzzle of his pistol. ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... behind the gun's muzzle in resentful affright. He lowered his palms in appeal to her wisdom. "It's the right thing, Anna, the only safe way! I've known it was, ever since Steve Mandeville's wedding. Oh! it takes a colossal assurance to talk to you so, Anna Callender, ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... two boys sprang back, the right hand of each flashing to his hip. King drew first, and Pleasant's crutch swished down on his wrist, striking his pistol to the floor. Polly had caught Ham's hand with both her own, and Ham felt the muzzle of Pleasant's forty-four ...
— In Happy Valley • John Fox
... Almost at the same moment the faithful Tokroori rushed forward to assist his master, and, afraid to fire lest he should hit him by mistake during the confusion of the struggle, he actually pushed the muzzle of the rifle into the lion's ear and pulled the trigger. The lion fell dead upon the lifeless body ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... paces; then he rose on his hind legs, a head and shoulders taller than Hereward, and lifted the iron talons high in air. Hereward knew that there was but one spot at which to strike; and he struck true and strong, before the iron paw could fall, right on the muzzle of ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... Old muzzle-loading rifles of European make, striking either flints or percussion caps, are also in occasional use as shot-guns, ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... she set it to her nose, And off at once the rumkin goes; No drops beside her muzzle falling, Until that she had supped it all in: Then turning't topsey on her thumb, Says—look, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... visit from three huge bears; two of them came towards the ship, but the third remained hidden behind a piece of ice. It happened that a tub of salt meat, which we intended to soak in fresh water, was standing on the shore; one of the bears ran up to it, and putting his muzzle in, was about to help himself to a piece, when a shot struck him in the head so cleverly that he fell dead without a groan. It was curious to see how the second bear stood gazing at his motionless companion, with a stupified look, and then walked round him, trying to discover what was the ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... the head-board, I to the foot. I saw a twinkle in his eye as he turned over the rough comfort, his hand reached down—he drew it up gradually, and the old woman slid as gradually from the lock to the muzzle of a long Kentucky rifle. 'O Lord,' groaned she, as she keeled over on her right side at the foot ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... grasped the edge of the eaves and drew myself to the surface of the roof above. As I gained my feet I was confronted by the sentry on duty, into the muzzle of whose revolver I found ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Solomon, as he screwed the muzzle of the weapon up against the lad's head. "Uf you do, you vas ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish
... sweating hot from her last fire, being dragged from her muddy ditch by as many men as could get hold of trail-rope or wheel, and rushed into her old place beside the Eagle, in time to be double-shotted with canister to the muzzle, and to pour it from among her old comrades into her now retiring former masters. Still, she had a new carriage, and her record was lost, while those of the other guns had been faithfully kept by the men. This made a difference in her position for which even the bullets in her wheels did ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page
... small bell-mouthed barrels of hooped iron, muzzle loading, mounted on high wheels, and each shooting half a dozen balls of lead large as walnuts. They were carefully aimed. The shot ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... W.A.F.F.'s, in a fight in the bush in South Nigeria, had one of these things fired at him from a distance of fifteen feet. He told me all that saved him was that when the native pulled the trigger the recoil of the gun "kicked" the muzzle two feet in the air and the native ten feet into the bush. I bought a Tower rifle at the trade price, a pound, and brought it home. But although my friends have offered to back either end of the gun as being the more destructive, we have found no one with a sufficient sporting ...
— The Congo and Coasts of Africa • Richard Harding Davis
... and man? nay, between God and man, and every living creature of all flesh: or my memory fails me with age. In Exodus God commanded that the cattle should share the sweet blessing of the one day's rest. Moreover He 'forbade to muzzle the ox that trod out the corn. 'Nay, let the poor overwrought soul snatch a mouthful as he goes his toilsome round: the bulk of the grain shall still be for man.' Ye will object perchance that St. Paul, commenting this, saith rudely, 'Doth God care ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... was striving to revive his fainting chief, the young fellow from Harvey's party, he who was stationed at the north door and had been so fortunate as to shoot Morales himself, now suddenly sprang from his covert and, placing the muzzle of his Henry rifle close to the door, deliberately popped three shots in quick succession through the splintering wood-work, and, in the confusion and dismay which resulted, was able to leap nimbly into his corner again before the answering shots ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... be—thought I—to whom my tremendous hero turns tail! The carrier saw the muzzle hanging, cut and useless, from his neck, and I eagerly told him the story, which Bob and I always thought, and still think, Homer, or King David, or Sir Walter, alone were worthy to rehearse. The severe little ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... difficult of explanation. It looked as though it had been dropped accidentally, but how came it to be there at all? The strangeness of the discovery was intensified by the knowledge that percussion caps and muzzle-loading weapons had become antiquated with the advent of the breech-loader. Who used ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... king of Aranuka for nearly six months. I was a popular king, too, an' there was never no belly-achin' at my decisions. I had a double-barrelled muzzle-loadin' shotgun, a present from Bull McGinty. Bull was all broke up at me desertin' the Dashin' Wave, but I promised to save all the Aranuka trade for him an' for nobody else, an' he stood off for Suva to ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... rocking his body back and forth vehemently, and stroking the fox skin the while. And Samur, who sat in front of him, cocked his head first on one side, then on the other, and gave him a knowing look. At last the dog stretched out his neck, raised his muzzle into the air and howled, using every variation of key known to him. At this Arni stopped short and stared at him, then bending his head slightly to one side to study him, ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... hide hers underneath her clothing. "You know what they're for?" he asked. "No. You'd gain nothing by putting up a fight. They're loaded. All you've got to do is jerk the hammer back and pull the trigger, and the best way not to miss is to hold the muzzle underneath your chin—this way—keeping the butt well out from you. You make sure when you do that. The only satisfaction you'll have, if it comes to suicide as a last resource, will be that you've tried to do your duty and the knowledge that you'll be avenged. I promise ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... to Benton, Heaven knows how and why, but we were a sorry-looking lot, though our scalps were intact. If in all that region there is a mountain that I have not climbed, a river that I have not swum, an alkali pool that I have not thrust my muzzle into, or an Indian that I have not shuddered to think about, I am ready to go back in a Pullman sleeper and do ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... corner against a piece of gold Japanese embroidery. He was in the shadow, away from the window, which was pushed open sufficiently to allow the muzzle of the rifle to slip between the woodwork and the pane. The old man, his white hair disordered, his clothes dusty, and his hands grimy, crept forward just as Lawrence entered, fired down into the side-street, then moved swiftly back ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... were crocodiles in the waters he had discovered. He did not give his preceptor time to answer the difficult question, but laid his hand upon his arm and whispered that he was to look between two rocks, for a jackal was there, slinking away—turning his pointed muzzle to us now and then. To see he isn't followed, Azariah added: and the observation endeared him so to Joseph that the boy walked for a moment pensively in the path they were following. It turned into the ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... frightened sheep, drove them straight home and into the fold; and, after thus earning his supper and showing what stuff was in him, he established himself at the house, where he was well received. He was a good-sized animal, with a very long body, a smooth black coat, tan feet, muzzle, and "spectacles," and a face of extraordinary length, which gave him a profoundly-wise baboon-like expression. One of his hind legs had been broken or otherwise injured, so that he limped and shuffled along in a peculiar lopsided fashion; ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... and, without violence, took Thacker by the throat with a hand of steel, and shoved him slowly into a corner. Then he drew from under his left arm his pearl-handled .45 and poked the cold muzzle of ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... across the field until they came to a barred gate, and Marsh climbed on to the top bar and perched himself there while Henry stood with his back against the gate and fondled the muzzle of the horse which had ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... a last look at the sky, and standing very erect, he closed the door, set his back firmly against it, drew his revolver, and looked curiously into the muzzle. ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... honey-fly, possessed with the fixed desire to hide his murmurs in the rose. When for months I have been, in fact, like a dog with his nose on your footprints, asking nothing but to lie down at your feet with his muzzle on ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... gazed down the barrel of that revolver the bigger it grew, and it looked to me as if it was loaded with buck-shot to the muzzle. When it had grown to about the size of a gatling gun (and it didn't take long to do it), I concluded that "discretion was the better part of valor," and reached up and turned my red-light. Meanwhile the door opened again, and three ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... Robert Blake raises his right arm, and they see the muzzle of a revolver; and now a louder and more angry cry comes ...
— Only an Irish Girl • Mrs. Hungerford
... moment a second warrior (a Miami that time), drew himself upward close to the place from which the Shawanoe had dropped. He rose until his tufted head, his sloping forehead and his gleaming eyes appeared just above the horizon of the enclosure. Staring downward, he looked straight into the muzzle of a rifle, held by a young Kentuckian, who had just become aware of ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... for no further orders, marched directly in the midst of the enemy's fire to the dead bodies, which law within ten yards of the muzzle of their pieces, and turning over several of the dead bodies, he distinguished that of the cadet, and brought away the prize for which he had ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... was its name—consisted, at this time, of only some ten thousand men; all Mobiles or franc tireurs, with the exception of a battalion of line, and a battalion of Zouaves. The Mobiles were almost undisciplined, having only been out a month; and were, for the most part, armed only with the old muzzle loader. Many were clothed only in the gray trousers, with a red stripe, which forms part of the mobile's uniform; and in a blue blouse. Great numbers of them were almost shoeless; having been taken straight from the plow, or workshop, and having received no shoes since ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty
... tore him down to the ground, and John coming up, as the wolf defended himself against his new assailants, put the muzzle of his rifle to the animal's head, ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... corrected Trimmer aggressively. "I ain't a-trustin' you, Opal, no more! You done me up at every turn, and now, by God! you're goin' to come to terms!" He pulled an ugly, rusty gun, and thumped with its muzzle on the table. "You'll never leave this room alive if I don't git the money. Ring fer it, Opal, ring the bell, and order ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... the muzzle of my revolver into his ear. I did not wish him to feel the cold metal; but his whole body shuddered, and his eye, lighting up for a moment, seemed to reproach me. Paff! A short, sharp report, and "Ramier" quivered ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont
... surprised," whispered the Sergeant over my shoulder, "if a scandal was to burst up in the house to-night. Don't be alarmed! I have put the muzzle on worse family difficulties than ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... he hobbled slowly toward the place. He went nearer, nearer, until he stood upon the entering ledge. A Vulture that had descended to feed on one of the victims was slowly going to sleep on the untouched carcass. Wahb swung his great grizzled muzzle and his long white beard in the wind. The odor that he once had hated was attractive now. There was a strange biting quality in the air. His body craved it. For it seemed to numb his pain and it promised sleep, as it did that day when first ...
— The Biography of a Grizzly • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... "Quit this human form and take that of a dapple mule." No sooner had he spoken than she found herself changed into a she-mule, whereupon the tears rolled down her cheeks and she fell to rubbing her muzzle against his feet. Then he would have bridled her, but she would not take the bit; so he left her and, going to the grocer, told him what had passed. Abdallah brought out for him a bridle and bade ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... The muzzle of the detector began to swing back and forth slowly and precisely, covering the valley inch by inch. He heard their whispered consultations drifting up from below, though he couldn't make out ...
— The Judas Valley • Gerald Vance
... and clever dash, he captured the weapon and retreated a few paces. He hesitated only long enough to pull back the hammer. Springing forward again, he fearlessly pressed the muzzle of the rifle against the bear's head, and pulled ...
— The Camp in the Snow - Besiedged by Danger • William Murray Graydon
... because, he said, he took the lives of men unjustly. The king explained by description and pantomime how the affair passed. When the youth attacked him he had in his hand the revolving pistol I had given him, and showed us, holding the pistol to his cheek, how he had presented the muzzle to the boy, which, though it was unloaded, so frightened him that he ran away. All the courtiers n'yanzigged vigorously for the condescension of the king in telling the story. There must have been some special reason why, in a court where trifling breaches of etiquette were ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... carry far. Their owners were in constant danger of having fingers or a hand blown off in explosions. The price paid for these cheap firearms was based on the length of them. The butt was put on the floor and the gun held upright. Skins laid flat were piled beside it till they reached the muzzle. The trader exchanged the rifle for the ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... a hundred baffling difficulties. Often, their noses lost the trail, which had at first been so surely taken. Often, they circled and whined, and halted in perplexity, but each time they came to a point where, at the end, one of them again raised his muzzle skyward, ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... state?" said Bob. "You tell him I think he ought to muzzle Sutton. What did he send ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... a minute," said Mrs. Day. "I'll put on somethin' an' go with ye. But 'tis my opinion, Sarah Scattergood, that you oughter wear a muzzle!" ...
— The Mission of Janice Day • Helen Beecher Long
... de musket in one hand, an' de Bible in de oder,—dat if I die at de muzzle ob de musket, die in de water, die on de land, I may know I hab de bressed Jesus in my hand, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... Frank, as if by instinct, fired the contents of both barrels into its throat. The animal rolled over on to its back in the water and then turned as if to struggle to regain the bank. The Houssa, however, had run up, and, placing the muzzle of his gun within a foot of its eye, fired, and the creature rolled over dead, and was ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... I was king of Aranuka for nearly six months. I was a popular king, too, an' there was never no belly-achin' at my decisions. I had a double-barrelled muzzle-loadin' shotgun, a present from Bull McGinty. Bull was all broke up at me desertin' the Dashin' Wave, but I promised to save all the Aranuka trade for him an' for nobody else, an' he stood off for Suva to ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... mutilated by an inquest, but that's no reason why he should come back there and occupy a room that I was paying for so that I could be alone. He showed me how he blew out the gas, and told me how a man could successfully blow down the muzzle of a shot-gun or a gas jet, but both of these weapons had a way of ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... was the palace of the Rajah of Lalpuri. Here and there, by carved doors or iron-studded gates half off their hinges, lounged purposeless sentries, barefooted, clad in old and dirty red coatees, white cross-belts and ragged blue trousers. They leant on rusty, muzzle-loading muskets purchased from "John Company" in pre-Mutiny years, and their uniforms were modelled on those worn by the Company's native troops before the ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... reported myself with my Chinese men, we were met by one of my fellow passengers from Kwang-chou who had hurried ahead to explain the situation, and thanks to his efforts the lack of passports was kindly overlooked. As for Jack, he was quickly furnished with all the equipment of the civilized dog—muzzle, collar, chain—at one of the large outfitting-shops, of which there seemed quite enough for ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... try those tricks with me again. Will you, old lady?"—and he rubbed the black velvet muzzle at his side with a kindly hand. To Ann's astonishment, the mare, dripping with the sweat of sheer exhaustion, her coat striped with the hiding Brett had given her, pushed her ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... woods the German major made suggestions of a path to take. As York was undecided which one to choose, the major's suggestion made him go the other one. Frequently the muzzle of York's automatic dimpled the major's back and he quickened his step, slowed up, or led the column in the direction indicated to him without turning his head and without inquiry as to the motive ...
— Sergeant York And His People • Sam Cowan
... bad-tongued, but now he used all the evil words he had ever heard, and he was Western bred. Then he reacted on himself. "The Fox might come back!" Suddenly he remembered something. He got out a common sulphur match. He wet it on his lips and rubbed it on the muzzle sight: Then on each side of the notch on the breech sight. He lined it for a tree. Yes! surely! What had been a blur of blackness ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton
... She had that baffling and provoking modern beauty which secures its effect by some queerness, some vividness of accent, and triumphs by some ugliness subdued. It was part of her queerness that she had the square brows, the wide mouth, the large, innocent muzzle of a deer, and a neck that carried her head high. With a queerness amounting to perversity some gentle, fawn-like, ruminant woman had borne her. And, queerer still, her genius had rushed in and seized upon that body, that it might draw wild nature ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... 'Tis the right sort of muzzle for that. I must say that I have long been wanting such a puppy. Porphyri, ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... and man were suddenly moveless. Then Dan slipped from his seat and stood before his mount. At once the ears of the stallion, which had been flat back, pricked sharply forward; the eyes of the animal grew luminous and soft as the eyes of a woman, and he dropped the black velvet of his muzzle beneath the master's chin. As for Dan Barry, he rewarded this outburst of affection with no touch of his hand; but his lips moved, and he seemed to be whispering a secret to his horse. The wolf in the meantime had viewed this scene with growing unrest, and now it trotted ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... spoke he drew a pistol from his pocket and turned the muzzle towards himself,—at which unexpected action there was a hasty movement of surprise, terror and confusion among ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... adventurer who went to Alaska and laid the foundations of his fortune before the gold hunters arrived. Bringing his fortunes to the States he is cheated out of it by a crowd of money kings, and recovers it only at the muzzle of his gun. He then starts out as a merciless exploiter on his own account. Finally he takes to drinking and becomes a picture of degeneration. About this time he falls in love with his stenographer and wins ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... the matter. One thing I used to observe when I was a sportsman, that there were times in which woodcocks were so sluggish and sleepy that they would drop again when flushed just before the spaniels, nay, just at the muzzle of a gun that had been fired et them: whether this strange laziness was the effect of a recent fatiguing journey I shall not ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... that, poor child! You know how good she's always been to me; how she's tried to spare me. And she knew, of course, what a state of horror I'd be in. She knew I'd rush off to her at once and try to stop it. So she never gave me a hint of anything, and she even managed to muzzle Susy Suffern—you know Susy is the one of the family who keeps me informed about things at home. I don't yet see how she prevented Susy's telling me; but she did. And her first letter, the one I got up at Bangkok, simply said ...
— Autres Temps... - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... be flooded no more; and between whom the bond? between God and man? nay, between God and man, and every living creature of all flesh: or my memory fails me with age. In Exodus God commanded that the cattle should share the sweet blessing of the one day's rest. Moreover He 'forbade to muzzle the ox that trod out the corn. 'Nay, let the poor overwrought soul snatch a mouthful as he goes his toilsome round: the bulk of the grain shall still be for man.' Ye will object perchance that St. Paul, commenting this, saith rudely, 'Doth God care for oxen?' Verily, ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... them back, was turning a blown and exhausted horse over to the care of Hay's stablemen, as he briefly told his story to the wild-eyed, well nigh distracted woman. Six miles up stream, he said, they had come suddenly upon a dun-colored cow pony, dead in his tracks, with white feet in air and white muzzle bathed in blood; bridle, saddle and rider gone; signs of struggle in places—but no signs of the party, the team ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... things as well as people can, and I buried my muzzle in the hearth-rug, so that she would not see how I was curling up my lip and smiling ...
— Beautiful Joe - An Autobiography of a Dog • by Marshall Saunders
... the theory. Condorcet, its able constructor, has outdone himself. Impossible to design on paper a more ingenious or complicated mechanism. The Girondists, in the closing article of this faultless constitution, believe that they have discovered a way to muzzle the beast and allow the sovereign people ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... Fare it was tougher than all the stories ever told of it. Poor old Donnybrook! He had recked not of the coming woe that blissful hour by the side of the rippling Yellowstone. His head was deep in my lap, his muzzle buried in oats; he took no thought for the morrow,—he would eat, drink, and be merry, and ask no questions as to what was to happen; and so absorbed were we in our occupation—he in his happiness, I in the contemplation thereof—that ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... I had a brace of pistols in my belt, I drew one and pulled the trigger. To my horror, it missed fire! I had still another. I managed to get hold of it, well knowing that if that missed my fate was sealed. Pointing the muzzle at the brute's head, I fired. The tiger gave a leap, and opening its mouth, let me drop, while it fell down dead by my side. I scrambled away as fast as I could, scarcely believing that I was safe, till my friends coming up assured me of the ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston
... for it but to obey. Under the muzzle of the German officer's revolver, Chester was marched around to the front of ...
— The Boy Allies At Verdun • Clair W. Hayes
... wind bore the scent of the piece of loaf to the mule's nostrils, and the temptation was too great to resist. At any rate it stretched out its neck and extended its muzzle, so that head and neck were nearly in a straight line, and uttered a shrill, squealing whinny, which was answered at once by the donkey with a sonorous trumpeting bray, as the lesser animal came cantering up ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... his whip, never missing a bird. He beheld in the distance the gleam of a lake which appeared to be of lead, and in the middle of it was an animal he had never seen before, a beaver with a black muzzle. Notwithstanding the distance that separated them, an arrow ended its life and Julian only regretted that he was not able to carry ...
— Three short works - The Dance of Death, The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller, A Simple Soul. • Gustave Flaubert
... is all eagerness, as can be told by the quick vibration of his tail, and spasmodic action of the body. A sound also proceeds from his lips, an attempt at baying; which, but for the confining muzzle would make the forest echoes ring around. Stopped by this his note can be heard only a short distance off, not far enough for them to have any fear. If they but get so near the man they are in chase of, they ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... as he screwed the muzzle of the weapon up against the lad's head. "Uf you do, you ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish
... the fire in the twilight, in a somewhat forlorn mood, when the door was pushed ajar, and the muzzle of a gun entered, causing her to start up in alarm, scarcely diminished by the sight of an exultant visage, though the words were, ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... heard the soft sound of a fur-clad body and padded feet scaling the outer wall behind the hut and then a tearing at the poles which formed the wall. Presently through the hole thus made slunk a great beast, pressing its cold muzzle close ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... see the two running over a green field, almost side by side, and suddenly the retriever makes a friendly snap at the other. And the greyhound simply isn't there. You haven't observed it quicken its speed or strain a limb; but there it is, just two yards in front of the retriever's outstretched muzzle. So it was with Florence and ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... again, rocking his body back and forth vehemently, and stroking the fox skin the while. And Samur, who sat in front of him, cocked his head first on one side, then on the other, and gave him a knowing look. At last the dog stretched out his neck, raised his muzzle into the air and howled, using every variation of key known to him. At this Arni stopped short and stared at him, then bending his head slightly to one side to study ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... requisite act that was necessary to effect their purpose. Instead of hastily discharging the piece, an iron four-pound gun, Mr. Blunt first doubled the wad, which he drove home with all his force, and then he greased the muzzle, as he said, to increase ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... man this must be—thought I—to whom my tremendous hero turns tail! The carrier saw the muzzle hanging, cut and useless, from his neck, and I eagerly told him the story, which Bob and I always thought, and still think, Homer, or King David, or Sir Walter alone were worthy to rehearse. The severe little man was ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... his heels, and poked the muzzle of the revolver against his back from time to time to keep him assured of my presence,—a device that I was ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... door-mat, in an eternal entry long and narrow, is a puffy pug-dog, with a personal animosity towards us, who triumphs over Time. The bark of that baleful Pug, a certain radiating way he had of snapping at our undefended legs, the ghastly grinning of his moist black muzzle and white teeth, and the insolence of his crisp tail curled like a pastoral crook, all live and flourish. From an otherwise unaccountable association of him with a fiddle, we conclude that he was of ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... or talk too much," advised the man with the shotgun. As he spoke, he moved the muzzle ...
— The Young Engineers in Arizona - Laying Tracks on the Man-killer Quicksand • H. Irving Hancock
... beast, in anger at the sight of his enemies, was coming toward the men and boys at top speed. On the first alarm Bill and Tom had turned to flee. Andy, swinging his gun by the muzzle, and loosening a long hunting knife in his belt, awaited the bear's onslaught. Mark and Jack were too surprised to run, and stood their ground, not knowing what ...
— Through the Air to the North Pole - or The Wonderful Cruise of the Electric Monarch • Roy Rockwood
... him quickly. A reply was on her lips, but she never uttered it, for at that moment a ruffian in picturesque rags leaped out from behind a near-by bush, confronting them with leveled revolver. He was so close that the muzzle of the weapon almost touched Barney's face. In that ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... correct them. For what ridiculous stuff is there which that stump of the fig tree Priapus does not afford them? What tricks and legerdemains with which Mercury does not cloak his thefts? What buffoonery that Vulcan is not guilty of, while one with his polt-foot, another with his smutched muzzle, another with his impertinencies, he makes sport for the rest of the gods? As also that old Silenus with his country dances, Polyphemus footing time to his Cyclops hammers, the nymphs with their jigs, and satyrs with their antics; while Pan makes them all twitter with some coarse ballad, which ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus
... truth, in all that wild brigade there were no fire-arms save Oo-koo-hoo's old muzzle-loader; but then The Owl was a hunter by profession, and he carried a gun only as a matter of business. Now for the last twenty-five years that is exactly what I have wanted to tell the public. When one reads a story, or sees a play or a moving picture, in which characters bristling with firearms ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... the lantern opened the carriage-door, and said two or three words to the one who acted as driver, who immediately got down from his seat, took up a short musket which he kept under his feet, and placed its muzzle on the ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... of my acquaintance had been severely thrashed last winter by a larger dog. He bided his time, and, this summer, after his antagonist had been handicapped by having that atrocious invention, a muzzle, affixed to his head, he fell upon him, "tooth and toe-nail," and would have killed him ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir
... of the intervener, except that for a single moment the muzzle yawned in the latter's face. The maitre d'hotel was a brave man, but he had a wife and family, and after all, it was not his affair. There were other men there to look after the ladies. He hurried ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... 'twas Wandering Spirit went dancing mad for revenge from one end o' the Reserve t' th' other! When the massacre came, the officer had tripped the little Indian fellow to his face an' was pointin' the old muzzle loader at the back o' his head to blow out his brains, when along comes the MacDonald man an' kicks the gun from the bully's hand! Little Wandering Spirit up an' he pours that muzzle loader into the officer's face; an' he borrows another gun an' empties that in his face; and he snatches a knife; ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... wound showed that. On a small table by the chair lay the weapon. It was a long pistol, Clo did not know of what kind or make, but it looked old-fashioned; and there was no question as to the way in which it had been used. Someone had taken it by the muzzle and struck with the butt end, which was coated with blood and hairs. Perhaps the pistol had not been loaded, or perhaps the murderer—(no, "avenger" was the better word, with that fear knocking at her heart!) had not dared fire because ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... hour and a half, we were again interrupted by the violent howlings of the dog. His uneasiness, in the first instance, had been, evidently, but the result of playfulness or caprice, but he now assumed a bitter and serious tone. Upon Jupiter's again attempting to muzzle him, he made furious resistance, and, leaping into the hole, tore up the mold frantically with his claws. In a few seconds he had uncovered a mass of human bones, forming two complete skeletons, intermingled with several buttons of metal, and what appeared to be the dust of decayed woolen. ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... he was mistaken. The old horse Ebenezer wanted a drink. That was why he had paused at the trough. He thrust his muzzle deep into the cool spring-water and drank so long that Johnnie Green began to be worried, for fear ...
— The Tale of Daddy Longlegs - Tuck-Me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... efficiency. The people are accordingly frequently reminded that they are bound to respect and sustain their spiritual instructors. "Let him that is taught in the word," says Paul, "communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things." [236:3] "The Scripture saith—Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn; and, The labourer is worthy of his reward." [236:4] "So hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the gospel should live of ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... did not value his life at a penny, and when he asked himself seriously if suicide were not the simplest means to reach the end; and again, at the least ray of sunshine, he became sanguine and hopeful to excess. Of undoubted courage, he would have faced the muzzle of a loaded cannon out of mere bravado, at the same time wondering, with a sarcastic smile upon his lips, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... the oxen had grown wild from being off in the woods so long. However, Willis advanced slowly, calling, "Co-boss!" Seeing us coming and hearing human voices, the old ox lifted his muzzle toward us and snuffed genially. He did not appear to be afraid, but behaved as if he were glad to see us. The other one—old Broad—had been lying down near by out of sight in the deep pathway, but now he suddenly rose ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... his head, and down the curve of the skull behind the ear. He said to himself: "My wife ... this will make it all right for her...." and a last flash of irony twitched through him. Then he felt again, more deliberately, for the spot he wanted, and put the muzzle of his ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... animal or an insect, they may, perchance, destroy the life of an ancestor, develops their love and care for every living creature to an almost incredible extent. Not only is there a hospital for invalid animals in every town and village, but their priests always wear a muslin muzzle, (I trust they will pardon the disrespectful expression!) in order to avoid destroying even the smallest animalcule, by inadvertence in the act of breathing. The same fear impels them to drink only filtered water. There are a few millions of Jainas in Gujerat, Bombay, ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... folded in the rear of the casing and the cardboard tube containing the illuminating mixture is attached to it. The time of burning varies, but is ordinarily less than a minute. Certain structural details must be such as to endure the stresses of a high muzzle velocity. Furthermore, a velocity of perhaps 1000 feet per second still obtains when the star-shell with its parachute is ejected at the desired point in ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh
... switch-trigger of the electric rifle, for previous experience had taught him that it was sometimes the best thing to awe the natives in out-of-the-way corners of the earth. But the young inventor quickly elevated the muzzle, and the deadly missile went hissing through the air over the head of a native Indian who, at that ...
— Tom Swift in the Land of Wonders - or, The Underground Search for the Idol of Gold • Victor Appleton
... with a burning sun reflected from the sands. My companions slept rolled up in their blankets, and the Indians lay in the grass near the fire; but my sleeping- place generally had an air of more pretension. Our rifles were tied together near the muzzle, the butts resting on the ground, and a knife laid on the rope, to cut away in case of an alarm. Over this, which made a kind of frame, was thrown a large India-rubber cloth, which we used to cover our packs. This ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... The fearless Huron scarcely halted. While picking his way through the swamp he had carried his rifle lightly balanced in his left hand, and he now simply changed it to his right, grasping it by the muzzle, so that the stock was before him. He saw the cavernous mouth of the snake opened to an amazing width; the thin tongue, that resembled a tiny stream of blood; the small, glittering eyes; the horn-like fangs, at the roots of which he well knew were the sacks filled almost to ...
— Oonomoo the Huron • Edward S. Ellis
... difference lies in the uncertainty of aim, on an element as restless as the sea. The largest ship is rarely quite motionless, when on the open ocean; and it is not necessary to tell the reader, that the smallest variation in the direction of a gun at its muzzle, becomes magnified to many yards at the distance of a few hundred feet. Marine gunnery has no little resemblance to the skill of the fowler; since a calculation for a change in the position of the object must commonly be made ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... tails between legs and ears flat they fled. But it was too late. The horses scattered the soft snow with comparative ease. The wolves plunged through it with difficulty. First to overtake them was Peter Davidson. He put the muzzle of his gun to the side of the grey lieutenant, and shot him through the heart. His brother Dan, selecting another of the pack, pointed at the ear and blew out its brains. Okematan, partial to the weapons of his forefathers, ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... he had made and drew a new one, in which he left them the property jointly, on condition that they marry within two years. Then, with a perfectly clear head, he laid down his pen and sighed, but his face was bright and tranquil. He picked up the revolver, cocked it, placed the muzzle against his temple, and without the tremor of a nerve he ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... to enter a swamp meadow which was behind the shanty, and had been rendered hard and porous by the weather. Here he directed them to spread their blankets, and lie down with the locks of their muskets between their knees, and the muzzle protected by a wooden stopper kept for the purpose. Nick enforced this command with an explanation of its advantages: the snow being dry, and not subject to drift, would soon cover them, keeping them quite warm, and would also conceal them at their ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson
... and, therefore, neither of other irrational animals. Therefore without reason is it commanded (Deut. 22:6): "If thou find, as thou walkest by the way, a bird's nest in a tree . . . thou shalt not take the dam with her young"; and (Deut. 25:4): "Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out thy corn"; and (Lev. 19:19): "Thou shalt not make thy cattle to gender with ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... He swung the weapon's muzzle into line with the hideous face above him, then sent a stream of lead crashing upward into the creature's head. The bullet struck squarely home. The tentacles tightened convulsively with a force that ...
— Devil Crystals of Arret • Hal K. Wells
... Esquilino, and which the modern generation has concealed in a recess on the east side of S. Maria Maggiore. It is in the form of a culverin—a long slender cannon of the period—standing upright. From the muzzle rises a marble cross supporting the figure of Christ on one side, and that of the Virgin on the other. It was erected by Charles d'Anisson, prior of the French Antonians, to commemorate the absolution given by Clement VIII. ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... Caroline," he said. "All I've done is set and talk and talk and talk. I've used up more of his time and the surroundin' air than you'd believe was possible. When I get next to salt water, even in print, it's time to muzzle me, same as a dog in July. The yarn is Jim's altogether, and it's mighty interestin'—to ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... stretched out her neck towards Sabre and quivered her nostrils at him, sensing him. He put up a hand to stroke her beautiful muzzle and she threw up her head violently and ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... accepted their master's orders, and began patting the white counterpane with their tails, while Sneeshing uttered a series of short barks, shook his head, and shuffled backwards, evidently laughing dogly with delight, and ending by getting his muzzle on Kenneth's breast and lying ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... Ruthven Smith, suspiciously. He still covered the other with his pistol, as Annesley could see now, because "Nelson Smith" had coolly advanced within a yard of the Browning's small black muzzle, and, finding the electric switch, had flooded ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... the Food! They are still scattered, these giants; still immature and disunited. Chain them, gag them, muzzle them. At any cost stop them. It is their world or ours! Stop the Food. Shut up these men who make it. Do anything to stop Cossar! You don't seem to remember—one generation—only one generation needs holding ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... that to do this would require greater courage than to struggle; but while the words were still in the air, the man obeyed. His hands relaxed their hold; his head fell backward on the ground; and he lay under the shaggy body like a dead thing. The black muzzle poked curiously about his face, but ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... was circling almost overhead at this moment and seemed tantalizing near. With a twist of the wheel Mowrey swung the muzzle of his gun up a couple of inches and gave the signal again to fire. Following the shot for a moment the frenzied gunner was elated to note that the machine just above sagged suddenly to one side. Like a bird with ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll
... sailors' knives, were placed conveniently for use. A bevy of men were kept busy cleaning the round shot of rust, and there was not a man on the ship who did not look with pride at the guns, in their paint of grey-blue steel, with a scarlet band round the muzzle. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... his grave this silver mask of an ox head with golden horns. It was a symbol of the cattle sacrificed for the dead. There is a gold rosette between the eyes. The mouth, muzzle, eyes and ears are gilded. In Homer's Iliad, which is the story of the Trojan war, Diomede says, "To thee will I sacrifice a yearling heifer, broad at brow, unbroken, that never yet hath man led beneath the yoke. Her will I sacrifice to thee, and ...
— Buried Cities: Pompeii, Olympia, Mycenae • Jennie Hall
... horseman, but, for this horse's sake, I may be allowed to mention that my friends will all have me look at any horse they think of buying. He was over sixteen hands, with well rounded barrel, clean limbs, small head, and broad muzzle; hollows above his eyes of hazy blue, and delicacy of feature, revealed him quite an old horse. His ears pointed forward and downward, as if they wanted on their own account to get a hold of the man the nose was so busily caressing. ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... among the natives that the head should be cut off: it was; and in so doing, the knife came directly across the bayonet. The animal measured scarcely less than four feet from the root of the tail to the muzzle There was no tradition of a tiger having been in Jaffna before; indeed, this one must have either come a distance of almost twenty miles, or have swam across an arm of the sea nearly two in breadth; for Jaffna ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... awaiting their victim on the massive stone platform. Now he was being led out to die in the midst of his companions, the fiendish faces all about him, the Hindoos stood by the touch-holes with lighted torches. Now they were binding him, the gaping muzzle was ...
— The River of Darkness - Under Africa • William Murray Graydon
... .45-70 Springfield, with its ultra-heavy slug, but slow muzzle velocity. And Joe had a telescope mounted upon it, an innovation that barely made the requirement of predating the year 1900 and thus subscribing to the Universal Disarmament Pact between the Sov-world and the West-world. It had taken the enemy ...
— Frigid Fracas • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... got to do with real thirst?" her husband demanded. "Come on, Casey; don't muzzle the ox, you know. Produce that Wonderful Remedy from the Land o' Cakes. It was oats we were irrigating, wasn't it? Very appropriate. Here's to Oats—oatmeal, rolled oats, wild oats, and Titus Oates. 'Tak' a wee ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... pursuit of Dick until he leaped into the river; then they returned, took the saddle and bridle off his dead horse, and rejoined their comrades. Here they held a court-martial on Crusoe, who was now bound foot and muzzle with cords. Some were for killing him; others, who admired his noble appearance, immense size, and courage, thought it would be well to carry him to their village and keep him. There was a pretty violent dispute on the subject, ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... distinguish him, as merely the head was above water, and this was concealed by the deep shadow thrown by the high grass. Thinking that he would die, I went to bed; but before this I took the precaution to arrange a white paper sight upon the muzzle of my rifle, without which, ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... makes her jealous of me, by Paean, and she wastes with pain, and springs madly from the sea, gazing at my caves and at my herds. And I hiss on my dog to bark at her, for when I loved Galatea he would whine with joy, and lay his muzzle on her lap. Perchance when she marks how I use her she will send me many a messenger, but on her envoys I will shut my door till she promises that herself will make a glorious bridal-bed on this island for me. For in truth, I am not so hideous as they say! But lately I was looking ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang
... of the largest of the dead pines was a large black bear, reared back on his haunches and striking with both paws viciously at some unseen foe. The hair of muzzle, head and paws was matted and plastered with some thick liquid, giving him a curious frowsy appearance. He was evidently in a towering rage but it was also apparent that he was suffering great pain, his ferocious growls being interspersed with ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... keep below, as we passed the battery. Shortly after, we came up with 'The Monitor,' and the little captain, with his East India hat, trumpet in hand, repeated the advice of 'The Galena,' and added, that if he heard firing, he would follow us. Our cannon pointed its black muzzle at the shore, and on we went. As we left 'The Monitor,' the captain came to me, with his grim smile, and said, 'I'll take those mattresses you spoke of.' We had joked, as people will, about our danger, ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... with him his best gun, loaded to the muzzle, and tied on to the baggage against which I am leaning—the muzzles sticking out each side of my head: the flint locks covered with cases, or sheaths, made of the black-haired skins of gorillas, leopard skin, and a beautiful bright bay skin, which I do not know, which they say is bush ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... Tom. But now Harry, having driven off his antagonist, flew to the help of Tom, and seizing the tramp by his hair, and bracing one knee against his back, dragged him backward to the ground, and held him there until Tom regained his feet, and holding the muzzle of the gun at the robber's head, called on him to surrender, which the fellow ...
— Harper's Young People, August 10, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... must sweep her from her foundations, unless she conform to its requirements and join in the movement toward universal emancipation! Our people are taught from childhood to be led; they are willing followers—none more willing in the world! But why lead them into the pit? Why muzzle them with fear, oppress them with threats, fetter them with outworn dogma and dead creed? Why continue to dazzle them with pagan ceremonialism and oriental glamour, and then, our exactions wrung from them, leave them to consume with disease and ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... and then seeing, by the change in the bush ranger's face, and by his collapsing figure, that he was badly hit; he waited, still keeping Thorne covered with the muzzle, for the bush ranger had a charge left in the pistol which he still grasped in ...
— A Final Reckoning - A Tale of Bush Life in Australia • G. A. Henty
... voice responded somewhere in the inside of his throat. "Better not go in," he added, touching his hat. "I've put a muzzle on her, and the mare's fidgety. Better not go in, it'll ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... examination was being made. Buxton was right. While the rifles were center-fire, a great many of the cartridges were rim-fire, and consequently useless unless broken and the powder and ball rammed home as in the old muzzle-loaders. There were, however, among the little mounds of cartridges, many that would fit the guns, and these were sorted with desperate energy in the lull that ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... slowly to his tent. A moment later there seemed to be a lingering echo of the fall of the tower in C Company's street. Captain Nesbitt, dozing in his quarters, heard the sound, and running in the direction of it found that Private William B. Young, aged 28, of Oakdale, had placed the muzzle of his rifle against his left temple and gone to swell by one the interminable list of the Conemaugh ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... Caucasus. Chamois are most numerous in the Alps, where they dwell in small herds and feed on the herbage of the mountain sides. They are about the size of a small goat, dark chestnut-brown in color, with the exception of the forehead, the sides of the lower jaws and the muzzle, which are white. Its horns, rising above the eyes, are black, smooth and straight for two-thirds of their length, ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens
... John— These fools have clapt a muzzle on The boldest mouth that e'er run o'er With slaver of the times of yore![1]— Was it for this that back I went As far as Lateran and Trent, To prove that they who damned us then Ought now in turn be damned again? The silent victim still to sit Of Grattan's fire and Canning's ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... caused by discharge betraying gun positions, mats are to be spread under the muzzle ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen—fifteen of them, moving about in all directions: some taking an up-gallop, others a down; some a spicy trot, others walking to and fro; while one has still his muzzle on, lest he should unship his rider and eat him; and another's groom follows, imploring the mob to keep off his heels if they don't want their heads in their hands. The noisy bell at length summons the scattered forces to the post, and the variegated riders form into ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... contrived out of little homes and cattle-stables. I heard irregular rifle-fire close by, but I could not see who was firing I was shown the machine-gun chamber, and the blind which hides the aperture for the muzzle was lifted, but only momentarily. I was shown, too, the deep underground refuges to which every body takes in case of a heavy bombardment. Then we were in the men's quarters, in houses very well protected by advance walls to the north, and ...
— Over There • Arnold Bennett
... churches do, and when you come to take it out, it will be like some volatile perfume that has been put into a vial and locked away in a drawer and forgotten; there will be nothing left but an empty bottle, and a rotten cork. Speak your faith if you would have your faith strengthened. Muzzle it, and you go a long way to kill it. You are witnesses, and you cannot blink the obligation nor shirk the duties without damaging that in yourselves to which ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... could reach, though, during the process, it rolled about in a way which sorely tried the bear's patience. At length it came to rest against the trunk of a tree, with which solid backing Mokwa was enabled to thrust in his muzzle far enough to lap up the ...
— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer
... Perseverance is a principle that should be commendable in those who have judgment to govern it. I should never had been so successful in my hunting excursions had I waited till the deer, by some magic dream, had been drawn to the muzzle of the gun before I made an attempt to fire at the game that dared my boldness in the wild forest. The great mystery in hunting seems to be—a good marksman, a resolute mind, a fixed determination, and my world for it, you will never return home without sounding ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... to thrust his velvety muzzle caressingly against the lad's cheek, blinking his large purplish eyes ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... to wait for another chance, when the bettor angrily exclaimed that he must want a bird to alight on the muzzle ...
— Fred Fearnot's New Ranch - and How He and Terry Managed It • Hal Standish
... out to the intruder to halt, and on being quietly assured that "a friend" went there, the alert sentry presented arms and called in solemn, stentorian accents upon his friend to "advance within six inches of the muzzle of this rifle and give the countersign!" It was due to a lucky accident that the officer knew the countersign, and was not buried next day. Another genial tippler disported himself during business hours in less serious fashion. He was not so fastidiously exact about killing his ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... sulphur smoke jutted into the slanting sunshine, and the pulseless air of declining day was suddenly set to stir and throb by the crackle of encircling musketry. And then was seen the wisdom of the veteran's defence. Few of the hostiles, as yet, had other than old-fashioned muzzle-loading rifles, and few that they owned were effective over six hundred yards. By stationing his better shots in rifle pits well forward from the buildings on every side, Archer easily held the foe at a distance so long as they dare not "rush" his ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... soon found it was our own gun, which had been given to Rito to carry. He had strapped it behind his saddle, and one of the other mules had come up, rubbed against it, and let it off. The poor horse was only four feet from the muzzle, and the contents were lodged in its loin. A large wound was made from which the blood flowed in a great stream, until Velasquez got some burnt cloth and stanched it. Fortunately the charge in the gun was a very light one, and no vital part was touched. ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... town was set on fire and was soon burnt to the ground. The whole detachment now moved up the hill, and the Americans, secure behind their entrenchments reserved their fire till the British troops were almost close to the muzzle of their guns. They then opened a terrible discharge of cannon and musketry, and their volleys were so rapid and skilfully directed that the British troops recoiled, and many fled to the boats which had conveyed them, over the river. At this ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... thought Marcy, resting his revolver on his knee with the muzzle turned toward the window, as if he half expected to see some one try to force an entrance there. "What can it mean! It may be a dangerous piece of business to draw the curtain and open that window, for how do I know but that there's somebody below waiting for a chance to ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... had flung herself in front of her Indian's bleeding body, and whether by design or chance the muzzle of her rifle was pointing and ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... mocassins and carried my snow-shoes, staggering along behind him about half a mile. Having made a fire near the river, where there was an air-hole through which the beaver had come up during the night, my father tied a gun to a stump with the muzzle towards the air-hole; he also tied a string to the trigger, and said, 'Should you see the beaver rise pull the string, and you will kill it.' I stood by the fire, with the string in my hand; I soon ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... found just as she had left it, save that Camp stood on the tiger-skin before the fire, his fore-paws and his great, grinning muzzle resting on the arm of Richard's chair. Camp whined a little. Mechanically the young man raised his hand and pulled the dog's long, drooping ears. His face was still dead white, and there were lines under his eyes and about ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... fluted as April by a thrush in the lilacs, Prosper and the Countess walked together on the terrace. A guard or two, pike in hand, lounged by the balustrade; the deer-hound, with his muzzle between his paws, twitched his ears or woke to snap at a fly: it seemed as if the earth, sure of the sun at last, left her conning tower with a happy sigh. It turned the Countess to a tender mood, where she suffered herself to be played upon by the season— L'ora del tempo ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... cried Frank, as with his friends' assistance he quickly wheeled the gun to the brink of the trench and depressed the muzzle so that it commanded the huddled bunch below. "Come out of that, you fellows. ...
— Army Boys in the French Trenches • Homer Randall
... to find. When Carlo saw, that, without his bonnet, there was no walk for him, he scampered into the basement-kitchen, got out the muzzle from a pile of old papers in one of the closets, carried it up stairs, and laid it down ...
— The Nursery, Number 164 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... opened. After a harrowing pause a revolver muzzle slid gently through the crack, and a woman's voice murmured softly: "Drop ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... the hot lid of the skillet on it to cool. Stood it up sideways. Then they heard a noise at that door. It was pegged. So she went along with the cooking. It wasn't late. He found a crack at the side of the stick and dirt chimney, put the muzzle of the gun in there and shot her through her heart. The man flew. She struggled to the edge of the bed and fell. The children was asleep and I was afraid to move. The moon come up. I couldn't get her on the bed. I put a pillow under her head and a quilt over her, but I didn't think ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... purpose was to turn the muzzle of his imprisoned revolver upon Merryfield. Merryfield, with his left still clinching that deadly hand caught in its sleeve, now grabbed the revolver in his own right hand, with a twist dragged it free, and flung it out ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... me that the chance was too good to be missed. Of course, I might have had a pot at him from the bank, but the chances were I wouldn't have hit him in a vital place. So I swam across to the sandbank, put the muzzle of my gun in his mouth, and pulled the trigger. I have rarely seen ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... as they dote upon an interesting monstrosity—the worse portion. Women admire courage, because it is the quality they lack—I mean animal courage, the mere faculty of looking into a pistol-muzzle calmly; and their admiration is so great that they are carried away by it. They admire in the same way a gay wild fellow; they do not dislike even a 'poor fellow—ah! very dissipated!' and this arises from the fact that ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous
... off, not if you was to load it up to the muzzle,' screamed Miggs. 'Simmun and gentlemen, I'm locked up in the front attic, through the little door on the right hand when you think you've got to the very top of the stairs—and up the flight of corner steps, being careful not to knock your ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... the darkness and emptiness of the large room more noticeable. She knelt down on the hearth-rug and buried her face in the seat of Mrs. Rushton's favourite arm-chair. The dearest of all her dear dogs, Scamp, came and laid his black muzzle beside her ear, as if he knew the whole case and wanted to mourn with her. Two hours passed; Hetty listened intently for every sound, and wondered impatiently why Mr. and Mrs. Enderby did not arrive. She got up and carefully placed some lumps of coal on ...
— Hetty Gray - Nobody's Bairn • Rosa Mulholland
... round him and making a sign, and immediately some half dozen advanced with their crowbars and were about to strike at the door, when a window in the upper story of the house opened and the muzzle of a blunderbuss ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... and main at the development of my physical strength and accomplishments. I went every day to fencing practice, likewise to cavalry sword practice; I took lessons in the use of the bayonet, and I took part every afternoon in the shooting practices conducted by the officers—with the old muzzle-loaders which were the army weapons at the time. I was very delighted one day when Mr. Hagemeister, the fencing-master, one of the many splendid old Holstein non-commissioned officers holding the rank of lieutenant, said I was "A ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... his bag and from it drew a small powder-spraying outfit such as I have seen used for spraying bug-powder. He then took out a sort of muzzle with an elastic band on it and slipped it over his head so that the muzzle protected ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... said the girl plaintively, "what do you mean by that? It is quite true, and I will not deny it, that I conducted his weasel into my burrow—but why did I do so? By my oath, Sir, its head was so stiff, and its muzzle so hard, that I was sure that it would make a large cut, or two or three, on my belly, if I did not make haste and put it where it could do little harm—and ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various
... bullet would make things safer and he raised his rifle. He pointed the weapon at the animal's head, but it was too dark to see the sight of the rifle, the brain of the creature was small, and Dick, remembering that a bear with a sore head is likely to be cross, dropped the muzzle of his weapon to the fore shoulder of the beast, and fired. The bear scarcely moved, but its eyes closed and Dick was prudently waiting before touching it, when he heard the distant report of a gun and knew that Ned was worried about him. He fired ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock
... orders, he quickly made his way across the space and ascended the steps. Passing along the gallery he knocked at the front door. There was no response. He repeated his knock. Then the window beside it opened suddenly, and he was confronted with the double-muzzle of a long ducking-gun. Glancing instinctively along the barrels, he saw at their other extremity the bright eyes, brilliant color, and small set mouth of a remarkably handsome girl. It was the fact, and to the credit of his training, that he paid more attention to the eyes than to the challenge ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... so noble as when he is reverent in this kind; nay, even if the feeling pass the bounds of mere reason, so that it be loving, a man is raised by it. Which had, in reality, most of the serf nature in him,—the Irish peasant who was lying in wait yesterday for his landlord, with his musket muzzle thrust through the ragged hedge; or that old mountain servant, who 200 years ago, at Inverkeithing, gave up his own life and the lives of his seven sons for his chief?—as each fell, calling forth his brother to the death, "Another ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... over his brow. The dog, strangely undemonstrative, advanced and placed a sleek head against Gregg's knee, its pointed muzzle down, its tail hanging dispiritedly. Vaguely wondering what the trader's favorite lead-dog was doing among the boulders on the Point, Harlan patted the animal's broad back and turned to the object that had attracted ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... and only pulls the noose tighter. I have to release him when he does not himself succeed in snapping the wire by his hard pulling. When he tries to leave the room, if the two leaves of the door are just ajar, he contents himself with pushing his muzzle, like a wedge, into the too narrow aperture. He moves forward, pushing in the direction which he wishes to take. His simple, dog-like method has one unfailing result: the two leaves of the door, when ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... finding himself deserted by his own fleet, which by this time was up Red River, and the gunboat still lying, terrible though inert, just above him, he, the next evening, laid the two XI-inch guns muzzle to muzzle, and so fired them. One was burst, the other apparently only kicked over. He next threw overboard two field pieces he had with him, made an attempt to blow up the vessel, which resulted in destroying the forward casemate ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan
... Worden ascended the gangway. The heavy guns in the navy-yard began firing the customary salute when he stepped upon the deck. One side of his face was permanently blackened by the powder shot into it from the muzzle of a cannon carrying a shell of one hundred pounds' weight, discharged less than twenty yards away. The President advanced to welcome him, and introduced him to the few strangers present. The officers and ...
— The Monitor and the Merrimac - Both sides of the story • J. L. Worden et al.
... drawn pistol also, but Buffle's antagonist knew his only safety lay in keeping quiet, so he only stared vacantly at the muzzle of the revolver, that was so precisely aimed at ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... their long lance, richly carved, and with a bright copper or iron point, is carried horizontally at the side of the horse. Those who possess a carbine have it fixed on the left side by a ring and a hook, the butt nearly close to the sash, and the muzzle protruding a little ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... the swinging muzzle of the Sheriff's gun, the Wildcat dived again into the open hatch and returned presently with the jingling wheat sack swung ...
— Lady Luck • Hugh Wiley
... the handle. Ukridge dropped the jug. Mrs. Ukridge dropped her tea-cup. At the window, with a double-barrelled gun in his hands, stood a short, square, red-headed man. The muzzle of his gun, which rested on the sill, was pointing in a straight line at the third ...
— Love Among the Chickens • P. G. Wodehouse
... crack! of small arms now sounded with vicious and ominous distinctness. We heard the melancholy song of the ricochets and spent bullets as they whirled in a wide arc, high over our heads, and occasionally the less pleasing phtt! phtt! of those speeding straight from the muzzle of a German rifle. We breathed more freely when we entered the communication trench in the center of a little thicket, a mile or more back of the ...
— Kitchener's Mob - Adventures of an American in the British Army • James Norman Hall
... among some bushes, where it is brought up standing. Before its rider can extricate it, a strong hand has hold of it by the head, with a thumb inserted into its nostrils, while the fingers of another are clutching at his own throat. The hand on the horse's muzzle is that of Caspar the gaucho, the fingers that grope to get a gripe on the rider's neck ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... would kill me with a lot of people as thoroughly as if I'd put the muzzle of a gun in my ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... the gun, by this time, slewed round upon the swivel, and Hands, who was at the muzzle with the rammer, was, in consequence, the most exposed. However, we had no luck; for just as Trelawney fired, down he stooped, the ball whistled over him, and it was one of the other four ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... upstairs a sort of Junta of Notables was sitting, the remnant of the vanished Provincial Assembly. Don Juste Lopez had had half his beard singed off at the muzzle of a trabuco loaded with slugs, of which every one missed him, providentially. And as he turned his head from side to side it was exactly as if there had been two men inside his frock-coat, one nobly whiskered and solemn, the other ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... sweetmeats of every color, toys, branches of flowers, nosegays, and masks. There are masks everywhere, boxes full of them, carts full of them; the most popular being the one that represents the livid and cunning muzzle, contracted as by a deathlike grimace, the long straight ears, sharp-pointed teeth of the white fox, sacred to the God of Rice. There are also others symbolic of gods or monsters, livid, grimacing, convulsed, with wigs and ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... God forbade the wolf to eat the flocks and the dogs, but to receive his share when the farmers baked. But one day a farmer's wife threw the wolf a red-hot stone instead of bread, and he burnt his muzzle, which has been black ever since. Since then he devours whatever falls ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... with the loveliest fancy. Lodovico supplied Annibale Caracci with the fleshy back of a naked Venus. Guido Reni painted his Madonna's heads from any beardless pupil who came handy, and turned his deformed color-grinder—a man 'with a muzzle like a renegado'—into the penitent Magdalen.[221] It was inevitable that forms and faces thus evolved should bear the stamp of mediocrity, monotony, and dullness on them. Few, very few, painters—perhaps only Michelangelo—have ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... swiftly. As soon as the fellow on the bed would have his breath he would scream. Yet the time sufficed Andy; he had his knife out, flicked the blade open, and cut off the long reins of the bridles. Then he went back to the bed and shoved the cold muzzle of his revolver into ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... black face thus flashed upon me shocked me profoundly. It was a singularly deformed one. The facial part projected, forming something dimly suggestive of a muzzle, and the huge half-open mouth showed as big white teeth as I had ever seen in a human mouth. His eyes were blood-shot at the edges, with scarcely a rim of white round the hazel pupils. There was a curious glow ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... frightened, but they led me to the tree. He knew what a gun was; he knew what a man was, too. He knew that his hour of death had arrived, and he came roaring out of the tree to meet me. But when he was on the ground, with the muzzle of my Mannlicher two yards from his head, all his rage vanished. He saw death, and to shut out the sight he put his ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... went by. The food, untouched, was corrupting in the sun. The third day, and Monarch still lay on his breast, his huge muzzle under his huger paw. His eyes were hidden; only a slight heaving of his broad ...
— Monarch, The Big Bear of Tallac • Ernest Thompson Seton
... high-spirited and beautiful dog, with long black ears, cheeks, back, and sides. The tip of his tail was white. His muzzle, neck, throat, breast, belly and legs, were ...
— Parker's Second Reader • Richard G. Parker
... donno's they'd 'a' called it what I did, 'bout the Lord's housekeepin' an all. An' I knew I couldn't gentle 'Leven into the i-dee, but I judged I could shock it into her—same as her an' the Big Lil kind have to hev. Some folks you hev to shoot i-dees at, muzzle to brain. ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale
... with a fearful gash in his side, the other stalked slowly to his tent, and sat down silent and impassive. The wounded man loaded his gun, and keeping the fatal wound closed together with one hand walked steadily to his brothers tent; pulling back the door-casing, he placed the muzzle of his gun to the heart of the man who sat immovable all the time, and shot him dead, then, removing his hand from his own mortal wound, he fell lifeless beside his brother's body. They buried the two brothers in the same grave by the shadow of the dark pine-trees. The band to which the ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... I daren't trust myself without 'em. Disperse, ye rebels! lay down your arms and disperse—die, base and perjured villain," shouted Langley, holding the muzzle of his pistol to Brewster's ear, while I, by poking my shooting-iron in everybody's face, obtained partial order. After a deal of difficulty the mutiny was explained; and the crestfallen Brewster withdrew his forces, followed by the mate, who ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... who says next?" cried the drunken ruffian. But before the words were out of his mouth there was a growl, a plunge, a snarl, and he was full length on the street with the bloodhound's muzzle at his throat. ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... Italian was again at hand. In one pocket he carried a thin but strong line, in a twinkle he had tied one fore and one leg together, so that the bear, when he got again, could do little but hobble along. Then another pocket he drew a leather muzzle, which he buckled over the beast's head. But bear had had all of the ugliness knocked out him and was once ...
— The Rover Boys on the Ocean • Arthur M. Winfield
... the ground, his big toe is usually in a line with the other toes, and he has a better heel than any monkey has. The change in the shape of the head is to be thought of in connection with the enlargement of the brain, and also in connection with the natural reduction of the muzzle region when the hand was freed from being an organ of support and became suited for grasping the food and conveying it ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... rude in the extreme. They were made of bars of iron hooped together like the staves of a barrel, and were larger at the muzzle than at the breech. The size was very soon decreased, so that two men could carry one, and fire it from a rest. The 400 cannon with which Froissart said that the English besieged St. Malo, in 1378, were ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... said the Duke of Wellington's nephew. But I just took my gun and put the muzzle to the bear's ear—over ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... they refused to do. Harry and his men then, with much labor, lowered a four-pounder carronade down the forehatch, and wheeled it to within a few feet of the bulkhead which divided that portion where the prisoners had been confined from the after part. The gun was loaded to the muzzle with grape, and discharged, tearing a hole through the bulkhead and killing and wounding many within. Then the officer in command offered ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty
... the kitchen with her face in her hands, and Jack was off his horse and stooping by her side with his hand on her shoulder. She kept saying, 'I thought you were——! I thought you were——!' I didn't catch the name. An old single-barrel, muzzle-loader shot-gun was lying in the grass at her feet. It was the gun they used to keep loaded and hanging in straps in a room of the kitchen ready for a shot at a cunning old hawk that they called ''Tarnal Death', and that used to be ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... fleet was circling almost overhead at this moment and seemed tantalizing near. With a twist of the wheel Mowrey swung the muzzle of his gun up a couple of inches and gave the signal again to fire. Following the shot for a moment the frenzied gunner was elated to note that the machine just above sagged suddenly to one side. Like a ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll
... should be flooded no more; and between whom the bond? between God and man? nay, between God and man, and every living creature of all flesh: or my memory fails me with age. In Exodus God commanded that the cattle should share the sweet blessing of the one day's rest. Moreover He 'forbade to muzzle the ox that trod out the corn. 'Nay, let the poor overwrought soul snatch a mouthful as he goes his toilsome round: the bulk of the grain shall still be for man.' Ye will object perchance that St. Paul, commenting this, saith rudely, 'Doth God care for ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... across the canal to the gate of the camp. Also it was protected on the Nest side by a low wall, and on the slave-camp side by an earthwork, planted as usual with prickly-pears. On this earthwork near the gate and little guard-house a six-pounder cannon was mounted, the muzzle of which frowned down upon the slave camp, a visible warning to its occupants of the fate that awaited the froward. Indeed, all the defences of this part of the island were devised as safeguards against a possible emeute of the slaves, and also to provide a second line of fortifications ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... voice from the bottom of the ravine, crying out, 'Bring the guns for God's sake! Make haste! Bring the guns!' I rushed about in the dark, tumbling over the saddles, but could nowhere lay my hands on a rifle. Still the cry was for 'Guns!' My own, a muzzle-loader, was discharged, but a rifle none the less. Snatching up this, and one of my pistols, which, by the way, had fallen into the river a few hours before, I shouted for Samson, and ran headlong to the rescue. Before I got to the bottom of the hill ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... would be obedient to military discipline, and that it would be for their interest to retain in the camp those whose departure would endanger all their lives placed them upon the bridge, with cannon loaded to the muzzle with grape-shot. They were ordered mercilessly to shoot down any who should attempt to cross without his permission. In Crockett's ludicrous account ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... inquiring about the litter of some sow, he felt his fingers in a row; replying to the observation that the animals were very greedy, by stretching his arms to heaven, showing the empty troughs, lifting ends of wood, tearing up tufts of grass which he carried to his lips, grunting as if he had his muzzle full. ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... however. The foolish dog had found a huge crab in the sand and, barking loudly, had pushed his muzzle against the creature, with the result that the crab seized his black nose in a gripping claw and pinched as hard as it was able. Mumbles tried to back away, madly howling the while; but the crab, although the smaller antagonist, ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John • Edith Van Dyne
... me a check for fifty; an' write it now." With a sudden whip of his hand he reached behind him. Like a flash he pulled a long revolver from its holster. Eddring gazed into the round aperture of the muzzle and certain surrounding apertures of the cylinder. "Write me a check," said Blount, slowly, "and write it for fifty. I may tear it up when I get it—I don't care fifty cents ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... that the tompion, or wooden plug which sealed the muzzle was tight, and that no water had leaked through the wrapping of tarred canvas which protected the touch-hole. Before replacing them, he had made two or three trips to the deck-house amidships in which was the carpenter's room. Each time ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... indicating here a tree, there a bush; a black belt of forest far off; the straight lines of a house, the ridge of a high roof near by. Inside the hut, Babalatchi, who lately had been only a persuasive voice, became a human shape leaning its chin imprudently on the muzzle of a gun and rolling an uneasy eye over the reappearing world. The day came rapidly, dismal and oppressed by the fog of the river and by the heavy vapours of the sky—a day without colour and without sunshine: incomplete, disappointing, ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... of an adventurer who went to Alaska and laid the foundations of his fortune before the gold hunters arrived. Bringing his fortunes to the States he is cheated out of it by a crowd of money kings, and recovers it only at the muzzle of his gun. He then starts out as a merciless exploiter on his own account. Finally he takes to drinking and becomes a picture of degeneration. About this time he falls in love with his stenographer and wins her heart but not her hand ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... on her young; must not see our enemy's beast fall under his burden and not help him rise." And the refinement of mercy was taught in the statute that said: "You must not kill the mother and lamb in one day; must not seethe a kid in its mother's milk; must not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn." The use, and the only use, of law is to prevent and punish for sin. All law has a penalty for those who violate it. Governments that are the greatest blessing to its citizens ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... would race madly about the house until some breakage or a burst of tears woke him from his trance. He would thrash them all and put them to bed howling. When they were asleep he would be touched with tender compassion, and steal in to tuck them up, admiring the innocence of each unconscious muzzle on its pillow. Sometimes, in a crisis of his problems, he thought of writing to Dr. Holt for advice; but ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... malign and menacing in the place, that I found myself almost unable to withdraw my eyes from the opening, as in the deepening darkness it became more and more indistinct. And when the last little flame flickered and went out I grasped the shotgun which I had laid at my side and actually turned the muzzle in the direction of the now invisible entrance, my thumb on one of the hammers, ready to cock the piece, my breath suspended, my muscles rigid and tense. But later I laid down the weapon with a sense of shame and mortification. What did I fear, and ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... out Fred, wheeling about and leaping toward a tree, behind which he took refuge; but sturdy Terry had no thought of turning away from such a foe. Throwing one foot back so as to steady himself, he seized his fine rifle with both hands, near to the muzzle, and held it so as to use it as ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis
... each side of the gun between the muzzle and wheel, any talking we did was to whisper cautiously to each other, as the very grass beneath our feet contained spies in those days; the country-side round about was as thickly infested with them as cells in a honeycomb; and thus ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... without any sage in them,] come crouching in the hams to you for a night's lodging? [that hath an itch in 's hams, which like the fire at the glass-house hath not gone out this seven years] Is he not a courtly gentleman? [when he wears white satin, one would take him by his black muzzle to be no other creature than a maggot] You are a goodly foil, I confess, well set out [but cover'd with a false stone— ...
— The White Devil • John Webster
... bore down on them in two lines, heading one himself, while Collingwood, in the Royal Sovereign, led the other, which first entered into action. "See," cried Nelson, as the Royal Sovereign cut through the centre of the enemy's line, and muzzle to muzzle engaged a three-decker, "see how that noble fellow Collingwood carries his ships into action." Collingwood, on the other hand, said to his captain, "Rotherham, what would Nelson give to be here?" As the Victory approached an incessant ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... establishments in the North where the best of guns then known in warfare were made. The old flint-lock musket had theretofore been superseded by the percussion-lock musket, but some of the guns supplied to the troops were old, and altered from the flint-lock. These muskets were muzzle-loaders, smooth bores, firing only buck and ball cartridges—.69 calibre. They were in the process of supersession by the .58 calibre rifle for infantry, or the rifle-carbine for cavalry, generally of a smaller calibre. The English Enfield rifle was of .58 calibre, and ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... motionless, cowering and spellbound, beneath the dilating eye of the robber. It was but for a moment that the man had cause for dread; for muttering between his ground teeth, "Why waste it on an enemy?" Clifford turned the muzzle towards the head of the unconscious steed, which seemed sorrowfully and wistfully to incline towards him. "Thou," he said, "whom I have fed and loved, shalt never know hardship from another!" and with a merciful cruelty he dragged himself one pace nearer to his ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... A woman walked back and forth over a puncheon floor, tending supper. Dogs rushed to meet us, and the playing of children could be heard. A man, gun in hand, stepped to his door, a sentinel. He lowered its muzzle, and made us welcome, and helped us put our horses under shelter with ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... man had been the moment before, the kiss of the cold muzzle turned his purpose to ice. The desire to live was all-compelling. Choking, gasping, his eyes rolling appealingly, he nodded assent. With the revolver at his back he ran down the corridor, and, as he ran, ...
— The White Mice • Richard Harding Davis
... With no mean quality of heroism, they threw themselves against the gun's defenders. They would seize that demon of machinery and hurl it over into the gully below. But the doughboys, with bayonets stationed on the sides of the gun, thrust or stabbed them back. No native approached the muzzle of the Gatling and lived to cause further trouble. In as wide an arc as possible Sergeant Hal swung the nose of the ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Philippines - or, Following the Flag against the Moros • H. Irving Hancock
... Skipper the man patted his nose once or twice, and then pushed his muzzle to one side. Skipper ducked and countered. He had not forgotten his boxing trick. The man turned his back and began to pace down the road. Skipper followed and picked up a riding-glove which ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford
... then the way to carry firearms? An it were the old Spanish match-lock in the lieu of this good flint-engine, which may be borne ten miles or more and never once go off, scarcely couldst thou seem more scared. I might point at thee muzzle on—just so as I do now—even for an hour or more, and like enough it would never shoot thee, unless I pulled the trigger hard, with a crock upon my finger; so you see; just so, Master Pooke, only ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... an art. There were trainers who took a man and made him an abortion; they took a face and made a muzzle; they stunted growth; they kneaded the features. The artificial production of teratological cases had its rules. It was quite a science—what one can imagine as the antithesis of orthopedy. Where God had put a look, their ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... back was turned the Count jumped and started for the door like a flash. With a quick side step, however, Edestone threw himself between him and the only exit from the room, and giving the fugitive a good poke in the stomach with the muzzle ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... the ear. He said to himself: "My wife ... this will make it all right for her...." and a last flash of irony twitched through him. Then he felt again, more deliberately, for the spot he wanted, and put the muzzle of his revolver ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... leaped to one side almost as I pulled the trigger; and through the hanging smoke the first thing I saw was his paw as he made a vicious side blow at me. The rush of his charge carried him past. As he struck he lurched forward, leaving a pool of bright blood where his muzzle hit the ground; but he recovered himself and made two or three jumps onward, while I hurriedly jammed a couple of cartridges into the magazine, my rifle holding only four, all of which I had fired. ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... they should have been hoeing their gardens. Soon they began to be in great want of food. The captain started off with a party of men to buy corn of the Indians. The Indians contrived a cunning plot to kill the whole party. Smith luckily found it out; seizing the chief by the hair, he pressed the muzzle of a pistol against his heart and gave him his choice,—"Corn, or your life!" He got the ...
— The Beginner's American History • D. H. Montgomery
... being made to carry 600 Ibs. of ball and more, by this rule you will take the measure of the diameter of the ball and divide it into 6 parts and one of these parts will be its thickness at the muzzle; but at the breech it must always be half. And if the ball is to be 700 lbs., 1/7th of the diameter of the ball must be its thickness in front; and if the ball is to be 800, the eighth of its diameter in front; ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... 'The Galena' hailed us to keep below, as we passed the battery. Shortly after, we came up with 'The Monitor,' and the little captain, with his East India hat, trumpet in hand, repeated the advice of 'The Galena,' and added, that if he heard firing, he would follow us. Our cannon pointed its black muzzle at the shore, and on we went. As we left 'The Monitor,' the captain came to me, with his grim smile, and said, 'I'll take those mattresses you spoke of.' We had joked, as people will, about our danger, and I had suggested mattresses ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... half-light and the mysterious quality of the symbols. A tall white hound, Famulus, brother to the one which lays its head on the knee of the Countess of Arundel in Rubens' picture, stretched his muzzle towards the lady, guarding her slumbers, and was designed with much felicitous boldness of foreshortening. The background of the room was sumptuous ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... She was not womanly enough to scream; instead, she fought silently and with the strength and cunning of mortal fear. Even as my fingers clutched at her for the strangling hold she twisted herself free and put the breadth of the table between us; then I found myself looking into the muzzle of a small ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... is dark brown on its muzzle and extremities, with a cross of red and black on its shoulders and breast, which peculiarity of coloring, and not any trait in its character, gives it its name. It is very rare, and few hunters have ever seen one. The American Fur Company used to obtain annually ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... boys! Fix bayonets!' yelled Karri Davies. There were no bayonets, but that was a detail. At the word the gunners were off, and there in the darkness in front of the storming party loomed the enormous gun, gigantic in that uncertain light. Out with the huge breech-block! Wrap the long lean muzzle round with a collar of gun-cotton! Keep the guard upon the run until the work is done! Hunter stood by with a night light in his hand until the charge was in position, and then, with a crash which brought both armies from their tents, the huge tube reared up ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... archer; he decides, in a flash, what he's going to do, and lets fly. Practice is the thing. Now, when you're after a wild duck, you can aim exactly at him and he's safe as a turnip; but see a strip of water ahead betwixt the muzzle of your gun and him, and he's a gone bird, if you fire straight. You have to allow for diving—but practice is ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge
... largest of the dead pines was a large black bear, reared back on his haunches and striking with both paws viciously at some unseen foe. The hair of muzzle, head and paws was matted and plastered with some thick liquid, giving him a curious frowsy appearance. He was evidently in a towering rage but it was also apparent that he was suffering great pain, his ferocious growls being interspersed ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... temperament, the national trait, whether original or acquired, asserted itself; and the heroes who had scaled the heights barefoot, and clung with undying resolution to their rocky cover, exchanging shots almost muzzle to muzzle, did not muster the resolution which might, or might not—the true soldier recks not which at such an hour—have carried them, more than decimated, but triumphant, across the belt of withering fire to victory. The ...
— Story of the War in South Africa - 1899-1900 • Alfred T. Mahan
... bull-dog!" he quivered, now utterly frightened as he caught sight of the gleaming teeth in that ugly muzzle. "I didn't know that they had brought that beast with them. It's the lake for mine! If I can only get into the water I can ...
— The High School Boys' Canoe Club • H. Irving Hancock
... deep in the tangle of impenetrable jungle, Numa, the lion, raised his massive head. Numa had dined well until almost daybreak and it had required much noise to awaken him. Now he lifted his muzzle and sniffed the air, caught the acrid scent spoor of the reed buck and the heavy scent of man. But Numa was well filled. With a low, disgusted grunt he rose ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... tremendous waves where a boat could get to shore in safety. Even the dog partook of the general feeling of exhilaration, rushing frantically about the deck, charging at the sailors open-mouthed, with his frill set up round his neck, and when apparently about to seize them thrusting his muzzle down close to the deck and rolling ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... towards us and wagging his scrap of a tail was a small grey-brown dog. His coat was plastered with filth, upon one of his ears was a blotch of dried blood, his muzzle and paws might have been steeped in ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... native horses of the Sierra, for which reason they are better than the coast horses for mountain travelling. Mules, however, are preferable to either. It is wonderful with what tact and penetration the mule chooses his footing. When he doubts the firmness of the ground he passes his muzzle over it, or turns up the loose parts with his hoof before he ventures to step forward. When he finds himself getting into soft and marshy ground he stands stock still, and refuses to obey either stirrup ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... their utmost efforts, so they attempted stratagem. They knocked, and as there was no reply, they continued to knock louder and louder: not meeting with success, they held another consultation, and the muzzle of a carbine was then put to the keyhole, and the piece discharged. The lock of the door was blown off, but the iron bars which crossed the door within, above and below, ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... and hid behind a fallen log that happened to be close at hand. He did not have time to take a good look at the object, but he saw enough of it to frighten him thoroughly. He thrust his cocked rifle cautiously over the log, directing the muzzle toward the sycamore, but his hand was unsteady and his face was ...
— The Boy Trapper • Harry Castlemon
... saw smoke coiling up from the muzzle of the pistol in my hand. At my feet lay the Indio girl, dead. My bullet had crashed into her brain, driving out ...
— Where the World is Quiet • Henry Kuttner
... says the gunner. 'Don't you do it. Some crazy Parsee diver might spot it and go down and bring it up; and besides, you oughtn't let it get wet—it'd spoil all that nice typewriting. Give it up to me and I'll take it up on the after-bridge, and if it's too stiff for wadding, I'll tie it across the muzzle of the first six-pounder we salute the port with, and let you ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... leash, hold in leading strings; withhold. keep under; repress, suppress; smother; pull in, rein in; hold, hold fast; keep a tight hand on; prohibit &c 761; inhibit, cohibit^. enchain; fasten &c (join) 43; fetter, shackle; entrammel^; bridle, muzzle, hopple^, gag, pinion, manacle, handcuff, tie one's hands, hobble, bind hand and foot; swathe, swaddle; pin down, tether; picket; tie down, tie up; secure; forge fetters; disable, hamstring (incapacitate) 158. confine; shut up, shut in; clap up, lock up, box up, mew up, bottle up, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... which was about the size of a small orange, dropped out quietly upon the sand. Robinson, for it was really he, always seemed to be greatly astonished at this result, peering long and anxiously down into the barrel of the gun, and sometimes listening attentively, with his ear at the muzzle. His animal companions, however, seemed to be greatly alarmed whenever he prepared to fire; and, scampering off, hid behind the little hills of sand until the gun was discharged, when they would return, and, after solemnly watching their master reload his piece, follow him along the beach as before. ...
— Davy and The Goblin - What Followed Reading 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' • Charles E. Carryl
... in great triumph, with Scarammuccia walking by her side, and keeping his muzzle suspiciously close to the pocket in which she had put her bread. Father Rocco closed the door after them, and then, taking the one chair which the room possessed, motioned to Nanina to sit by him on ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... his feet, but the muzzle of a dragoon revolver in the unsteady hands of Whisky Dick, caused him to sit down again. He ate the pie, and lost his case ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... by a too zealous anxiety for instant emancipation in others,—by fear of provoking opposition in one quarter, and by a blind defiance of all obstacles in another. Now what shall be done? Shall we hesitate, despond, despair? Never! For Heaven's sake, take off the muzzle. Use every weapon which the God of Battles has placed in our hands. Put forth all the power of the nation. Encourage and promote all fighting generals; cashier all officers who are determined to make war on peace principles; arm, equip, and discipline negroes, not to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... close to Ted that he could hear his feverish breathing, the man suddenly thrust forward a pistol until the muzzle was within an inch ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... moving the bushes, but to approach the fence and look between the rails. Doing so, we found the fence at the border of a little strip of hollow pasture in which the brooklet ran, and across it on the other slope, frowning upon us, was a formidable earthwork, an embrasure and the muzzle of a great Columbiad looking directly at us. The enemy's sentinels had been driven in, so that, where we looked, one was pacing his beat at the counterscarp of the ditch. As we drew back to a distance at which conversation ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... floors with two rooms each, and his good wife kept everything clean and bright. Soon after our arrival the skipper got out for our edification two shotguns—one single, and the other double-barrelled—each of which was fully six feet long from butt to muzzle and had a bore of ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... magnified that they looked to be fully a finger-nail high.—[My own expression, and a quite happy one. I said to the Duke: "Your Grace, they're just about finger-milers!" "How do you mean, m'lord?" "This. You notice the stately General standing there with his hand resting upon the muzzle of a cannon? Well, if you could stick your little finger down against the ground alongside of him his plumes would just reach up to where your nail joins the flesh." The Duke said "finger-milers was good"—good and exact; and he ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... until at last a new humor struck him and he turned eastward to the Mackenzie. As the seasons passed, Tao found mates along the way and left a string of his progeny behind him, and he had new masters, one after another, until he was grown old and his muzzle was turning gray. And never did one of these masters turn south with him. Always it was north, north with the white man first, north with the Cree, and then wit h the Chippewayan, until in the end the dog born in a Vancouver ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... my father learned the points of a cow with as much attention as if he meant to turn farmer. He had his little book that he used for mechanical memoranda and measurements in his pocket, and he took it out to write down 'straight back', small muzzle', 'deep barrel', and I know not what else, under the head 'cow'. He was very critical on a turnip-cutting machine, the clumsiness of which first incited him to talk; and when we went into the house he sate thinking and quiet for a bit, while Phillis and her mother made ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... powder into the palm of his hand, measuring the quantity with his eye—for it was an evidence of a hunter's skill to be able to get the proper quantity for the ball. Then he put the charge into the barrel. Placing a little greased linsey rag, about half an inch square, over the muzzle, he laid a small lead bullet on it, and with the ramrod began to push the ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... to avoid the animal, which, just as the car was upon it, gathered itself and sprang. It landed on the hood with all four feet, its snarling face so close to the men that they could feel its breath. The American, thrusting the muzzle of his weapon into the furry neck of the great cat, let go with both barrels, blowing away the beast's throat and jugular vein and killing it instantly. With the aid of his badly frightened driver, he bundled the great striped carcass into the tonneau of the car and imperturbably continued ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... little firelight to make the darkness and emptiness of the large room more noticeable. She knelt down on the hearth-rug and buried her face in the seat of Mrs. Rushton's favourite arm-chair. The dearest of all her dear dogs, Scamp, came and laid his black muzzle beside her ear, as if he knew the whole case and wanted to mourn with her. Two hours passed; Hetty listened intently for every sound, and wondered impatiently why Mr. and Mrs. Enderby did not arrive. She got up and carefully placed some lumps of coal on the fire, making no ...
— Hetty Gray - Nobody's Bairn • Rosa Mulholland
... a hand that rested flat on the table, in the other he likewise held a revolver, which he had apparently drawn in self-defense, at the crisis of Mulready's frenzy. Its muzzle was deflected. He looked Kirkwood over with a cool gray eye, the color gradually returning to his fat, clean-shaven cheeks, replacing the pardonable pallor which ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... slowly with lowered head, and Smoke followed demurely at his heels, making a transparent pretence of not being interested, yet missing nothing. And, at length, they returned, the old collie first, and came to rest on the mat before the fire. Flame rested his muzzle on his master's knee, smiling beatifically while he patted the yellow head and spoke his name; and Smoke, coming a little later, pretending he came by chance, looked from the empty saucer to his ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... board did not move, but the craft swerved again and the gun pointed straight up the channel. Jake did not know if this was significant or not, because the current eddied, but he imagined the fellow had seen him. Then Jim threw his gun to his shoulder and a red flash leaped from the muzzle. There was a splash, but next moment Jake saw a dark object overhead and pulled the trigger. The goose came down, whirling over with long neck hanging limp, until it struck the other bank, and Jake ...
— Partners of the Out-Trail • Harold Bindloss
... bush in South Nigeria, had one of these things fired at him from a distance of fifteen feet. He told me all that saved him was that when the native pulled the trigger the recoil of the gun "kicked" the muzzle two feet in the air and the native ten feet into the bush. I bought a Tower rifle at the trade price, a pound, and brought it home. But although my friends have offered to back either end of the gun as being the more destructive, we have found no one with a sufficient sporting ...
— The Congo and Coasts of Africa • Richard Harding Davis
... out immediately; instead, they waited to be sure that their victim did not rise. Then they came rapidly from their concealment, and bent over him. It was soon apparent that he was not dead. One of the men put the muzzle of his gun to the back of Tarzan's head to finish him, but another waved him aside. "If we bring him alive the reward is to be greater," explained the latter. So they bound his hands and feet, and, picking him up, placed ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... he took up his own weapon and examined it in the dimness. Then, still holding it in his right hand, he laid that arm along the edge of the boat as if to relieve it from the cramped position he had complained of. Archdale saw that the muzzle was pointed directly at him and that the hand which held it in apparent carelessness was working almost imperceptibly towards the trigger. That would not be touched quite yet, however, a shot now would alarm the garrison ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various
... put the muzzle of the gun to his head, and fired, which instantly put an end to his existence!—Mr. Lumbert, during this time, was begging for life, although no doubt mortally wounded. Comstock, turned to him and said, "I am a bloody man! I have a bloody hand ...
— A Narrative of the Mutiny, on Board the Ship Globe, of Nantucket, in the Pacific Ocean, Jan. 1824 • William Lay
... Hon. Mr. HENRY CHAPLIN, M.P., Anti-muzzle-man and Minister of Agriculture, wishes to deny explicitly that, when, by a lapsus calami, he was made to describe Mr. TAY PAY O'CONNOR as "peeping from behind the Speaker's chair," he ever intended to fix upon that honourable gentleman the sobriquet of "Peeping Tom"; nor had he any idea ...
— Punch, or, the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 8, 1890. • Various
... was still for ever, and the faithful dog that had nestled closely with his muzzle in his master's neck ...
— To Win or to Die - A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze • George Manville Fenn
... faced the gloomy building beyond, and each of whom carried a special constable's baton in his hand. The long railway bridge running close by was occupied by a detachment of infantry, and from the parapet of the frowning walls the muzzle of cannon, trained on the space below, might be dimly discerned in the darkness. But the crowd paid little attention to these extraordinary appearances; their eyes were riveted on the black projection which jutted from the prison ...
— The Dock and the Scaffold • Unknown
... meets, simply because its rapid motion is the vehicle by which the energy of the gunpowder is transferred from the gun to where the blow is to be struck. Had the cannon been directed vertically upwards, then the projectile, leaving the muzzle with the same initial velocity as before, would soar up and up, with gradually abating speed, until at last it reached a turning-point, the elevation of which would depend upon the initial velocity. Poised for a moment at the summit, the cannon-ball may then be likened to ...
— Time and Tide - A Romance of the Moon • Robert S. (Robert Stawell) Ball
... that he was peering into the muzzle of a double-barrelled gun, probably loaded with buck-shot. The ranchman was pointing it directly at his head, with both triggers cocked. Brown saw he was in earnest, and asked if that was the charter. The ranchman replied that ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... but, rampant on one eternal door-mat, in an eternal entry long and narrow, is a puffy pug-dog, with a personal animosity towards us, who triumphs over Time. The bark of that baleful Pug, a certain radiating way he had of snapping at our undefended legs, the ghastly grinning of his moist black muzzle and white teeth, and the insolence of his crisp tail curled like a pastoral crook, all live and flourish. From an otherwise unaccountable association of him with a fiddle, we conclude that he was of French extraction, ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... Highness shares my opinion," returned the old fellow. The muzzle of the carbine was once more pointed ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... "Al-Lijm w' al-Blm" the latter being a "Tbi'" or dependent word used only for jingle. [The Muht explains "Bilm" by "Kimm at-Thaur" muzzle of a bull, and Bocthor gives as equivalent for it the French "cavecon" (English "cavesson" nose-band for breaking horses in). Here, I suppose, it means the ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... could see my rifle lying on the ground and Joe's big gun standing with its muzzle pointed skyward, leaning against a boulder. They were only six feet away, but six feet were six feet: we could not reach them without climbing up, and that was out of the question—the bear could get there much ...
— The Boys of Crawford's Basin - The Story of a Mountain Ranch in the Early Days of Colorado • Sidford F. Hamp
... And I sorta comprehended as down the hill we went There was bound to be a smash-up that I couldn't well prevent. Oh, how them punchers bawled, "Stay with her, Uncle Bill! Stick your spurs in her, you sucker! turn her muzzle up the hill!" But I never made an answer, I just let the cusses squeal, I was finding ...
— Cowboy Songs - and Other Frontier Ballads • Various
... proprietor if there wasn't a good deal of sewer-gas in the store, and he told me to go out and shake myself. I think the girl was mad at me because I got a nursing bottle out of the show case, with a rubber muzzle, and asked her if that was what she wanted. Well, she told me a satchet was something for the stummick, and I thought a nursing bottle was the ...
— Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa - 1883 • George W. Peck
... room. Suvaroff laid the pistol on the table and threw himself upon the bed. He lay there without moving until morning.... Toward six o'clock he rose. He went over to the table and deliberately put the pistol to his temple. The coldness of the muzzle sent a tremor through him.... He put down the weapon ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... that rubs its back upon the window-panes, The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening, Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains, Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys, Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap, And seeing that it was a soft October ...
— Poems • T. S. [Thomas Stearns] Eliot
... turned, Dickie Lang caught up a rifle and threw it loosely over her shoulder. Mascola turned to look straight into the muzzle and drew back sharply. Then he flourished ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... rifles and equipment also littered the landscape. Within our own area there were likewise grim reminders of the fight. Here and there a limb protruded through the wall of a newly cut trench, whilst in other places a piece of biscuit box, or a rifle stuck into the earth muzzle down, both bearing a name written in indelible pencil, indicated the last resting place ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett
... desolate, it likewise seemed secure. Nevertheless, death lurked in the trail ahead. Barger was there. He was lying in the rocks, concealed where the chasm was narrow. He had ridden four hours—on the mare Beth had lost—to arrive ahead of Van Buren. The muzzle of a long black revolver that he held in hand rested upon a shattered boulder. His narrow eyes lay level with a rift in the group of rocks that hid him completely from view. Van was in sight, and the convict's breath came quickly as ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... take no 'fence when I jumps plum to the pint. Mars Lennox is huntin' down Miss Ellice's child like a hungry hound runs a rabbit, and I want you to call him off. If he thinks half as much of you as he oughter, you can stop him. Oh, Miss Leo, for God's sake—call him off—muzzle him!" ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... entitled, "Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle" will remember this curious weapon. It was worked by a stored charge of magnetism of the wireless kind. By this a concentrated globule of electricity was projected from the muzzle, and it could be made strong or weak at the will of the marksman. It could be made so powerful that it would totally annihilate a whale, as Tom had once proved, or it could be made so mild that it would put an enemy, or several of them, to ...
— Tom Swift in Captivity • Victor Appleton
... Cid awoke; he rose without alarm; He went to meet the lion, with his mantle on his arm. The lion was abash'd the noble Cid to meet, He bow'd his mane to earth, his muzzle at his feet. The Cid by the neck and mane drew him to his den, He thrust him in at the hatch, and came to the hall again; He found his knights, his vassals, and all his valiant men. He ask'd for his sons-in-law, they were neither of them ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... whole hour, John had wandered about the market, not holding anyone's hand and free to go wherever he liked! He had walked through the old market where the horses were bought and sold ... had even stroked a mare's muzzle while some men bargained over it ... and then had crossed the road to the new market where he smelt the odour of flowers and fruit and listened to the country-women chaffering over their butter and eggs. He spent a penny without direction!... ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... acclamations of a vast crowd of people. The Penihings and Oma-Sulings treat man's faithful companion well, the former even with affection; and the dogs, which are of the usual type, yellowish in colour, with pointed muzzle, erect ears, and upstanding tail, are in fine condition. A trait peculiar to the Dayak variety is that he never barks at strangers, permitting them to walk on the galleries or even in the rooms without interference. Groups of these intelligent animals are always to be seen before ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... on down to the feeding ground and presented Uncle Ike with a lump of sugar. The mule thanked him with wiggling ears and dived a soft muzzle into his coat pocket ...
— The Boy Scout Camera Club - The Confession of a Photograph • G. Harvey Ralphson
... in my court-yard or patio a tremendous struggle between an ant and a fly: both species of insects are very numerous in Ghadames, and there is a great number of various coloured ants. The ant got hold of the muzzle of the fly, or its neck, and there grasped it with as firm a grasp as it is possible to conceive of one animal grasping another. In vain the fly struggled and flapped its wings; over and over again the combatants rolled as these weak defences beat the ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... to the floor and ran his hands over its skull, along its back, and down its erratic legs. "Some dog, Judith! You'll have to muzzle him by the time ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... the differing lengths of time which each required for the draw. The muzzle of Hurley's revolver was not clear of the holster—the gun of Diaz was nearly at the level when Pierre's weapon exploded at his hip. The bullet cut through the wrist of Hurley. Never again would that slender, supple hand fly over the cards, doing things ...
— Riders of the Silences • Max Brand
... felt so mournful that he lifted up his muzzle and howled. Farmer Green's wife had just ordered him out of the kitchen. She thought he had been teasing Miss Kitty Cat. And instead he had kept Miss Kitty from tasting the leg of mutton that ...
— The Tale of Old Dog Spot • Arthur Scott Bailey
... Polar and Grizzly. The polar bears of the north, and the Rocky Mountain grizzlies, a hundred years ago were bold and aggressive. That was in the days of the weak, small-bore, muzzle-loading rifles, black powder and slow firing. Today all that is changed. All those bears have recognized the fearful deadliness of the long-range, high-power repeating rifle, and the polar and the grizzly flee from man ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... never try those tricks with me again. Will you, old lady?"—and he rubbed the black velvet muzzle at his side with a kindly hand. To Ann's astonishment, the mare, dripping with the sweat of sheer exhaustion, her coat striped with the hiding Brett had given her, pushed her ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... dew-drenched grass skipped like kittens, though with comical clumsiness rather than with the agility they displayed in the water. Like kittens, too, the cubs played with their mother, in spite of wholesome chastisement when they nipped her muzzle rather more severely than even long-suffering patience could allow. The dam was at all times loath to correct her offspring, but the sire rarely endured the familiarity of the cubs for long. Directly they became unduly presumptuous he lumbered off to the river, as if he considered ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... Bugeaud to command the troops was a declaration of war—the formation of this ministry was a supplication for peace. The one act was defiance, the other capitulation. Thus, while General Bugeaud was loading his cannon to the muzzle, and marshalling his troops for battle, he received an order, to his inexpressible chagrin, from the new ministry directing him to cease the combat and to withdraw the troops, while at the same time an announcement was made, by a proclamation ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... defended himself against such odds had fallen down. The two others burst from the women, and were about to pierce him with their swords, when Jack seized one by the collar of his coat and held him fast, pointing the muzzle of the pistol to his ear: Gascoigne did the same to the other. It was a very dramatic tableau. The two women flew to the elderly gentleman and raised him up; the two assailants being held just as dogs hold pigs by the ear, trembling with fright, with the points of their rapiers ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... thing, very crooked and wouldn't carry farther than fifteen paces at the most. However, it would send your skull flying well enough if you pressed the muzzle of it against ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... into his grave this silver mask of an ox head with golden horns. It was a symbol of the cattle sacrificed for the dead. There is a gold rosette between the eyes. The mouth, muzzle, eyes and ears are gilded. In Homer's Iliad, which is the story of the Trojan war, Diomede says, "To thee will I sacrifice a yearling heifer, broad at brow, unbroken, that never yet hath man led beneath the yoke. Her will I sacrifice to thee, ...
— Buried Cities: Pompeii, Olympia, Mycenae • Jennie Hall
... the boat was so near that we were soon alongside and looking into her. There were three dead, two badly wounded, one slightly wounded man, and one unhurt man in her. The latter looked at us without the slightest fear, even when Tepi, picking up a carbine, thrust the muzzle of it almost into his face. Niabon gently took the weapon from Tepi's hand, laid it down and waited for me to ...
— The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton - 1902 • Louis Becke
... female coyote lowered her head, drew a test sniff of a new scent. She recognized that as part of the proper way of life. She yapped once at her mate, but he was absorbed in his night song, his muzzle pointed moonward as he ...
— The Defiant Agents • Andre Alice Norton
... anywhere, separately or together. The man was well-made and vigorous, with red-brown hair and beard, and clear merry eyes, a leader who would rather lead than command. The dog was of medium size but very powerful, tawny in color with a black muzzle, and the scars on his compact body recorded many battles, not with other dogs but with hostile Indians. He had been his master's body-guard in several fights, and Balboa sometimes lent him to his friends, the dog receiving the same share of plunder ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... but to use our last means to enforce our will. With a whistling sound, a shell flew from the muzzle of our cannon and a few seconds later fell with a loud crash in a cloud of smoke on the rear deck of the steamer. ...
— The Journal of Submarine Commander von Forstner • Georg-Guenther von Forstner
... the Richard alongside the Serapis, lashed them together; and so, muzzle to muzzle, they poured destructive broadsides into each other for an hour and a half. Sometimes both vessels were on fire. When for a minute the Richard ceased firing, the Captain of the Serapis called ...
— Harper's Young People, July 20, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... fired on from some houses in Charlestown, and in the conflict which ensued that town was set on fire and was soon burnt to the ground. The whole detachment now moved up the hill, and the Americans, secure behind their entrenchments reserved their fire till the British troops were almost close to the muzzle of their guns. They then opened a terrible discharge of cannon and musketry, and their volleys were so rapid and skilfully directed that the British troops recoiled, and many fled to the boats which had conveyed them, over the river. At this moment General Clinton ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... partly belonging to his benefactor. There is something dog-like in this feeling. And it is touching and attractive because of the animalism of its frankness and simplicity. And as the dog who has been kindly, tenderly treated has no hesitation in claiming attention with a paw, or in laying its muzzle upon the knee of its benefactor, so Ruffo had no hesitation in relating to Hermione all the little intimate incidents of his daily life, in crediting her with an active interest in his concerns. There was no conceit in this, only a ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... that, if they drooped, had no trace of coarseness and were set wide apart above a basin face, the mare showed race indisputably, notwithstanding the white in her forehead was too smudgy to be called a star, or that, though her muzzle tapered finely, the lower lip habitually protruded a bit. A four-year-old, she was still a maiden—consequently had but a feather on her back in the Far and Near. The handicapper had laughed, half wearily, half compassionately ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... house, a half-mile beyond, they fared no better. The woman's voice was curter, and the uninviting muzzle of a bull-terrier was thrust out between the door and the woman's skirts. As they turned away Patsy's teeth were chattering; the chill and wet had crept into her bones and blood, turning her lips blue and her cheeks ashen; even the cutting ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... of this wild breed is invariably white, the muzzle being black; the whole of the inside of the ear, and about one-third of the outside, from the tips downward, red; horns white, with black tips, very fine, and bent upward; some of the bulls have a thin, upright mane, about an inch and a half or ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... sang his sword, gold-hilted, To a lightning-flash in heaven, And his ornamented crossbow, To a rainbow o'er the water, And he sang his feathered arrows, Into hawks that soar above him; And his dog, with upturned muzzle, Stands a stone in ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous
... go by the board, go by the wayside; go up in smoke, end in smoke &c. (fail) 732. render powerless &c. adj.; deprive of power; disable, disenable[obs3]; disarm, incapacitate, disqualify, unfit, invalidate, deaden, cramp, tie the hands; double up, prostrate, paralyze, muzzle, cripple, becripple[obs3], maim, lame, hamstring, draw the teeth of; throttle, strangle, garrotte, garrote; ratten[obs3], silence, sprain, clip the wings of, put hors de combat[Fr], spike the guns; take the wind out of one's sails, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... Coetzee raised the gun to her shoulder and pointed it at the door. Her arms were trembling so that she could not keep it steady; so, going close up to the door, she rested the muzzle on the iron bar. ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... sling strap. I had some personal experiences in this battle that were unique in my service. Our muskets were the Enfield rifle, an English gun, much like the Springfield. They were, of course, muzzle loaders, breech loaders then were the exception. The Minnie bullet had no device for cleaning out the barrel, and after a dozen shots it would become foul, and often it was difficult to ram the bullet home. After I had fired my gun a number of times, in attempting to load, the bullet ...
— Personal Recollections of the War of 1861 • Charles Augustus Fuller
... a .45-70 Springfield, with its ultra-heavy slug, but slow muzzle velocity. And Joe had a telescope mounted upon it, an innovation that barely made the requirement of predating the year 1900 and thus subscribing to the Universal Disarmament Pact between the Sov-world and the West-world. It had taken the enemy forces a long time to even locate him, a long time ...
— Frigid Fracas • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... great solemn eyes, and a soft, warm nose. The very sight gave the boy courage, and at his next whistle the old horse carefully picked his way down the bank, and reaching down his long neck, felt Jacky's shoulder with his velvety muzzle. ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... however, his companion coming up behind him was in time to snatch the rifle, turning the muzzle ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... immensely magnified that they looked to be fully a finger-nail high.—[My own expression, and a quite happy one. I said to the Duke: "Your Grace, they're just about finger-milers!" "How do you mean, m'lord?" "This. You notice the stately General standing there with his hand resting upon the muzzle of a cannon? Well, if you could stick your little finger down against the ground alongside of him his plumes would just reach up to where your nail joins the flesh." The Duke said "finger-milers was good"—good and exact; and he afterward ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... Luzon day; dry, empty, caked with sweat-salt—yet there were not a few of those gritty beasts that went into the air squealing, and launched a hind-foot at the nearest rib or the nearest star, or pressed close to muzzle the bell-mare—after the restoring roll. Then, some of the packers drove them down to water, while others made ready the forage and grain-bags; infantry fires were lit; the provisions turned over; detachments came meekly forward for ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... struggling man into a tufted arm-chair which stood by the entrance to the small dining room, and drawing out his handcuffs, slipped them on securely. "Stay there," Ferguson admonished his prisoner. "Or there will be worse coming to you," and he thrust the muzzle of his revolver against the man's heaving chest to illustrate his meaning; then as Kent called again, he sped down the hall and brought up breathless at the front door. The light was still burning in the corridor, though not very brightly, and he saw Kent hand the grinning messenger ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... the order was given; but the second one led to the discharge of two guns without effect, and the leveling of a third by Ramsey, with a coolness and steadiness of nerve and aim which gave assurance of success. His finger was on the trigger, when Durant himself threw up the muzzle of the rifle, and sent the ball whizzing through the air, some ten feet above ...
— Ellen Walton - The Villain and His Victims • Alvin Addison
... to keep below, as we passed the battery. Shortly after, we came up with 'The Monitor,' and the little captain, with his East India hat, trumpet in hand, repeated the advice of 'The Galena,' and added, that if he heard firing, he would follow us. Our cannon pointed its black muzzle at the shore, and on we went. As we left 'The Monitor,' the captain came to me, with his grim smile, and said, 'I'll take those mattresses you spoke of.' We had joked, as people will, about our danger, and I had suggested mattresses round the wheel-house, never thinking ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... turn just in time to see the muzzle of the shotgun turned fully on Tom Reade's waist line, and Ashby's forefinger resting on one ...
— The Young Engineers in Arizona - Laying Tracks on the Man-killer Quicksand • H. Irving Hancock
... The machine gun muzzle swept toward the place where the eye, the papers, and the blood ...
— The Radiant Shell • Paul Ernst
... away raised his rifle and blew his head off. Young Brown broke down at this—they had just done in his wounded pal: "Oh, look! Look what they've done to Davie," and fell to weeping. And with that another put the muzzle of his rifle against the boy's ...
— The Escape of a Princess Pat • George Pearson
... rods, the branch trailing from his mouth. Then, with the ponderous but sudden shift of bull psychology, indignation rose in his bosom. He stopped himself so short that his fore-hoofs plowed two long furrows in the soft earth; whirled, lifted his muzzle, and bellowed. One fore-hoof tore up the dirt and showered it over his back. He dropped to his knees and rubbed the ground with his neck in sheer abandonment to the joy of his own abandoned wickedness. He rose up in the hollow which he had dug, lowered ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... you sometimes long for a chubby hand, And a voice so sweetly shrill? O Teddy Bear! don't you understand Why the house is awf'ly still? You sit with your muzzle propped on your paws, And your whimsical face askew. Don't wait, don't wait for your friend . . . because He's ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... Kuchenritters—a brace of balls in each, but that circumstance I forgot.—I would fain have argued the matter a little longer; but I thought at the time, and think still, that the best arguments which he and I can exchange, must come from the point of the sword, or the muzzle of the pistol.—We fired nearly together, and I think both dropped—I am sure I did, but recovered in a minute, with a damaged arm and a scratch on the temple—it was the last which stunned me—so much ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... the question just as he had faced death years before leering at him, a few feet from the muzzle of his revolver. ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... indefinable hangers-on—such was the palace of the Rajah of Lalpuri. Here and there, by carved doors or iron-studded gates half off their hinges, lounged purposeless sentries, barefooted, clad in old and dirty red coatees, white cross-belts and ragged blue trousers. They leant on rusty, muzzle-loading muskets purchased from "John Company" in pre-Mutiny years, and their uniforms were modelled on those worn by the Company's native troops ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... (xxx. 11-14). And there are here exquisite injunctions—to bring back stray cattle to their owners; to spare the sitting bird, where eggs or fledglings are found; to leave over, at the harvest, some of the grain, olives, grapes, for the stranger, the orphan, the widow; and not to muzzle the ox when treading out the corn (xxii. 1, 6, 7; xxiv. 19; xxv. 4). Yet the same Deuteronomy ordains: 'If thine own brother, son, daughter, wife, or bosom friend entice thee secretly, saying, let us ...
— Progress and History • Various
... wrist so swift their eyes could not follow, a metallic click, and the startled group were staring into the black muzzle ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... examination of the matter, it was found that for some days he had been in despair, and desired several different Indians to shoot him; and an Indian boy saw him kill himself in the following manner; he put the muzzle of his gun under his chin, and with his great toe pushed ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... were engaged in hauling up powder and clay from below, while others were employed in silently loading the guns with heavy charges of powder, upon the top of which they tightly rammed down stiff clay, with which they filled each gun to its very muzzle. Then, when each piece had been similarly treated, the whole were very carefully primed, after which a length of quick match, long enough to allow of the safe retreat of the man who should ignite it, was securely inserted among the priming; the two insensible sentinels, bound ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... State rights, Southern election laws, and mob violence, our Government has turned the other cheek also. What has been the result? Why the tyrants continue to become more and more brutal, until they are not only running black men out, but they have recently, at the muzzle of the shot gun, forced their own kith and kin, men to the manor born, to leave the States. I have no hesitancy in proclaiming that this brutality is a legacy left us by slavery, against which we have to ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... having dragged it up to the fire, we saw that it was a capybara, or water-hog. The doctor remarked that it was the largest of all living rodents, being upwards of three feet in length, and enormously fat. It had a blunt muzzle, with the eyes set high in the head; was destitute of a tail; and its toes were so united as to enable it to swim with ease. It was of a blackish grey hue, with rather long hairs, of a yellow tinge, falling thickly over the body. ...
— The Young Llanero - A Story of War and Wild Life in Venezuela • W.H.G. Kingston
... venom-mouth'd, and I Have not the power to muzzle him; therefore best Not wake him in his slumber. A beggar's book ...
— The Life of Henry VIII • William Shakespeare [Dunlap edition]
... been prepared for the hoofs of his horse, that he might leave no trail and make no sound in passing the robber camp, while a muzzle was carried for the nose of the animal, to prevent his neighing and thus ...
— Buffalo Bill's Spy Trailer - The Stranger in Camp • Colonel Prentiss Ingraham
... cried he; "I have drunk success to her with all my heart and throat; but I say she will never wear a night-cap and sleep quietly in our arms until we muzzle the Golden Dog that barks by night and by day ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... the chest, and the bear at once rolled over. Thinking it was killed, he crawled from under the boat and ran forward, but the animal suddenly rose to its feet; running up alongside, he placed the muzzle close to its ear and ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... The male dogs average in weight from eighty to one hundred pounds, though I had one which weighed one hundred and twenty-five pounds. The females are somewhat smaller. Their special physical characteristics are a pointed muzzle, great breadth between the eyes, sharp-pointed ears, very heavy coat underlaid with a thick, soft fur, powerful, heavy-muscled legs, and a bushy tail or brush similar to that of the fox. There is only one breed of Eskimo dogs, but they are variously marked and of different colors, black, white, ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary
... random shots whistled at every street corner; but he blundered on, taking no account of them. Once he ran against a body of Picton's men—half a score of the 74th Regiment let loose at length from the captured Castle, and burning for loot. One man thrust the muzzle of his musket against his breast before he was recognized. Then two or ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... me, with its muzzle at my throat, snuffing still, and then it touched my face with its nose again ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... thought to myself, what it is I am watching here, and why the sea should open before my eyes. Maybe I am seeing now the inner brain of earth, how things are at work there, boiling and foaming. Asop was restless; now and again he would thrust up his muzzle and sniff, in a troubled way, with legs quivering uneasily; when I took no notice, he lay down between my feet and stared out to sea as I was doing. And never a cry, never a word of human voice to be heard anywhere; nothing; only ...
— Pan • Knut Hamsun
... entrance of a narrow alley. And his shots seemed to be a signal for a general salvo of random musketry. I saw a woman cross the roadway with a rifleman close behind her; he swung up his rifle, holding it by the muzzle, and clubbed her between ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... farther end. The blows on the door were redoubled, and it seemed to me to be yielding. I emptied two more cartridges through the hole at a venture, and that one went home I knew, since I had touched a body with the muzzle as I pulled the trigger. Ellison was on guard in the saloon below, and Grant and the cook in the music saloon; and I judged from the sounds that reached me in the melee that they also were at work. By this ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... messages. And after a day that had been more than usually discouraging in the office and an evening of exasperated misery at home, I got a revolver and some cartridges, locked myself in my room, confronted myself desperately in the mirror, put the muzzle of the loaded pistol to my ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... crew went ashore to cut sandal-wood, while the captain, with one or two men, remained on board, in order to be ready, if need be, with the brass gun, which was unhoused and conspicuously elevated, with its capacious muzzle directed point blank at the chief's house. The men were fully armed as usual; and the captain ordered me to go with them, to assist in the work. I was much pleased with this order, for it freed me from the captain's company, ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... he came up to the coach, with a pale visage and staring eyes, and said it was God's mercy he had not killed his beasts. I answered, that it was a greater mercy he had not killed his passengers; for the muzzle of the piece might have been directed our way as well as any other, and in that case Joseph might have been hanged for murder. "I had as good be hanged (said he) for murder, as be ruined by the loss of my cattle." This adventure ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... face in her hands, and Jack was off his horse and stooping by her side with his hand on her shoulder. She kept saying, 'I thought you were——! I thought you were——!' I didn't catch the name. An old single-barrel, muzzle-loader shot-gun was lying in the grass at her feet. It was the gun they used to keep loaded and hanging in straps in a room of the kitchen ready for a shot at a cunning old hawk that they called ''Tarnal Death', and that used to ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... deliberately to them seemed impossible. But while she hesitated in an agony of self-consciousness Mouston precipitated the inevitable by dashing on ahead down, the stairs and plunging into the bearskin hearthrug, ploughing the thick fur with his muzzle and sneezing wildly. The sense of responsibility outweighed shyness and she hurried after him, but Peters anticipated her and already had the dog's unwilling ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... Rasmus, and the younger Niels. Rasmus was quite content to look after sheep, as his father had done before him, but Niels had a fancy to be a hunter, and was not happy till he got hold of a gun and learned to shoot. It was only an old muzzle-loading flint-lock after all, but Niels thought it a great prize, and went about shooting at everything he could see. So much did he practice that in the long run he became a wonderful shot, and was ...
— The Crimson Fairy Book • Various
... drop, and make but little noise, but lie struggling for life. Then Xury took heart, and would have me let him go on shore; "Well, go," said I; so the boy jumped into the water, and taking a little gun in one hand, swam to shore with the other hand, and coming close to the creature, put the muzzle of the piece to his ear, and shot him in the head ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner, Vol. 1 • Daniel Defoe
... dissatisfied; and added that as far as I was personally concerned, I intended to stick to the wreck as long as there was a hand-hold left; and that I'd pay one hundred cents on the dollar if I had to collect my bills at the muzzle of a shot-gun. I then cautioned him about keeping up my plan of letter-writing, and assured him that at that particular stage of the game a good letter would often take the place of a small check; and that I should depend upon ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston
... go? When the stork in the fable invited the fox to supper he served the bean soup in a long-necked vase. The stork had a beak that reached down the neck of the vase and drank the soup with ease. The fox had a short muzzle and couldn't get it. The trick made him mad and he bit the stork's head off. Why should the brain worker invite the manual worker to a confab and then serve the feast in such long-necked language that the laborer can't get it? "Let's spill the beans," the agitator ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... peculiar angle in the Arkansas incident. There was no apparent attempt to muzzle the two pilots, as in earlier airline cases. Instead, a United Press interview was quickly arranged, for nation-wide publication. In this wire story Captain Jack Adams and First Officer G. W. ...
— The Flying Saucers are Real • Donald Keyhoe
... gun was empty. I had him at the foot of the ladder, not ten feet from the muzzle, and click—nothing doing. The beggar turned and laughed in ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... perceived a small pug-dog squatted upon the path near his feet—a diminutive but very perfect specimen of its interesting species. The pug was sniffing at the fashionable world, as it passed him, with his little black muzzle, and was kept from extending his investigation by a large blue ribbon attached to his collar with an enormous rosette and held in the hand of a person seated next to Newman. To this person Newman transferred his attention, and immediately ...
— The American • Henry James
... field, almost side by side, and suddenly the retriever makes a friendly snap at the other. And the greyhound simply isn't there. You haven't observed it quicken its speed or strain a limb; but there it is, just two yards in front of the retriever's outstretched muzzle. So it was with Florence and Leonora in matters ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... walls of the central apartment. Thurstane's squad was quartered in one of the two outer rooms, and Coronado's squad in the other, each man having his musket loaded and lying beside him, with the butt at his feet and the muzzle pointing toward the wall. One sentry was posted on the roof of the building, and one on the ground twenty yards or so from its salient angle, while further away were two fires which partially lighted up ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... until it was hard enough to sustain him, and, after about two miles of such difficult traveling, came upon fairly level ground. Here, hunting about, he surprised several rabbits in their deep nests, and killed them with blows of his rifle muzzle. ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... shallow artificial pond which abounded in huge sleepy crocodiles, sacred animals which were tended by a holy fakir, and one of Burton's amusements was to worry these creatures with his bull terrier. Tired of that pastime, he would muzzle a crocodile by means of a fowl fastened to a hook at the end of a rope, and then jump on to its back and take a zig-zag ride. [65] The feat of his friend, Lieutenant Beresford, of the 86th, however, was more daring even than that. Here and there in the pond were islets of rank grass, and ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... had sufficed for the collie to go free. Instead of running off, the dog moved over to Brice, thrust his cool muzzle into the man's hand, and, with wagging tail, looked ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... poked his head out and—looked straight into the freckled face of Farmer Brown's boy and the muzzle of ...
— The Adventures of Reddy Fox • Thornton W. Burgess
... time for deliberation. Up her sides they were bound to go. As Sir Henry and his boat's crew made the attempt, they were received with boarding-pikes and pistol-shots in their faces. The bow-gun in the boat was in return pointed up and loaded to the muzzle with musket balls and all sorts of langrage. It cleared a space on the deck, and before it was again occupied the English had possession ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston
... of angry oaths now leaped from the robbers' lips, as they realised the helplessness of their position. They did not dare to move, as they were too close to the frowning muzzle of the over-shadowing rifle. ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody
... mustn't take no 'fence when I jumps plum to the pint. Mars Lennox is huntin' down Miss Ellice's child like a hungry hound runs a rabbit, and I want you to call him off. If he thinks half as much of you as he oughter, you can stop him. Oh, Miss Leo, for God's sake—call him off—muzzle him!" ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... tangentially to an arc of a circle whose center was occupied by the pivot of the gun, and consequently at right angles with the latter. The piece employed was a 6 in. gun, 35 calibers in length. The distance of its muzzle from the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 794, March 21, 1891 • Various
... English hand, elegant and regular. The orderly gave the letter to his chief, who dismissed him with a gesture before breaking the seal. The seal represented, without escutcheon or crown, a small, wild animal, with a pointed muzzle, projecting teeth, and shaggy body, under which was a word Henri expected ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... unhooked one of the panniers and dumped out the lioness. Jones fastened her chain to a small pine tree, and as she lay powerless he pulled out the stick back of her canines. This allowed the wire muzzle to fall off. She signalled this freedom with a roar that showed her health to be still unimpaired. The last action in releasing her from her painful bonds Jones performed with sleight-of-hand dexterity. He slipped the loop fastening one paw, which loosened the rope, and in ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... wrong with the gun, sir," rumbled Red Waistcoat. "If you hold it straight it will do the rest. But keep the muzzle up, sir, keep it up, for I know what the bore is without studying the same with my eye. Also perhaps you won't take it amiss if I tell you that here at Ragnall we hates a low pheasant. I mention it because the last gentleman who came from ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... fall to a level with the cannon that he controlled, when, after divers orders and sundry movements to govern the direction of the piece, he applied a match, with a rapid motion, to the priming. An immense body of white smoke rushed from the muzzle of the cannon, followed by a sheet of vivid fire, until, losing its power, it yielded to the wind, and, as it rose from the water, spread like a cloud, and, passing through the masts of the schooner, ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... said this than along came a big yellow dog with a muzzle on his nose, and when the little rabbit saw him he laughed out loud, "Oh, ho! Mr. Yellow Dog! Did you put your nose into ...
— Billy Bunny and Uncle Bull Frog • David Magie Cory
... in bravery went down, And called his name, soft, clear, and fearlessly; Stooped low, and stroked his muzzle overgrown; Refreshed his drought with dew; wiped pure and free His eyes: and lo! laughed loud for joy to see In those grey deeps the azure of ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume I. • Walter de la Mare
... Lang caught up a rifle and threw it loosely over her shoulder. Mascola turned to look straight into the muzzle and drew back sharply. Then he flourished a ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... to muzzle John Dexter, are you—you witch-burning old pharisees. I heard of your meeting, and I just thought I'd come around to the bonfire! What are you trying to ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... ordered. And Martinez kept the spot as if congealed, for in the saloon-keeper's hand was a revolver with an exceedingly large muzzle. ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... know," said the captive sullenly. Then his gaze fell upon the gaunt figure of Anderson Crow. A frightful scowl transfigured his face. Mr. Crow involuntarily drew back a step and reversed the pistol in his hand, so that its muzzle was pointing at the enemy instead of at himself. Between imprecations the prisoner managed to convey the fact that he realized for the first time that it was a human being and not a log that ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... said to the Tiger: "I could not bring you any of the other beasts because the way was blocked by a fat old Tiger with a Flying Squirrel sitting astride its muzzle." On hearing this the Tiger exclaimed, "Let us go and find it and drive it away." The three therefore set out, the Flying Squirrel perched upon the Tiger's muzzle and the Mouse-deer sitting astride upon its hind quarters. ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... smoke, pouring forth from its muzzle, for a moment enveloped the form of the youthful mariner; but from the midst of that sulphury nimbus came forth a clear manly ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... who went to Alaska and laid the foundations of his fortune before the gold hunters arrived. Bringing his fortunes to the States he is cheated out of it by a crowd of money kings, and recovers it only at the muzzle of his gun. He then starts out as a merciless exploiter on his own account. Finally he takes to drinking and becomes a picture of degeneration. About this time he falls in love with his stenographer and wins her heart but not her hand and ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... life; but those merely resulting from the menace of danger seem to me sensations which one should be very careful to avoid as much as possible. For example, would you think it a very pleasant thing, Madame, while travelling over the mountains at midnight, to find the muzzle of a carbine ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... in the north. He stood with his dog curled at his feet beside a bunch of egrets,—killed for their plumage,—the butt of his long fowling-piece resting on the platform, and the arm half outstretched whose hand grasped the barrels near the muzzle. The hand, toil-hardened and weather-browned, showed, withal, antiquity of race. His feet were in rough muddy brogans, but even so they were smallish and shapely. His garments were coarse, but there were no tatters anywhere. He wore a wide Campeachy hat. His brown ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... was on his feet again in an instant. Again Fred darted between his legs and threw him. This time he rolled completely over and Fred saw the handle of a revolver protruding from a hip pocket. He grabbed it, cocked it, and held the muzzle within a foot of the ...
— Halsey & Co. - or, The Young Bankers and Speculators • H. K. Shackleford
... like a long-tailed bearcub than a puppy. But he had some tan markings like those on Frank's coat, that were, I hoped, guarantees of future greatness, and also a very characteristic ring of white that he always wore on his muzzle. ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... emerging from which we passed by a large edifice, standing on a high, bleak sand-hill, on our left. We were speedily overtaken by five or six men on horseback, riding at a rapid pace, each with a long gun slung at his saddle, the muzzle depending about two feet below the horses belly. I questioned the old man as to the cause of their going thus armed; he answered that the roads were very bad (meaning that they abounded with robbers), and that these people ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... with another who resided in the town; but they had not met with each other for seven years. The town resident was looking out of his window, when they went to the post-office on the opposite side of the street; he recognised his enemy, and closing his shutters that he might not be seen, passed the muzzle of his rifle between them, and shot him dead, as he was with his back to him ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... one lightning-like motion unlimbered his .45 and began to shoot. Like most Western gun-handlers, his revolver commenced to spit as soon as its mouth was out of the holster, and the bullets spurted up the sand twice in front of Bud before the muzzle had reached a dangerous angle, so swiftly was ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... which he left them the property jointly, on condition that they marry within two years. Then, with a perfectly clear head, he laid down his pen and sighed, but his face was bright and tranquil. He picked up the revolver, cocked it, placed the muzzle against his temple, and without the tremor of a nerve he pressed ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... power Since Galileo, famous, blind, and old, Talked with him, in that prison, of the sky. We creep to power by inches. Europe trusts Her 'giant forty' still. Even to-night Our own old sixty has its work to do; And now our hundred-inch . . . I hardly dare To think what this new muzzle of ours may find. Come up, and spend that night among the stars Here, on our mountain-top. If all goes well, Then, at the least, my friend, you'll see a moon Stranger, but nearer, many a thousand mile Than earth has ever seen her, even in dreams. As for the ...
— Watchers of the Sky • Alfred Noyes
... waving his sword to encourage those other fellows to come forward?"—Yes, says the servant, I do Sir;—Then, says the Captain again, "just place your back against mine for one moment, 'till I see if I can bring him down." He accordingly stretch'd himself on the ground, and, resting the muzzle of his fuzee on his toes, he let drive at the French Officer. I was standing close behind him, and I thought it perfect madness to attempt it. However, away went the charge after him, and faith down he was in an instant. Both the Captain and myself were watching for some minutes, under ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... getting the latter into action again. The automatic, however, was still ready. Held firmly in one hand, the weight of the barrel was supported in the palm of the other, the back of which rested on Newman's knee. Marsh realized that when he looked at this gun he was staring directly into its muzzle. Obviously, this was a ...
— The Sheridan Road Mystery • Paul Thorne
... head, stirred, blinked, pounded his tail on the floor, and rose, a gentlemanly, affable chap, to lay his muzzle on Bone's knee ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... just as she had left it, save that Camp stood on the tiger-skin before the fire, his fore-paws and his great, grinning muzzle resting on the arm of Richard's chair. Camp whined a little. Mechanically the young man raised his hand and pulled the dog's long, drooping ears. His face was still dead white, and there were lines under his eyes and about the ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... by the most extraordinary eye-holes that were ever seen, vast circles widely separated from each other. And other peculiar features will reveal themselves on a close inspection; for instance, the horseshoe form in which, ape-fashion, the teeth are arranged, and the muzzle-like shape of the face due to the absence of the depressions that in our own case run down on each side from just outside the nostrils towards ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett
... Morgan Gatworth's son, was with them, and, imaged in a screen, so was Klem Zareff. One of the other screens, from a pickup on the Vampire, showed the Dragon lying on her side, her turret crushed and her gun, with the muzzle-brake gone, bent upward. A couple of lorries from the Lester Dawes were alongside; as Conn watched, a blanket-wrapped body, and then another, were lowered from the ...
— The Cosmic Computer • Henry Beam Piper
... had made, at Messrs, R. & Co.'s machine-shop, a large rifle of about an inch bore, and set like a miniature cannon in a wrought-iron frame, arranged with a swivel for turning it, and a screw for elevating or depressing the muzzle. This novel weapon was, as I must needs own, one of my projection, and was always a subject for raillery from my comrades. Its cost, including the mounting, was ninety-seven dollars. In all, three hundred and ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... voice had so enthralled me that I had made no plan as to my own conduct. But this sudden peril put fire into my heels, and in a second I was at his side. I had brought from home a stout shepherd's staff, with which I struck the muzzle upwards. The pistol went off in a great stench of powder, but the ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... ground all in a heap, crumpled up as though he were broken in pieces and was hurled down the hill, reaching the bottom stunned. He was unconscious for several minutes, but when he came to himself, Kit was standing over him, nosing him with her soft muzzle as though to bring him round. Weakly he staggered to his feet, and seeing Kit standing patiently, managed to ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... glanced up at the light. But the muzzle of the gun was level with the light! A wrong move and he knew the thing would be over even before ...
— The Desert Fiddler • William H. Hamby
... thrust his muzzle further out as though to get a better whiff of the queer animals against which he found ...
— Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic • Charles Amory Beach
... small table by the chair lay the weapon. It was a long pistol, Clo did not know of what kind or make, but it looked old-fashioned; and there was no question as to the way in which it had been used. Someone had taken it by the muzzle and struck with the butt end, which was coated with blood and hairs. Perhaps the pistol had not been loaded, or perhaps the murderer—(no, "avenger" was the better word, with that fear knocking at her heart!) had not dared fire because ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... when the bee-hunter reached the canoe. He did not like to look behind him again, lest the chiefs should suspect his motive, and, in shoving off from the shore, he might do so within a few yards of the muzzle of a hostile rifle. There was no time to lose, however, for any protracted delay on his part would certainly cause the savages to approach, through curiosity, if not through distrust of his motives. He stepped into his light craft, ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... in number, thirty being ladies, were ordered to the saloon and guards placed over them while the balance of the pirates proceeded to take command of the Steamer. Captain and officers were forced into obedience at the muzzle of the pirates' revolvers. One of the pirates assumed control of the wheel, the Pilot and Engineer being compelled to proceed to sea. Mr. A. Donnell, clerk of the Deford, believing that he had met the leader of the outlaws ...
— Between the Lines - Secret Service Stories Told Fifty Years After • Henry Bascom Smith
... pair, he at once gripped Bob's collar in his powerful teeth and proceeded to tow him to land, Dick hanging on behind; and Rover's muzzle was already turned shorewards, dragging his double burthen astern ere the Captain's cry of encouragement came to his ears, although on hearing it the noble animal redoubled ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... stroking the fox skin the while. And Samur, who sat in front of him, cocked his head first on one side, then on the other, and gave him a knowing look. At last the dog stretched out his neck, raised his muzzle into the air and howled, using every variation of key known to him. At this Arni stopped short and stared at him, then bending his head slightly to one side to study him, he roared ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... came out of his long pocket. They were in the thick of Piccadilly, but his action was too swift for any interference. Four reports rang suddenly out, and the muzzle of the revolver was held deliberately within an inch or so of Brett's heart. And before even the nearest of the bystanders could realise what had happened Brott lay across the pavement a dead man, and Hedley was calmly handing over the revolver to a policeman ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... go, would have meant certain death to the old fellow, and the thought spurred me to greater exertions. I have but a very hazy remembrance of the end. I recall pulling, through moments that lagged strangely. I have also some recollection of seeing Pepper's muzzle, appearing over the Pit edge, after what seemed an indefinite period of time. Then, all ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... Bordeaux wine, Might serve the archery to dine. But Lufra—whom from Douglas' side Nor bribe nor threat could e'er divide, The fleetest hound in all the North— 700 Brave Lufra saw and darted forth. She left the royal hounds mid-way, And dashing on the antlered prey, Sunk her sharp muzzle in his flank, And deep the flowing life-blood drank. 705 The King's stout huntsman saw the sport By strange intruder broken short, Came up, and with his leash unbound, In anger struck the noble hound. The Douglas had endured, that morn, 710 ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... cajolling processes and feline ways. To-day he is trying to play the same game, and does not see that the animals have grown beyond all measure and that it is wild beasts that he is keeping about him. A strange sight it is to see this little man trying to stroke the roaring muzzle of a revolution with ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... could hardly have considered in his scheme of revenge, he would horribly upset my work; for the reporting of the trial would fall on me without a relief. What that trial would be like I knew even to weariness. There would be the rifle carefully uncleaned, with the fouling marks about breech and muzzle, to be sworn to by half a dozen superfluous privates; there would be heat, reeking heat, till the wet pencil slipped sideways between the fingers; and the punkah would swish and the pleaders would jabber in the verandahs, ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... magnified reflection of the same attributes. His color was a sandy grayish yellow without markings. His coat was coarse, rather ragged, and extraordinarily dense. His pricked ears were chipped and jagged from a hundred fights, and in a diagonal line across his muzzle was a broad white scar, gotten, men said, in combat with a ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... over him and into the store head first, as if I had been fired out of a cannon; and at that instant the bullet I spoke of struck the open door halfway up. I slammed the door shut, grabbed my rifle, stuck the muzzle through the port-hole, and pumped three shots out of it without once ...
— Track's End • Hayden Carruth
... and Baumberger collapsed in the sand, a quivering heap of gross human flesh. Good Indian stood and looked down at him fixedly while the smoke floated away from the muzzle of his own gun. He heard Evadna screaming hysterically at the gate, and looked over there inquiringly. Phoebe was running toward him, and the boys—Wally and Gene and Jack, from the blacksmith shop. At the corner of the stable ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... snow, but were husbanding his strength all the while. When the ground is uneven, the course is a series of graceful curves, conforming to the shape of the surface. He runs as though there were not a bone in his back. Occasionally dropping his muzzle to the ground for a rod or two, and then tossing his head aloft, when satisfied of his course. When he comes to a declivity, he will put his forefeet together, and slide swiftly down it, shoving the snow before him. He treads so softly that you would ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... clearin'. There we saw four teepees an' a shack o' pine logs all smeared wi' colour; but what came nigh to par'lyzin' me was the sight o' my moose lyin' all o' a heap on the ground, an', standin' beside its carcass, leanin' on a long muzzle-loader, was a white woman. She was wearin' the blanket right enough, but she was as white as you are. Say, she had six great huskies wi' her, an' four women. An' when they see us they put hard into the woods. I was fer goin' to have a look at the teepees, but my neches ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... lib wid de musket in one hand, an' de Bible in de oder,—dat if I die at de muzzle ob de musket, die in de water, die on de land, I may know I hab de bressed Jesus in my hand, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... is a big gun, said to have been brought by Nadir Shah from Delhi, and known as the Pearl Cannon. It is said to be so called from having had a string of pearls hung on it near the muzzle when it was on show in Imperial Delhi. This was probably the case, for we know that heavy guns in India were regarded with a degree of respect and reverence almost approaching worship. The gunners of the Maharajah Runjeet Singh, the ...
— Persia Revisited • Thomas Edward Gordon
... with. However, shooting at a mark was pleasant work enough; he had no particular objection to it himself. Only he did not care so much for those little popgun affairs that a man carries in his pocket, and with which you couldn't shoot a fellow,—a robber, say,—without getting the muzzle under his nose. Pistols for boys; long-range rifles for men. There was such a gun lying in a closet with the fowling-pieces. He would go out into the fields and see what he could do as ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... ordnance," or cannon, were muzzle-loading. The secondary armament, mounted in tops, cageworks, bulkheads, etc., were breech-loading; but these smaller pieces fell out of favor as time went on owing to reliance on long-range fire and rareness of boarding actions. Down to the middle of the 19th century there ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... the open sea. I think I must have sunk under my sorrow, but for Francis, and, I must confess it, my dear dog Flora, who had never left me. Francis told me, that she had tried to defend me, and flew at the savages; but one of them took my apron, tore it, and tied it over her mouth like a muzzle, bound her legs, and then threw her into the canoe, where the poor creature lay at my feet, moaning piteously. She arrived with us in this island, but I have not seen her since; I have often inquired of Parabery, but he could not tell me ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... they fled with the speed of an arrow, or bounded into the depths of the forest, where they disappeared from view; now and then a rabbit of philosophical mien could be noticed quietly sitting upright, rubbing his muzzle with his fore-paws, and looking about inquiringly, as though wondering whether all these people, who were approaching in his direction, and who had just disturbed him in his meditations and his meal, were not followed by their dogs, or had not their guns under their arms. All ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... anxiously waiting. Instantly the eyes of the Bheel were withdrawn from him. He brought his revolver from under his pillow, and passing it beneath the light coverlet, placed the barrel across his left leg, which he gently raised, at the same time removing the cloth clear of the muzzle, brought it in line with the ribs of the robber and fired. The bullet went straight to the heart, and the ruffian Bheel fell dead without uttering ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... joke with the laughing smith, Alec dragged himself away from the smithy, past the green, and looked in at the stable to curry-comb the pony and enjoy feeling the little beast's muzzle nosing in ...
— The Book of Missionary Heroes • Basil Mathews
... other magical ingredients, over which the necessary spell has been crooned. Armed with this deadly weapon the sorcerer has only to step up to his unsuspecting enemy, whip out the pocket pistol, uncork the muzzle by removing his thumb from the orifice, and present it at the victim; the fatal discharge follows in an instant and the man drops to the ground. The ghost in the pistol has done his work. Sometimes, ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... then brought our prisoner down, and told him what to do when the time came. I guess thet thet nigger knew thet ef he didn't play straight he was a dead coon. Tia sat down jest behind him, and every now and then touched his backbone with the muzzle ev her pistol—jest ter show him she was keepin' awake. At the same time he wasn't unwillin', for he hed told us thet he and his dead mate were not Baian's men—they were slaves he had captured from a town he had raided somewhere near North ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... is a queer smell upon our cantonments—a smell av dried earth and brick-kilns wid whiffs av cavalry stable- litter. This place smelt marigold flowers an' bad water, an' wanst somethin' alive came an' blew heavy with his muzzle at the chink av the shutter. "It's in a village I am," thinks I to mysilf, "an' the parochial buffalo is investigatin' the palanquin." But anyways I had no desire to move. Only lie still whin you're in foreign parts an' the standin' luck av the British Army will carry ye through. That ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... Jewish people to be cruel, that He might reclaim them to pity, wished to train them to pity even towards brute beasts, forbidding certain things to be done to animals which seem to touch upon cruelty. And therefore He forbade them to seethe the kid in the mother's milk (Deut. xiv. 21), or to muzzle the treading ox (Deut. xxv. 4), or to kill the old bird with the young." (Deut. ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... beneath, where, since the earl's departure, in the stead of the cross-bow, a small minion gun had been placed by lord Charles, with its muzzle in the round where the lines of the loop-hole crossed. A piece of match lay beside it. She caught it up, lighted it at her candle, and fired the gun. The tower shook with its roar and recoil. She had fired the first gun of the siege: might ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... examined Dr. Hissong's gun: "Too much choke in the barrel for quail. Shawn, don't you load that rusty piece of yours too heavily." Reaching above the doorway, he brought down his muzzle-loading gun, with its silver mounted hammers and lock shields, and as he caressingly drew his coat-sleeve along the barrels, he said, "They don't know how to make ...
— Shawn of Skarrow • James Tandy Ellis
... laid ready on a small table. She regarded them with a kind of fearful fascination. They were no longer mere ornaments of his uniform, but actual death-dealers, going forth to do murderous work. The short blue muzzle of the revolver had a sinister look, and a point of light at the tip ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... the pirates had lost too many men, and, without their commander, felt dispirited. Hawkhurst was still on his legs, and giving his orders as coolly as ever. He espied Francisco, and rushing at him, while the two parties were opposed muzzle to muzzle, seized him by his collar and dragged him in amongst the pirates. 'Secure him, at all events!' cried Hawkhurst, as they slowly retreated and gained the outhouses. Francisco was overpowered and hauled into one of the boats, all of which in a few minutes afterwards ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... stock of the Henry held to his shoulder, and she clutched the window-casing. An instant the muzzle of the rifle wavered ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... oil-lamps. Here, also, there are flaunted the resources of civilisation for the Prevention of Accidents, which resources are four, namely, a patent fire-escape, a patent carriage pole, a coal plate, and a dog muzzle. But the labels, though verbose, are scarcely full enough. They do not tell you, for instance, if you wish to prevent cramp while bathing, whether the dog muzzle or the coal plate should be employed, nor do they show how the fire-escape will prevent the explosion of a paraffin lamp. ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... Nevertheless, death lurked in the trail ahead. Barger was there. He was lying in the rocks, concealed where the chasm was narrow. He had ridden four hours—on the mare Beth had lost—to arrive ahead of Van Buren. The muzzle of a long black revolver that he held in hand rested upon a shattered boulder. His narrow eyes lay level with a rift in the group of rocks that hid him completely from view. Van was in sight, and the convict's breath came quickly ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... this notion, however, he is not responsible, as he rests his remark on the authority of a {123} passage published by Professor Owen. Again, he refers[118] to "the greater frequency of a monster proboscis in the pig than in any other animal." But with the exception of the peculiar muzzle of the Saiga (or European antelope), the only known proboscidian Ungulates are the elephants and tapirs, and to neither of these has the pig any close affinity. It is rather in the horse than in the pig that we might look for the appearance ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... his native land, or feel the solid earth of it under his weary and very shaky feet. He, an epicure, ate such coarse food, washed down by such coarse ale, as Tandy's could offer with smiling relish. Later, mounted on a forest pony—an ill-favoured animal with a wall-eye, pink muzzle, bristly upper and hanging lower lip, more accustomed to carry a keg of smuggled spirits strapped beneath its belly than a cosmopolitan savant and social reformer on its back—he rode the three miles to Marychurch, proposing there to take the coach ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... ever "thrasheth straw," why should he be allowed to rail at thrashing! Such a fool one would have to muzzle! ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... and he hurled it with all his strength; but the moment he had done so, he realized the hopelessness of the venture. Monck made a single, swift movement, and in a moment the moonlight glinted upon the polished muzzle of a Service revolver. He spoke, briefly, ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... hearing it was loaded. A loaded pistol, this dark little one to the right of the earl's blotting-pad and pens, had the look of a fearful link with his fallen chaps and fishy hue. Potts maundered moralities upon 'life,' holding the thing in his hand, weighing it, eyeing the muzzle. He 'couldn't help thinking of what is going to happen to us after it all': and 'Brosey knows now!' was followed by a twitch of one cheek and the ejaculation 'Forever!' Fleetwood alive and Ambrose dead were ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... belonged to the pod in advance, seemed questionable; for it is not customary for such venerable leviathans to be at all social. Nevertheless, he stuck to their wake, though indeed their back water must have retarded him, because the white-bone or swell at his broad muzzle was a dashed one, like the swell formed when two hostile currents meet. His spout was short, slow, and laborious; coming forth with a choking sort of gush, and spending itself in torn shreds, followed by strange subterranean commotions in him, which seemed to have egress ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... lingering echo of the fall of the tower in C Company's street. Captain Nesbitt, dozing in his quarters, heard the sound, and running in the direction of it found that Private William B. Young, aged 28, of Oakdale, had placed the muzzle of his rifle against his left temple and gone to swell by one the interminable list of the Conemaugh ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... accordingly took their departure together, she being placed astride upon the saddle, holding the bridle in one hand and a switch in the other; and our adventurer sitting on the crupper, superintending her conduct, and keeping the muzzle of a pistol close at her ear. In this equipage they travelled across part of the same wood in which his guide had forsaken him; and it is not to be supposed that he passed his time in the most agreeable reverie, while he found himself involved in the labyrinth ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... up a bank which commanded a view along a fold or hollow of the hills, we beheld the sable prince of Denmark standing by the bleeding body of a sheep. The carcass was still warm, the throat bore marks of the fatal grip, and Hamlet's muzzle was stained with blood. Never was culprit more completely caught in flagrante delicto. I supposed the doom of poor Hamlet to be sealed; for no higher offence can be committed by a dog in a country abounding with sheep-walks. ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... but now he used all the evil words he had ever heard, and he was Western bred. Then he reacted on himself. "The Fox might come back!" Suddenly he remembered something. He got out a common sulphur match. He wet it on his lips and rubbed it on the muzzle sight: Then on each side of the notch on the breech sight. He lined it for a tree. Yes! surely! What had been a blur of blackness had now a ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton
... said the workwoman, looking kindly at Pierrette, whose delicate little muzzle was turned up to her with ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... world had cut off a great man, Who in his time had made heroic bustle. Who in a row like Tom could lead the van, Booze in the ken, or at the spellken hustle? Who queer a flat?[570] Who (spite of Bow-street's ban) On the high toby-spice so flash the muzzle? Who on a lark with black-eyed Sal (his blowing), So prime—so ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... was a desperate flurry of bodies in the coarse sand. Holmes dived frantically for the gun hand and caught it; but, handicapped as he was by the rope, he could not hold it. Slowly its muzzle bent upward to ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... still tugged at the mouth of his refractory mount, Frank saw the smoke shoot out from the muzzle of the gun as the ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen
... flying low, passed over his head. He killed them with his whip, never missing a bird. He beheld in the distance the gleam of a lake which appeared to be of lead, and in the middle of it was an animal he had never seen before, a beaver with a black muzzle. Notwithstanding the distance that separated them, an arrow ended its life and Julian only regretted that he was not able to carry ...
— Three short works - The Dance of Death, The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller, A Simple Soul. • Gustave Flaubert
... their conical and other baskets, used for collecting grass seeds, pinon nuts, and similar vegetable food, which in addition to rabbits formed their principal subsistence. At certain times they all went to the Kaibab deer-hunting. Their guns, where they had any, were of the old muzzle-loading type, with outside hammers to fire the caps. Many still used the bow-and-arrow, and some knew how to make stone arrow-heads. We learned the process, which is not difficult. Their clothing was, ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... care-burthened honey-fly, possessed with the fixed desire to hide his murmurs in the rose. When for months I have been, in fact, like a dog with his nose on your footprints, asking nothing but to lie down at your feet with his muzzle on your shoe." ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... observation that the animals were very greedy, by stretching his arms to heaven, showing the empty troughs, lifting ends of wood, tearing up tufts of grass which he carried to his lips, grunting as if he had his muzzle full. ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... and soon laid the animal on the gunwale of the boat by the side of the argus. It was a queer-looking creature about the head, and no one on board except Achang had ever seen one like it. For the length of the head, the muzzle was very broad, hardly less than three inches. It was covered with a soft and rather long fur on its body, dark ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... the platform near Crosby's swinging feet, and the picture that it looked upon was one suggestive of the cheap, sensational, and bloodcurdling border drama. A mud-covered man stood before the trapped fugitives, a huge revolver in his hand, the muzzle of which, even though it wobbled painfully, was uncomfortably close to ...
— The Day of the Dog • George Barr McCutcheon
... thought struck the German first officer at about the same moment. Motioning his men back, he approached the door and put the muzzle of his revolver against the lock. He pulled the trigger, and when the Germans again surged against the door it flew open ...
— The Boy Allies at Jutland • Robert L. Drake
... caught in heavy rains. The dirt road would soon be worked into a loblolly of sticky yellow mud. Thereupon we would take off our shoes and socks, tie them to the barrel of our muskets a little below the muzzle and just above the end of the stock, poise the piece on the hammer on either shoulder, stock uppermost, and roll up our breeches to the knees. Then like Tam O'Shanter, we "skelpit on through dub and mire, despising wind, ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... his pocket blazed the stem of a young tree that rose not very far from his victim. Then he disappeared and peace reigned above the fallen. So still he lay that another fox, scared from its siesta, poked a black muzzle round a rock and sniffed the air; but it trusted not appearances and having contemplated the recumbent object lifted its head, uttered a dubious bark and trotted away. From on high an eagle also marked the fallen man, but swiftly soared upward to ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... bounded on towards me. I had barely time to grasp a revolver when he was close up to me. Already I felt his hot breath in my face; his huge claws had hold of my limbs; he was trying to clasp me round the body: his muzzle, with its sharp teeth, touched on my shoulder. Poor Obed, who was standing behind me, unable to render me assistance, literally shrieked with fear, not for himself, but for me. In another moment I felt that ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... suddenly sideways from the wrist, turned up again. There was a small gun in the hand now, its stubby muzzle pointing up steadily ...
— The Star Hyacinths • James H. Schmitz
... the swivel-eyed, up-jumped, cross-grained, sons of a cock-eyed tinker," exclaimed Bill, boiling with rage. "If punching parrots on the beak,wasn't too painful for pleasure, I'd land you a sockdolager on the muzzle that ud lay you out till Christmas. Come on, mates," he added, "it's no use wastin' time over this low-down, hook-nosed, tobacco-grabber. "And leaving the evil-minded Parrot to pursue his evil-minded way, they hurried off in search ...
— The Magic Pudding • Norman Lindsay
... The foremost part of the deck was tenanted by a noisy and tumultuous throng of seamen, whose heads only appeared above a barricade of hammocks, which they had formed across the deck, and out of which at two embrasures, admirably constructed, two long twenty-four pounders, loaded up to the muzzle with grape and canister shot, were pointed aft in the direction where the officers and marines were standing—a man at the breech of each gun, with a match in his hand (which he occasionally blew, that the priming powder might be more rapidly ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... much harder for Peter to get awake, because he couldn't believe that he was awake; also it made it harder for McGivney to get any sense out of him, because his jaw hung down, and he stared with terrified eyes into the muzzle of the revolver. ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... almost unable to withdraw my eyes from the opening, as in the deepening darkness it became more and more indistinct. And when the last little flame flickered and went out I grasped the shotgun which I had laid at my side and actually turned the muzzle in the direction of the now invisible entrance, my thumb on one of the hammers, ready to cock the piece, my breath suspended, my muscles rigid and tense. But later I laid down the weapon with a sense of ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... was that the Kangaroo evidently understood that Dot was in trouble, and was sorry for her; for down the animal's nice soft grey muzzle two tiny little tears were slowly trickling. When Dot looked up at it with wonder in her round blue eyes, the Kangaroo did not jump away, but remained gazing sympathetically at Dot with a slightly puzzled air. Suddenly ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... settle down to something worth while. Childishly egotistical, he felt in a vague way that his virtuous intent was not appreciated, not reasoning that the men knew nothing of his wanderings, nor cared to know anything other than as to his ability to cook. So he timidly stroked the long muzzle of the wolf-dog, and was agreeably surprised to find that Chance seemed to like it. In fact, Chance, having an instinct superior to that of his men companions of the Concho, recognized in the gaunt and lonely figure a kindred spirit; a being that ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... in all the vanished sea lingo of that day would bewilder the land-man and prove tedious to those familiar with the subject. The boatswains piped the call, "all hands clear ship for action"; the fife and drum beat to quarters; and four hundred men stood by the tackles of the muzzle-loading guns with their clumsy wooden carriages, or climbed into the tops to use their muskets or trim sail. Decks were sanded to prevent slipping when blood flowed. Boys ran about stacking the sacks of powder or distributing buckets of pistols ready for the boarding parties. And against ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... Emperor's bloodhound, which had laid its sage-looking head on the boy's broad, bare breast, and now and then tried to lick his soft lips to show its affection. But this the youth would not allow; he playfully held the beast's muzzle close with his hands or wrapped its head in the end of his mantle, which had slipped ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... forget the stifling struggle—every detail remains, his sunburned face, wet with sweat and powder-smeared; his irregular teeth showing when I got him by the throat, and the awful change that came over his visage when Jack Mount shoved the muzzle of his rifle against the struggling fellow and shot him ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... arranging details. Her father had then said that before he could write any document, he must either ring or go search for paper: and suddenly she had heard an oath, a thud, a scuffle, had turned the key, softly entered, seen the men struggling against the other door, a revolver, held by the muzzle, in O'Hara's hand; and before she had been sighted by the two desperate men, had had the bag, lying near on an escritoire, and was gone. She had then sent some servants to the scene, and hurried to ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... got to the counter they demanded powder, balls, and percussion caps, and as these things were given them, they were stuffed down their muzzle-loading rifles, and what could not be rammed down the barrels was put in greasy skin bags and hidden under their blankets. I saw one test the sharp edge of a long, wicked-looking knife, and then it, also, disappeared ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... the dog's appointed day But tallied with his master's span, Nor one swift decade turned to gray The busy muzzle's black and tan, To reprobate in idle men Their threescore empty years ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... there was no way to avoid the animal, which, just as the car was upon it, gathered itself and sprang. It landed on the hood with all four feet, its snarling face so close to the men that they could feel its breath. The American, thrusting the muzzle of his weapon into the furry neck of the great cat, let go with both barrels, blowing away the beast's throat and jugular vein and killing it instantly. With the aid of his badly frightened driver, he bundled the great striped carcass into the tonneau of the car ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... and terrifying, showing its long and saw-like teeth. No one thought of aiding the helmsman. When he had drawn the reptile out of the water he put his foot on it, closed with his robust hand the redoubtable jaws, and tried to tie the muzzle. The creature made a last effort, arched its body, beat about with its powerful tail, and escaping, plunged outside the enclosure into the lake, dragging its vanquisher after it. The helmsman was a dead man. A cry of horror ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... distant in memory, and yourself in a most dilettante frame of mind, for you to be accessible to the music of that thin skeleton's clank. Nevertheless, it is better and finer even at the time of action, than the abominable hollow ogre's eye of the pistol-muzzle. We exchanged passes, the prince chiefly attacking. Of all the things to strike my thoughts, can you credit me that the vividest was the picture of the old woman Temple and I had seen in our boyhood on the night of the fire dropping askew, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... impedimenta, equally distributed as to weight, swung from the cantle and underneath the blanket roll. From the broad, black leather carbine sling, over each trooper's left shoulder, the hard-shooting brown barrelled little Springfield hung suspended, its muzzle thrust, as was the fashion of the day, into the crude socket imposed so long upon our frontier fighters by officials who had never seen the West, save, as did a certain writer of renown, from a car window, thereby ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... was it hers. Lacheneur was a bad father. There was a day when I wished either to kill myself or to kill you, I knew not which. Ah! only once again will you be as near death as you were that day. You were scarcely five paces from the muzzle of my gun. It was God who stayed my hand by reminding me of her despair. Now that I am to die, as well as Lacheneur, someone must care for Marie-Anne. Swear that you will marry her. You may be involved in some ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... for twenty balls may pierce a man's body without touching a vital spot. On the occasion alluded to, two of the men remained standing after the first fire, and the Provost-Marshal was obliged to put an end to their sufferings, by placing the muzzle of a piece at ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid
... about to slam the door, but Harry put his foot over the sill and the muzzle of his pistol within six inches of the ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... practically smokeless. On explosion a very thin vapour is produced, which is dissipated rapidly. This smokelessness can be understood from the fact that the products of combustion are nearly all non-condensible gases, and contain no solid products of combustion which would cause smoke. For the same muzzle velocity a smaller charge of cordite than gunpowder is required owing to the greater amount of gas produced. Cordite is very slow in burning compared to gunpowder. For firing blank cartridges cordite ...
— Nitro-Explosives: A Practical Treatise • P. Gerald Sanford
... surprise was pretty much the other way. The door suddenly flew open, at least the upper half of it did, and Arnold Masterson thrust the muzzle of a double-barrel shotgun through the opening, at the same ...
— Fred Fenton on the Track - or, The Athletes of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... thing he knew was when he woke in a strange dark place. His whole body was stiff and sore, he felt sick all over and something hurt his nose terribly. His paws clawed at the thing that hurt. It was made of wire that cut deeply in his flesh. He knew it was a muzzle, for he had seen other dogs suffer from them. The more he clawed, the ...
— Prince Jan, St. Bernard • Forrestine C. Hooker
... in needless puzzle, Our Galen's cane had rubbed against his muzzle; He thought, and thought, and thought and thought, and thought— And still it came to nought, When up rush'd Betty, loudest of Town Criers, "Lord, Ma'am, the new Police is at the door! It's B, ma'am, Twenty-four,— As brought home Mister S. to ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... In the middle of this was a great lump of something which, as they came nearer, resolved itself into a gun of some sort. It was very thick, very short, it stood on a concrete platform, and its squat muzzle pointed almost ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges
... the rifle cocked at safety on my lap, I turned the muzzle of it towards the Tarjum, and purposely let my hand slide down to the trigger. He became uncomfortable and his face showed signs of wild terror. His eyes, until now fixed upon the ground, became first unsteady, and then ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... occasion, indeed, it lifted my camera and tripod in the air, driving it crashing into my chest. I had unknowingly placed myself in the danger zone which forms a semi-circle on either side of the muzzle when fired, the force being at times so great as to tear trees up by the roots and send them crashing to ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... them came towards the ship, but the third remained hidden behind a piece of ice. It happened that a tub of salt meat, which we intended to soak in fresh water, was standing on the shore; one of the bears ran up to it, and putting his muzzle in, was about to help himself to a piece, when a shot struck him in the head so cleverly that he fell dead without a groan. It was curious to see how the second bear stood gazing at his motionless companion, ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... position with which General Gordon had to deal. He had to encourage the weakened and disheartened Egyptian garrison, to muzzle Michael without exposing the Khedive to the charge of deserting his ally, and to conclude a peace with Abyssinia without surrendering either Bogos or Michael. At this stage we are only called upon to describe the first brief phase ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... indeed, had laid back his ears, distended his dilated nostrils, and stepped back a foot or two; but as the sheik approached it gave a little whinny of pleasure, and, advancing, laid its muzzle against his cheek. ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... seditious conspiracy," and the country would have been cleared of Leverett, Colman, the Brattles, and their abettors; but in 1700 the priests no longer manipulated the constituencies, and there was actual danger to the conservative cause from their violence; therefore Stoughton exerted himself to muzzle the Mathers, and he did succeed in quieting them for the moment, though Sewall seems to intimate that they submitted with no very good grace: [1699/1700.] "January 24th. The Lt Govr [Stoughton] calls me with him to Mr. Willards, where ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... spring from his panting horse, and seize a brass field-piece as if it had been a stick. His look was terrible. He put his right hand on the muzzle, his left hand on the breach; he pulled with this, he pushed with that, and wheeled it round, as if it had been a plaything. It furrowed the ground like a ploughshare. He tore the sheet-lead from the touch-hole; ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... reinforcement of police was approaching, and there was no time to be lost. The rescuers called to Brett, a sergeant of police who was in charge inside the van, to pass the keys out, and, on his refusal, there was a cry: "Blow off the lock!". The muzzle of a revolver was placed against the lock, and the revolver was discharged. Unhappily, poor Brett had stooped down to try and see through the keyhole what was going on outside, and the bullet, fired to blow open the lock, entered his head, and he fell dying on the floor. The rescuers rushed ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant
... S. Antonio all' Esquilino, and which the modern generation has concealed in a recess on the east side of S. Maria Maggiore. It is in the form of a culverin—a long slender cannon of the period—standing upright. From the muzzle rises a marble cross supporting the figure of Christ on one side, and that of the Virgin on the other. It was erected by Charles d'Anisson, prior of the French Antonians, to commemorate the absolution given by Clement VIII. to Henry IV. of France and Navarre, on September 17 of ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... pressure of a Luzon day; dry, empty, caked with sweat-salt—yet there were not a few of those gritty beasts that went into the air squealing, and launched a hind-foot at the nearest rib or the nearest star, or pressed close to muzzle the bell-mare—after the restoring roll. Then, some of the packers drove them down to water, while others made ready the forage and grain-bags; infantry fires were lit; the provisions turned over; detachments came meekly forward for ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... same moment Jack leaped forward, struck up the muzzle of the gun just as it exploded, and, seizing Ladoc by the collar, hurled him with extraordinary violence, considering his size, against ...
— Fort Desolation - Red Indians and Fur Traders of Rupert's Land • R.M. Ballantyne
... issued from the mouth of Captain Asher; he was choking to death. In the same second that she heard it Olive thrust the muzzle of the pistol against the side of the man's head and pulled ...
— The Captain's Toll-Gate • Frank R. Stockton
... fire. One of the unconscious cow-boys, Jim Bowley, stirred. A moment passed. Then the intruders drew a step nearer. Suddenly Jim roused and then sat up. His action at once became a signal. There was a sound of swift footsteps, and the next instant the astonished man was gazing into the muzzle of ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... awoke; he rose without alarm; He went to meet the lion, with his mantle on his arm. The lion was abash'd the noble Cid to meet, He bow'd his mane to earth, his muzzle at his feet. The Cid by the neck and mane drew him to his den, He thrust him in at the hatch, and came to the hall again; He found his knights, his vassals, and all his valiant men. He ask'd for his sons-in-law, they were ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... peaceably enough disposed, and, contrary to the usual habit of Asiatics, made no objections to our examining the small cannon he carried. On inspecting the deadly instrument we discovered it to be loaded to the very muzzle, a mixture of pebbles, slugs, and bits of iron being crammed into the barrel over a charge of a couple of ounces of powder. On our inquiring why it was so heavily charged, the man told us with much naivete, that it was to kill nine men, illustrating the method by which ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... had a sickly sensation about the heart. Determined that the physical shrinking from death should not have time to weaken my moral determination, I hastily opened my waistcoat, felt for the pulsations of my heart, placed the muzzle of a pistol where they were strongest, steadying it on that spot with my left hand. Then I looked straight before me and pulled the trigger. There was the click of the lock, but no report; the cap was bad, and had been crushed without exploding. That was a horrible moment. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... the feed," run marvellously even in size and quality. M. did not now concern himself about the roach. He was no longer a Waltonian; his mind had taken the tone of the keeper's. Yesterday his soul was of the fish, fishy; to-day it was full of muzzle-loaders, nets, and ferrets. But he, too, had his reward, and S. noticed that as they plodded athwart a fallow he looked out keenly and knowingly for feathered or four-footed game as if he were Colonel ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... corners, asking an occasional question of MacDonald, who followed him silently about. Two small steel traps, a narrow, small-meshed fish-net, a fish-line and hooks, powder, ball, and caps for the old man's muzzle-loader, a sack of salt were first laid aside. This represented subsistence. Then matches, a flint-and-steel machine, two four-point blankets. These meant warmth. Then ten pounds of plug tobacco and as many of ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White
... passed his left hand over the side of his head, and down the curve of the skull behind the ear. He said to himself: "My wife ... this will make it all right for her...." and a last flash of irony twitched through him. Then he felt again, more deliberately, for the spot he wanted, and put the muzzle of his ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... started, the women and children going ahead, with the exception of the "devil," who stuck close to me, and carried my Snider in one hand and my double-barrel muzzle-loader in ...
— "Martin Of Nitendi"; and The River Of Dreams - 1901 • Louis Becke
... leaning heavily upon a hand that rested flat on the table, in the other he likewise held a revolver, which he had apparently drawn in self-defense, at the crisis of Mulready's frenzy. Its muzzle was deflected. He looked Kirkwood over with a cool gray eye, the color gradually returning to his fat, clean-shaven cheeks, replacing the pardonable pallor which had ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... All of ye!" commanded the mountaineer, the muzzle of his rifle swinging suggestively from side to side so as to cover the ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders Among the Kentucky Mountaineers • Jessie Graham Flower
... formed in lines, with their officers a little in advance, when Captain Worden ascended the gangway. The heavy guns in the navy-yard began firing the customary salute when he stepped upon the deck. One side of his face was permanently blackened by the powder shot into it from the muzzle of a cannon carrying a shell of one hundred pounds' weight, discharged less than twenty yards away. The President advanced to welcome him, and introduced him to the few strangers present. The officers and ...
— The Monitor and the Merrimac - Both sides of the story • J. L. Worden et al.
... as before, with the automatic pointed at Billie, but with a puzzled look upon its face. When the lad finally arose, the ape appeared still more puzzled and at length, turning the weapon away from Billie, looked into the muzzle. ...
— The Broncho Rider Boys with Funston at Vera Cruz - Or, Upholding the Honor of the Stars and Stripes • Frank Fowler
... animal was subdued. Once or twice he was pulled by the reindeer and almost fell. In his efforts to get away the reindeer entangled his legs in the lasso and fell powerless. In the mean time Jon had come gently towards his reindeer and knotted the cord of the lasso round his muzzle. ...
— The Land of the Long Night • Paul du Chaillu
... little horses we had these days, with little heads such as I have seen in the paintings of Arab steeds, and an alert eager look to them, broad forehead, and soft neat muzzle. Close coupled they were, with a great girth, broad chest and sloping shoulders, and legs like iron. But it was the pride and the strength of them I never tired of, and it may be there was truth in the talk of the old folk, that the Hielan' horse was come off Spanish or Moorish horses of the Armada. ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... heart beat high as Betty turned to him laughingly and began to strike the card-board muzzle. He felt his self-control giving way, he longed to surround her with his arms and declare his identity and kiss those lips that smiled only a foot away—when suddenly the laughter and applause round them died off and a curious ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... the reins, and the thirsty colt eagerly thrust his muzzle into the water. As he did so he took another forward step, and instantly, with a terrific splash, he and his rider were floundering in brown water up to his withers in the ditch below the submerged edge of the road. To Muriel's credit it, must be said ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... rose to his feet, but the muzzle of a dragoon revolver in the unsteady hands of Whisky Dick, caused him to sit down again. He ate the pie, and lost his case likewise, ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... things that are in direct opposition to such laws. From this principle spring the various prohibitions to couple sexually different species of animals, to practise on them castration, to constrain simultaneously to joint labour beasts of unequal strength, to muzzle them while thrashing, and to use towards them any kind of cruelty. Nay, it is enjoined that they, also, should participate in the general rest ordained for men on festivals. It is well for us to reflect how incomplete are as yet the modern ...
— A Guide for the Religious Instruction of Jewish Youth • Isaac Samuele Reggio
... were in nowise impeded by the snow, but were husbanding his strength all the while. When the ground is uneven, the course is a series of graceful curves, conforming to the shape of the surface. He runs as though there were not a bone in his back. Occasionally dropping his muzzle to the ground for a rod or two, and then tossing his head aloft, when satisfied of his course. When he comes to a declivity, he will put his forefeet together, and slide swiftly down it, shoving the snow before him. He treads so softly that ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... of a Roman centurion—bold, cruel as a hawk's beak, strong-nostriled as a wolf's muzzle. His firm white teeth, as they crunched on the cracker suggested, even stronger, the semblance to a carnivorous animal of prey. A benevolent-looking pair of gold-rimmed glasses sat astride that nose, but Burke noticed that, oddly enough, Trubus did not ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... was wonderful how soon they whipped it out of her. When they had stripped her of all they thought worth taking, they ran one of the cannon to the open hatch, loaded it and crammed it full of balls to the muzzle; then they pointed it down the hold and fired it, and were soon on ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... stood wide. A woman walked back and forth over a puncheon floor, tending supper. Dogs rushed to meet us, and the playing of children could be heard. A man, gun in hand, stepped to his door, a sentinel. He lowered its muzzle, and made us welcome, and helped us put our horses ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... bit limp. Go or turn? And this food? Eat it and get all pigsticky. Absurd I am. Waste of money. One and eightpence too much. (The retriever drives a cold snivelling muzzle against his hand, wagging his tail.) Strange how they take to me. Even that brute today. Better speak to him first. Like women they like rencontres. Stinks like a polecat. Chacun son gout. He might be mad. Dogdays. Uncertain in his movements. Good fellow! Fido! Good fellow! Garryowen! ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... to the handle as if to assure himself of the door being fast. Suddenly it opened wide, a black gap, with only the gray eye of the porthole facing them. Lund had brought up the muzzle of his pistol to the height of a man's chest, but there was nothing to ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... far beyond his years, beaten in the long fight, despairing of justice on earth and hopeless of any heaven, Uriel Acosta leaned droopingly against his beloved desk, put the pistol's cold muzzle to his forehead, pressed the trigger, and fell dead across the open pages of his Exemplar Humanae Vitae, the thin, curling smoke lingering a little ere it dissipated, like the futile spirit of a passing creature—"a wind that passeth away ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... of his rank, and previous faithful services to Burton, Speke and Grant, was engaged at $80 a year, half that sum in advance, a good muzzle-loading rifle, besides, a pistol, knife, and hatchet were given to him, while the other five "Faithfuls," Ambari, Mabruki, Ulimengo, Baruti, and Uledi, were engaged at $40 a year, with ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... rifle by the barrel with the muzzle against his shoulder, having aimed the butt at the crouching lion. Chunky had had a severe attack of ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Grand Canyon - The Mystery of Bright Angel Gulch • Frank Gee Patchin
... only weapon we should have to depend upon in any dangers that might beset us. Unable in any way to take out the breech, or to extract the ball, I determined to melt it out, and for that purpose took the barrel off the stock, and put the breech in the fire, holding the muzzle in my hand. Whilst thus engaged, the rifle went off, the ball whizzing close past my head; the fire, it seems, had dried the powder, which had been wetted, not washed out; and when the barrel was sufficiently ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... so close to the bear that he could have touched him with the muzzle of his rifle, realized that, in his haste, he had done a fool-hardy thing; but he was not the kind of a lad to back down from a position once taken, not until he had to do so, and, quickly bringing his rifle to his shoulder, he waited until the swaying body presented ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... saw how things were going, and without delay I found myself at the gate. I called the gardener by the way, but he managed to hold himself at safe distance behind the fence. I put the Savoyards instantly in a secure position, asked the bullies what they were at, forced them to muzzle the bears again, under threat of sending for the police, and ended the whole affair in so short a time that I was not missed from the house. Unfortunately, while I was covered with dust and blood, for the bears had already attacked one ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... formidable, being repeating weapons each capable of firing ten shots without reloading. The barrels were not very long, measuring only three feet from breech to muzzle, but they were of one- and-a-half-inch bore and fired a conical shell four and a half inches in length. Notwithstanding their somewhat ponderous appearance they were very light, being constructed of ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... eye upon her, and nosed her forgivingly with a warm velvet muzzle, but it was plain that, for the time, he was done for. They both moved haltingly to the broken gate, and Betty fastened him to a thorn tree near it, where he stood on three feet, his ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... in a barchetta with his master, snuffs around. 'Where are Porthos and Aramis, my friend?' Athos does not take the joke; he only wags his stump of tail and pokes his nose into my hand. What a Tartufe's nose it is! Its bridge displays the full parade of leather-bound brass-nailed muzzle. But beneath, this muzzle is a patent sham. The frame does not even pretend to close on Athos' jaw, and the wise dog wears it like a decoration. A little farther we meet that ancient grey cat, who ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... pointing the muzzle at the last candle. "I would say this is it, wouldn't you, gentlemen? And as soon as this one goes, I'm afraid one of us is going to find a bullet right between his goddam ...
— The Eyes Have It • James McKimmey
... thousand confused thoughts passed through the mind of the tiger's prisoner. Should he, as he at first thought of doing, kill it with a shot from his carbine? But he saw plainly that there was not room enough in which to take proper aim; the muzzle would have extended beyond the animal—the bullet would miss the mark. And what if it were to wake!—this fear kept ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... happened to be close at hand. He did not have time to take a good look at the object, but he saw enough of it to frighten him thoroughly. He thrust his cocked rifle cautiously over the log, directing the muzzle toward the sycamore, but his hand was unsteady and his face was as ...
— The Boy Trapper • Harry Castlemon
... up at him quickly. A reply was on her lips, but she never uttered it, for at that moment a ruffian in picturesque rags leaped out from behind a near-by bush, confronting them with leveled revolver. He was so close that the muzzle of the weapon almost touched Barney's face. In that the fellow made ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Therewith from out the thicket the grey wolves drew anigh, And the he-wolf fell on Sigi, but he gave forth never a cry, And I saw his lips that they smiled, and his steady eyes for a space; And therewith was the she-wolf's muzzle thrust into my very face. The Gods helped not, but I helped; and I too grew wolfish then; Yea I, who have borne the sword-hilt high mid the kings of men, I, lord of the golden harness, the flame of the Glittering Heath, Must snarl to the she-wolf's snarling, and snap with greedy teeth, While my hands ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris
... upward and back again half an inch or so while his finger slowly contracted on the trigger. Then, as it swung across the middle of the patch, he added the last trace of pressure. He saw a train of sparks leap from the jerking muzzle, and felt the butt jar upon his shoulder. Still, as is almost invariably the case with a man whose whole force of will is concentrated on holding the little sight on a living mark, he heard no detonation. He recognized, however, the unmistakable ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... laughing; "and, if the truth must be told, my companion and myself need some amends. Those children (the little rascals!) have bespattered us finely with their mud-ball; and one of the curs has torn my cloak, which was ragged enough already. But I took him across the muzzle with my staff; and I think you may have heard him yelp, ...
— The Miraculous Pitcher - (From: "A Wonder-Book For Girls and Boys") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... man.[117] For this notion, however, he is not responsible, as he rests his remark on the authority of a {123} passage published by Professor Owen. Again, he refers[118] to "the greater frequency of a monster proboscis in the pig than in any other animal." But with the exception of the peculiar muzzle of the Saiga (or European antelope), the only known proboscidian Ungulates are the elephants and tapirs, and to neither of these has the pig any close affinity. It is rather in the horse than in the pig that we might look for the appearance of a reversionary proboscis, ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... Katherine found just as she had left it, save that Camp stood on the tiger-skin before the fire, his fore-paws and his great, grinning muzzle resting on the arm of Richard's chair. Camp whined a little. Mechanically the young man raised his hand and pulled the dog's long, drooping ears. His face was still dead white, and there were lines under his eyes and about the corners of his mouth, as of one who tries to subdue expression ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... clean cut limbs, his grand branching antlers, and—not my dogs but a pack of immense black wolves at his heels before I instinctively brought my gun to my shoulder. But before I could draw a bead Big Pete struck it, knocking the muzzle up. ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... it laughin' ye are?" exclaimed Larry, bringing forward the muzzle of his gun, "it's cryin' ye'll ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains - Wandering Will in the Land of the Redskin • R.M. Ballantyne
... echo of the fall of the tower in C Company's street. Captain Nesbitt, dozing in his quarters, heard the sound, and running in the direction of it found that Private William B. Young, aged 28, of Oakdale, had placed the muzzle of his rifle against his left temple and gone to swell by one the interminable list of ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... without too great danger of forgetting to allow that organ the help of his eyes and ears. But as it was, they would have done a wiser and more benevolent part by their boy had they given him a scalping knife, without sheath, for a plaything, or a young bear, without a muzzle and chain, for a pet. The knife might have cut off a few of his fingers, and the bear might have clawed off some of his flesh, but the mischief done would have been slight, compared to that of letting him have his will ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady
... that wonderful judge of the breed, Mr. Alex. Goode, Champion Monte, and his illustrious sire, Buster. If one takes the pains to analyze the standard he will be impressed by the perfect co-relation of harmony of all parts of the dog, from the tip of his broad, even muzzle, to the end of his short screw tail. Nothing incongruous in its makeup presents itself, but a graceful, symmetrical style characterizes the dog, and I firmly believe that any change whatever ...
— The Boston Terrier and All About It - A Practical, Scientific, and Up to Date Guide to the Breeding of the American Dog • Edward Axtell
... man against the red background of an enormous flattened disc. Night pursued them with her horrors, and so they did not learn of Lazarus' doings in the desert, but the vision of the black on red was forever branded on their brain. Just as a beast with a splinter in its eye furiously rubs its muzzle with its paws, so they too foolishly rubbed their eyes, but what Lazarus had given was indelible, and Death ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... extreme British right during the first stage of the battle, and only got occasional glimpses of the ridge where the fight was raging—intermittent visions of French cavalry riding in furious charges, and abandoned British batteries with guns, muzzle in air, against the background of grey and whirling smoke. About three o'clock, in the height of the cavalry struggle, Fraser, who was in chief command of the horse artillery, galloped down the reverse slope to Mercer's battery, his face black with powder, his uniform torn, ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... thankful that day for the fortune that had made me take good care of my horse, for I rode like Death on a wind-storm. It grew moonlight as I raced down the valley, and the foam from the animal's muzzle lodged on my clothes, and made me laugh and swear that the morning sun would show Dan Bennett's blood in its place. I rode through the streets of Mesa, where they lived, and past the lights of his big saloon, ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... a small hole is drilled in the under side of the barrel, six to eight inches from the muzzle, so that, when the bullet has passed this point, and during the time it takes it to traverse the remaining few inches to the muzzle, a certain portion of the enclosed gas is forced through this hole, where it is "trapped," in a small "gas-chamber" and its force directed against ...
— The Emma Gees • Herbert Wes McBride
... more unreasonable their demands became, and at every fresh demand a shout was raised by the armed party, and a rush made around us with brandishing of arms. One young man made a charge at my head from behind, but I quickly brought round the muzzle of my gun to his mouth, and he retreated. I pointed him out to the chief, and he ordered him to retire a little. I felt anxious to avoid the effusion of blood; and though sure of being able, with my Makololo, ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... swept past again at full gallop, Shunan still not quite master of his horse and weapon at the same time, for the long-barreled, muzzle-loading rifle was difficult to manage from the back of a plunging horse. They wheeled and passed yet again; but this time, as they turned, they headed directly toward each other at ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... the kettle, and gaze at herself in its shining lid; but Nero's face was reflected in the kettle-lid too; and in all the lids, and pots and pans, and pewters and coppers right round the room, with his ugly muzzle half-open ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... of stupefaction, raising the rifle] Youll testify before the coroner that it's an accident, Viv. [He takes aim at the retreating figure of Crofts. Vivie seizes the muzzle and pulls ...
— Mrs. Warren's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... of the hillock, Jasper placed the butt of his long gun on the ground, and, crossing his hands over the muzzle, stood there for some time so motionless, that he might have been mistaken for a statue. A magnificent country was spread out before him. Just in front lay a clear lake of about a mile in extent, and the evening was so still that every tree, stone, and bush on its margin, ...
— Away in the Wilderness • R.M. Ballantyne
... up at the roadside Jefferson threw his cap upon the ground, twisted his tie awry, and let fly the belt of his riding blouse, then dismounting, he caught up a few handfuls of dust and promptly transformed big bay Jumbo into as disreputable looking a horse as dust rubbed upon his muzzle, his chest and his warm moist flanks could transform him. It was this likely pair which came pounding across the athletic field of Kilton Hall at the moment of Mr. Ford's question, the human of the species, with eyes rolling until they were nearly all whites, ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... wore a muzzle, and was occasionally sent for into our private room, when the muzzle was taken off, much to my annoyance, and he and his master amused themselves with throwing the room into disorder. There was always a jealous feud between this Nelson and Boatswain; and whenever the latter came into the room ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... whispered the Sergeant over my shoulder, "if a scandal was to burst up in the house to-night. Don't be alarmed! I have put the muzzle on worse family difficulties ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... the sergeant's revolver. He threw up his hands to the level of his ears as though expressing sharp unbelief, and waited in silence. The sergeant advanced until the gun rested on the counter, Its muzzle pointing at the pit of Cahill's stomach. "You or me has got to leave this post," said the sergeant, "and I can't desert, so I ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... right ear. He noticed it first on a moonlight night, and thereafter it was always before his eyes. It was a fascinating roll of fat. A man could get his hand upon it and tear away one side of the neck; or he could place the muzzle of a rifle on it and blow away all the head in a flash. Losson had no right to be sleek and contented and well-to-do, when he, Simmons, was the butt of the room, Some day, perhaps, he would show those who laughed at the "Simmons, ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling
... time to time, some cranes, flying low, passed over his head. He killed them with his whip, never missing a bird. He beheld in the distance the gleam of a lake which appeared to be of lead, and in the middle of it was an animal he had never seen before, a beaver with a black muzzle. Notwithstanding the distance that separated them, an arrow ended its life and Julian only regretted that he was not able to carry the ...
— Three short works - The Dance of Death, The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller, A Simple Soul. • Gustave Flaubert
... them. For what ridiculous stuff is there which that stump of the fig tree Priapus does not afford them? What tricks and legerdemains with which Mercury does not cloak his thefts? What buffoonery that Vulcan is not guilty of, while one with his polt-foot, another with his smutched muzzle, another with his impertinencies, he makes sport for the rest of the gods? As also that old Silenus with his country dances, Polyphemus footing time to his Cyclops hammers, the nymphs with their jigs, ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus
... had finished blinking and had adjusted his eyes to the glare, he perceived Ogden sitting up in bed with a revolver in his hand. The revolver was resting on his knee, and its muzzle pointed directly at Mr. ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... you, boy reader, will no doubt remember. This was an animal, a quadruped, who lay along the bottom of the canoe upon a buffalo's hide. "From his size and colour—which was a tawny red—you might have mistaken him for a panther—a cougar. His long black muzzle and broad hanging ears gave him quite a different aspect, however, and declared him to be a hound. He was one—a bloodhound, with the cross of a mastiff—a powerful animal. It was the dog 'Marengo.'" You ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
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