"Spoor" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... been broken down and, from the openings there left, I could form some comparative estimate of its bulk. These tracks were first seen by a man of the name of Mustard, who had joined me at the Cape, and who had there been on the frontier during the Kaffir war; he told me that he had seen the spoor of a buffalo, imagining that they were here as plentiful as in Africa. I conceived at the time that he had made some mistake, and paid no attention to him until I afterwards twice ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... his mind, he walked round its margin to the sandy level beyond, and cast about and sought intently, and at last found, and then found clearly, imposed upon the tracks of several sorts of deer and the footprints of many biggish birds, first the great spoor of the tiger and then his own. Here the beast had halted, and here it had leapt aside. Here his own footmarks stopped. Here his heels ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... dryly, and with something like a twinkle in his brown eyes, "it is very hard fortune for a man to have to follow on Good's 'spoor.' Indeed if it were not for that running giraffe which, as you will remember, Curtis, we saw Good bowl over with a Martini rifle at three hundred yards, I should almost have said that this was an ...
— Maiwa's Revenge - The War of the Little Hand • H. Rider Haggard
... miles we followed the spoor through high-dried grass and thorny bush, until we at length arrived at dense jungle of kittar,—the most formidable of the hooked thorn mimosas. Here the tracks appeared to wander; some elephants having travelled straight ahead, while others had strayed to ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... as he had rested several times I felt sure that he had been badly wounded. In the end, however, my hunt proved fruitless, for after a time the traces of blood ceased and the surface of the ground became rocky, so that I was no longer able to follow the spoor. ...
— The Man-eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures • J. H. Patterson
... would covet the very bread in the bakers' carts. Cheeses went from Marlow's store loft, and never a pig trough was safe from him. Some farmer walking over his field of swedes would find the great spoor of his feet and the evidence of his nibbling hunger—a root picked here, a root picked there, and the holes, with childish cunning, heavily erased. He ate a swede as one devours a radish. He would stand and eat apples ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... the jungle commenced, and into it Tarzan of the Apes plunged, wary and noiseless—once more a savage beast hunting its food. For a time he kept to the ground, but finally, discovering no spoor indicative of nearby meat, he took to the trees. With the first dizzy swing from tree to tree all the old joy of living swept over him. Vain regrets and dull heartache were forgotten. Now was he living. Now, indeed, was the true happiness of perfect freedom his. Who would go back to the stifling, ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... men in three days, the chief and his whole party turned out to hunt and destroy lions only. They followed the spoor or track of the one which had taken the slave, and they soon found two lions, one of which, the smallest, they shot; and then, having taken their breakfast, they went after the other, and largest, which was recognised as the one which had ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... longed to come upon Some giant spoor and dog the track till I ran to earth a mastodon, A dinosaur, a pterodactyl; But I supposed my natal date— However distantly I view it— Was several thousand years too late To give me any ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 8, 1914 • Various
... direction in which he is proceeding, answer to the equally shapeless feather sandals of the blacks who "go Kurdaitcha," that is, as avengers of blood. I have nowhere else found this practice as to the shoes, which, after all, cannot conceal the direction of the spoor from a native tracker. {37b} The trick of driving the cattle backwards answers to the old legend that Bruce reversed the shoes of his horse when he fled from the ...
— The Homeric Hymns - A New Prose Translation; and Essays, Literary and Mythological • Andrew Lang
... about Finnbog. Afterward in the evening, when men slept, he rose, took his weapons, and went forth, following the tracks which led to the dairy farm. As was his wont, he stepped out briskly along the spoor till he came to the dairy. There he found the bear lying down, and he had slain the sheep, and he was lying on them lapping their blood. Then said Finnbog: 'Stand up, Brain! make ready against me; that becomes you more than crouching over those ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... hard to track me; for HE had not YOUR clue of the Basingstoke letter—nor your reason for seeking me. But now that YOU have followed me openly, with your name blazoned forth in the company's passenger-lists, and your traces left plain in hotels and stages across the map of South Africa—why, the spoor is easy. If Sebastian cares to find us, he can follow the scent all through ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... this eye don't light on. The little lady up at Djen-anne-whatever you may call it is following up a spoor; and I'm the big game at the end of it. She's out to bring me down, my boy. Well, that's all right, only don't you two take me for too much of an ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... thing," Cal said with a shrug. "Animals are aware of spoor long before they are aware of tools. It hit deep down into fundamental ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton
... the sheriff about the giant spoor, Watson gave a derisive snort. "Those old coots got bats ...
— The Invaders • Benjamin Ferris
... night, and at three the next morning saddled our horses and followed the spoor of the commando. Presently, encountering a Kafir holding half a dozen horses, we asked him where the owners were. He pointed to a hill near by, where we found the gallant Villebois, the kindly Oberst von Braun, and ill-fated von Brusewitz. Little did ...
— With Steyn and De Wet • Philip Pienaar
... "Bram and his wolves were gone. He had slept in a shelter of spruce boughs. And—and—par les mille cornes du diable if he had even brushed the snow out! His great moccasin tracks were all about among the tracks of the wolves, and they were big as the spoor of a monster bear. I searched everywhere for something that he might have left, and I ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood
... lion is ravenously hungry he will not put in an appearance," he replied. "Of course we might strike his spoor and follow him up. We'll see what luck we get when ...
— Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force • Percy F. Westerman
... wood-pigeon. He could imitate the cry of the turnip in order to deceive rabbits. He could smile and whistle simultaneously in accordance with Rule 8 (and only those who have tried this know how difficult it is). He could spoor, fell trees, tell the character from the boot-sole, and fling the squaler. He did all these things well, but what he was really best at was flinging ...
— The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England - A Tale of the Great Invasion • P. G. Wodehouse
... considerable number of copies of the Sherlock Holmes tales and also of two or three of Miss Corelli's works. These for adults; for boys the reading par excellence was a serial romance, in weekly or monthly parts, entitled "De Wilsons en de Ring des Doods of het Spoor van pen Diamenten". The Wilsons, I gather, have been having a great run in Holland. A lurid scene in Maiden Lane was on the cover. Another story which seemed to be popular had the ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... concerning the origin of his tribe, the Beni 'Ukbah. According to our friend Furayj, the name means "Sons of the Heel" ('Akab) because, in the early wars and conquests of El-Islm, they fought during the day by the Moslems' side; and at night, when going over to the Nazarenes, they lost the "spoor" by wearing their sandals heel foremost, and by shoeing their horses the wrong way. All this they indignantly deny; and they are borne out by the written genealogies, who derive them from "Ukbah, the son ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... cautious was the hunted thing moving even as silently as the lion a hundred paces ahead of the tawny carnivore, for instead of skirting the moon-splashed natural clearings it passed directly across them, and by the tortuous record of its spoor it might indeed be guessed that it sought these avenues of least resistance, as well it might, since, unlike its grim stalker, it walked erect upon two feet—it walked upon two feet and was hairless except ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... that settles the question, doesn't it? You must be shaken by your fall, or you would not talk like that, Higgs. Look, here runs the spoor—see the blood? Well, let's go steady and keep our wind. We may come on her anywhere, but don't you try any more long distance shots. You won't kill another lion at two hundred and ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... opportunity that would give Baree and himself fresh meat. The white sand bars and gravelly shores of the stream were covered with the tracks of the wild dwellers of the valley and the adjoining ranges, and Baree sniffed hungrily whenever he came to the warm scent of the last night's spoor. He was hungry. He had been hungry all the way over the mountains. Three times that day David saw a caribou at a distance. In the afternoon he saw a grizzly on a green slope. Toward evening he ran into luck. A band ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... thirty thousand acres of woods and streams and lakes fenced in with a twelve-foot barrier of cattle-proof wire—partly a noble virgin wilderness unmarred by man-trails; partly composed of lovely second growth scarcely scarred by that, vile spoor which is the price Nature pays for the white-hided invaders who walk erect, when not too drunk, and who foul and smear and stain and desolate water and earth and ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... piece of cardboard or heavy paper about six inches in length by, perhaps, four in width. Lady Muriel could not see what was drawn or painted on this paper. But the heart in her bosom quickened. She had chanced on the spoor of ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... the lion on foot, discovering his spoor, or track, with surprising dexterity, and found him in a large thicket about a mile distant. The dogs failed to dislodge him, the Mulattoes rode round the jungle, and fired into it, but without effect. At last ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... Basutos have run away? Go on digging for the yellow iron which is so hard to find, and of which, when it is found, no man can even make a spear? Nay, what is that to you, Otter? What the Baas does you do—and here be the spoor ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... the flier floated behind him as lightly as a swan upon a quiet lake. Now down the hill toward the tower dimly visible in the moonlight the Gatholian turned his steps. Closer behind him sounded the roar of the hunting banth. He wondered if the beast sought him or was following some other spoor. He could not be delayed now by any hungry beast of prey, for what might that very instant be befalling Tara of Helium he could not guess; and so he hastened his steps. But closer and closer came the horrid screams of the great carnivore, and now he heard the swift fall of padded feet ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... glance did he vouchsafe to the prospect far or near; not a thought did he permit himself of speculation or of wandering interest. His sole job now was to plod on at an even gait, to keep track of time, to follow the spoor of the Leopard Woman's safari, to save himself for later. If he had spared any thought at all, it would have been self-congratulation that Simba and Cazi Moto were old and tried. For Simba relieved him of the necessity of watching for dangerous ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... lightly and tirelessly in the broad and careless spoor of Jake Kloon, his narrow, pointed head alert, and every fear-sharpened instinct tensely observant, the ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... a class had been organized by Brother McKean during the latter part of the former year. At this time the members were Daniel Griffin, Sen., Daniel Griffin, Jr., Dr. and Mrs. Brooks Bowman, Mrs. McCracken, Mr. and Mrs. John Spoor, and a Brother Jennings. Brother Spoor was a Local Preacher, the Leader ...
— Thirty Years in the Itinerancy • Wesson Gage Miller
... might get up the great tree over the house and search the country round with a spyglass; and this, after Mr Mackenzie had given some orders to his people to try and follow Flossie's spoor, we did. ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... well-mounted party, went off to follow the spoor, being advised to return before dark. This he did not do. He remained for the night beyond the Shangani River, and by daylight reached the waggons ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... of you rank as second-class scouts now, and can make a beginning with a patrol; the other three will qualify next time, I expect.' And he took the failures in hand and showed them where they had slipped up in tracking his spoor. Mixed with instruction, he told them stories of the wonderful tracking he had seen performed in South Africa by both white men and natives, and the afternoon passed all too quickly for ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... with the heavy scent of the pack, Miki travelled steadily in the direction of the plain. It took him half an hour to reach the edge of it. After that he came to a wide and stony out-cropping of the earth over which he nosed the spoor to a low and abrupt descent into the ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood
... was accompanied by Isaac, who was mounted on the Old Gray, and carried my clumsy Dutch rifle of six to the pound. Two Bechuanas followed us, leading four of my dogs. Having crossed a well wooded strath, we reached a little crystal river, whose margin was trampled down with the spoor of a great variety of heavy game, but especially of buffalo and rhinoceros. We took up the spoor of a troop of buffaloes, which we followed along a path made by the heavy beasts of the forest through a neck in the hills; and emerging from ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... sporting Martini I mounted my horse and set forth, intending to have a real good time among the "buck." At a Kaffir kraal I picked up a half-caste "boy," who assured me that he knew just where to pick up the "spoor" of the vildebeeste, and he was as good as his boast, for within a couple of hours he brought me within sight of a mob of about fifty of the animals, calmly grazing. I worked my way towards them as well as I could, leaving the "boy" to hold my horse; but, though I was careful according to my lights, ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... things. There is one I hope it is not," was the Chief Ranger's somewhat evasive reply. "I will hunt a labbla—there was fresh spoor at the stream." He set off along their back trail to return a half hour later, the body of his kill slung across one shoulder. He was skinning it ...
— Voodoo Planet • Andrew North
... like honey, yet there was in its heart a mighty, ardent fire which had authority over souls of men. It was made, the captain told me, with great subtlety by the secret craft of a family of six who lived in a hut on the mountains of Hian Min. Once in these mountains, he said, he followed the spoor of a bear, and he came suddenly on a man of that family who had hunted the same bear, and he was at the end of a narrow way with precipice all about him, and his spear was sticking in the bear, and the wound was not fatal, and he had no other ...
— A Dreamer's Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... I'm more disposed to keep a quiet lookout, and rest. We're quite safe here, and provisions are more plentiful than I thought for. Griggs has found the spoor of some big buck and his young does. They have straggled into the valley during ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... The fresh blood spoor was easily followed for the first half-mile or so, at which point their hopes of success were stimulated by a sudden scrambling sound at no great distance ahead of them, as though some heavy animal had been startled by the light of their torches and the noise of their approach, and had hastily ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... lying up for the day close beside last night's successful kill, blinked his yellow-green eyes and twitched his tawny tail as he caught the scent spoor of his ancient enemy. ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... followed the spoor through high dried grass and thorny bush, until we at length arrived at a dense jungle of kittar—the most formidable of the hooked thorn mimosas. Here the tracks appeared to wander, some elephants having travelled straight ahead, while others had strayed to the right and left. ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... however, upset the life of the shallow, amber pool. The mud of his digging had no more than cleared away before the under-water creatures of the place, jackals on the lion's spoor, came forward, eager to feast on the remnants of his meal. Bream, sunning themselves on the shallow margins of the other side, give a sinuous swish to their tails and dart up. A yellow perch poises, slips forward a yard, poises again and then thinking the place safe, comes forward for ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... still a warrior and a hunter. He followed the spoor into the fastnesses of the woods, and trained the young of the jackal to drive the buck ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... the Commission's inquiries into the possibilities of reorganising the mines should be limited to the single question of "nationalization"—the "blessed word" of Labour just now. This was supported in a capital maiden speech by Mr. SPOOR, an ex-pitman, whose father and son are both in the mines, and by Mr. CLYNES, who rather unreasonably complained that the HOME SECRETARY made SHORTT speeches; but it shared ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156., March 5, 1919 • Various
... half-an-hour of sundown when Von Bloom had arrived at this decision. He only kept on a little farther in hopes of reaching a spot where there was grass. They were now more than twenty miles from their starting-point, and still the black "spoor" of the locusts covered the plain. Still no grass to be seen, still the bushes bare of their ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... lingering lassitude permitted. Now and then he had to dismount to examine the surface where the road forked. He enjoyed that rather. "Trackin'," he said aloud, and decided in the privacy of his own mind that he had a wonderful instinct for 'spoor.' So he came past Goodwood station and Lavant, and approached Chichester towards four o'clock. And then came a terrible thing. In places the road became hard, in places were the crowded indentations of a recent ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... The spoor left by his horse the night before was clear in the starlight. He told Daddy John to follow it and drew up beside the track to let the wagon pass him. Motionless he watched the girl's approaching figure, and saw her rein her horse to ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... green mass of tamarisk under a tall Kud tree, a bright-leaved thorn, with balls of golden gum clinging to its boughs, dry berries scattered in its shade, and armies of ants marching to and from its trunk. All slept upon the soft white sand, with arms under their hands, for our spoor across the desert was now unmistakeable. At midday rice was boiled for us by the indefatigable women, and at 3 P.M. we resumed our march towards the hills, which had exchanged their shadowy blue for a coat of pronounced brown. Journeying ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... beast would stop with high-held nose, sniffing searchingly. At other times a quick, brief incursion into the branches above delayed it momentarily in its steady journey toward the east. To its sensitive nostrils came the subtle unseen spoor of many a tender four-footed creature, bringing the slaver of hunger to the cruel, ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs |
