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More "Underbrush" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... me," said Gordon, aloud, wondering to hear such music from the fierce feathered criminal. But he let it go for the sake of its song, and, lowering his gun again, he pushed into the underbrush. ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... nearer; tramped through the underbrush; crushed the dead twigs. Gypsy's finger was on the trigger; her face a little pale. She thought the idea of the bear all nonsense; she did not know what she feared; the very mystery of the thing had thoroughly ...
— Gypsy Breynton • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... had been following a beaten path paused in amaze. Was it a human voice? It broke off into a clear, beautiful whistle that, striking against a ledge of rock, rebounded in an echo. He crept along on the soft grass, where the underbrush had some time been fired. The tree was swaying to and fro, and a shower of fruit came to ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas
... drill as wide a berth as possible, he had deployed widely to the left of the path, making his way somewhat tortuously through a rough lot of underbrush. Without the slightest warning, the earth gave way beneath him and down he shot, clawing frantically at the edges of a well-camouflaged hole in the ground, taking with him a vast amount of twigs, branches and ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... yon, and yonder and thither, until they were well-nigh discouraged, when, just as they were crashing through some thick underbrush, B.J. stopped suddenly short. Sawed-Off bumped into him, and Jumbo tripped over Sawed-Off; but B.J. commanded them to be silent so sharply that they paused where they had fallen ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... hold under more or less discipline, leaving the rest—a wooded strip running up the river shore—wholly wild, as college girls, for example, would count wildness. In both parts the wealth of foliage on timber and underbrush almost everywhere shut the river out of view from the lawn and kept the eye restless for a glint, if no more, of water. And so there I thought at once to give myself what I had all my life most absurdly wished for, a fish-pool. I had never been able to ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... and the ground. They stand in straight rows, but are now so ancient and venerable as to have lost the formal look of a plantation, and seem like a wood that might have arranged itself almost of its own will. Beneath them is a flower-strewn turf, quite free of underbrush. We found open fields and lawns, moreover, all abloom with anemones, white and rose-colored and purple and golden, and far larger than could be found out of Italy, except in hot-houses. Violets, too, were abundant and exceedingly fragrant. When we consider that all this floral exuberance ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... band struck up the inspiriting strains of "Yankee Doodle," the First Michigan broke by subdivisions from the right, the Sixth following in line, regimental front and the two regiments charged with a yell through the thick underbrush out into the open ground just as the confederate troopers emerged from the woods on the opposite side. Both commands kept on in full career, the First and Sixth inextricably intermingled, until they reached the edge of the ravine, when they stopped, the ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... road, she let the pony run. She had never been out alone at night before. It was scary, she admitted to herself. Once an automobile, on the way to the club with somebody's parents, caused her to dash off the road into the underbrush. Finally she reached the meeting place, and found two scared boys ahead of her. Shortly, the others arrived. There were no signs of hilarity over this adventure, they were all solemn and glum. Some of them were ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke
... discouraging outlook, even if there had been roads. Such timber! It seemed an appalling undertaking to clear this land, the greater part of it being covered with a heavy growth of balm and alder trees and a thick tangle of underbrush besides. When we fell asleep that night, it was without visions of new-found wealth. And yet later I did tackle a quarter-section of that heaviest timber land, and never let up until the last tree, log, stump, and root ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... entered a valley, and when they stopped at noon for their usual rest Harry Kenton rode some distance up a creek, thinking that he might rouse a deer out of the underbrush. Although the country looked extremely wild and particularly suited to game, he found none, but unwilling to give up he continued the hunt, riding much ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... river, the bluffs rise abruptly from the banks. The railroad, winding around the curves, was literally hewn from the solid rock. Deep gullies and ravines, starting from the water, Intersected all portions of the country, and the thick underbrush made this place a safe and secure hiding-place for fugitives from ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... associate, given in our next picture, Fig. 21, and yet he is a European employe from the Landes department of highly cultivated France. The inhabitants of this country buckle stilts on to their feet, so as to make their way faster through brambles and underbrush which surrounds them. The mail carrier copied them in his equipment, and thus he goes around on stilts, provided with a large cane to help him keep his balance, and furnishes a correct example of a post office official suiting the demands of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 586, March 26, 1887 • Various
... advantageous points, both on the island and on the east side of the Harlem River. The several columns pushed forward nearly at the same time. Rall and Knyphausen encountered the most serious obstacles, and met with the most obstinate resistance. Their course lay through woods and underbrush and heavy abattis, felled by the Americans. As they approached Rawlings, his men received them with a destructive and determined fire, which lasted a long time. Rall's force, including the newly arrived Waldeckers, ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... Dalhousie on a botanizing tour through Sillery woods; you have her note book, if not herself, to go by. For May, see what an ample store of bright flowers scattered around you; fear not to lose yourself in thickets and underbrush; far from the beaten track a noble lady has ransacked the environs over and over again, sometimes alone, sometimes with an equally enthusiastic and intelligent friend, who hailed from Woodfield; [243] sweet flowers and ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... lone wild slopes and summits. Over the rocks, amid the mosses, hang the long pendent ferns, in richer, darker green. And with the grand old pine and fir trees lifting their heads to the heavens, and the thick tanglewood of shrub and underbrush, there is grandeur, grace, and beauty in ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... partly slipped from his limb, withdrawing his supporting arm from Rod's waist, and was about to descend to the ground when the pack again turned in their direction. A heavy crashing in the underbrush not a dozen rods away sent Wabi in a ...
— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... ashes and tulip trees mingled with the pine and hemlock growth. The hillsides where the sun shone through were thick with rhododendron and laurel. And all through this sylvan paradise the upper branches and the underbrush teemed with wild life. Squirrels, partridges and occasional turkeys offered frequent marks for the long muzzle-loading rifles, while a thousand little song birds flitted constantly through the leaves. Jeremy had never seen ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... that through the ground Rang thin and high, unearthly-shrill and clear, That thrilled the shivering woodland far and near, And shuddering to silence, left behind A whisper as of leaves in stealthy wind. A rustling 'mid the underbrush they heard Where, in the gloom about them, dim things stirred— Vague, stealing shapes that softly nearer drew, Till from the tree-gloom crept a ragged crew, Wild men and fierce, a threatening, grimly herd, Who stood like shadows, speaking not a word; And the pale moon in fitful ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... stood uncertainly in the dimness. From tall, moss-shrouded trees, wrist-thick vines hung quietly, scraping the spongy ground like the tentacles of some monstrous tree-bound octopus. Fitful little plants grew straggly in the shadows of the mossy trunks, forming a dense underbrush that made walking difficult. At midday some few of the blue sun's rays filtered through to the jungle floor, but now, late afternoon on the planet, the shadows were long ...
— Survival Tactics • Al Sevcik
... soldier, so, at once, Jimmie mistrusted him. Early the next morning Jimmie met him again. It had not been raining, but the clothes of the young man were damp. Jimmie guessed that while the dew was still on the leaves the young man had been forcing his way through underbrush. The stranger must have remembered Jimmie, for ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... me, miss," he said, and stooping he lifted the body of the Frenchman to his broad shoulder, and started up the hillside through the trackless underbrush. ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... site should be in a fairly open spot. Thick woods and underbrush are either hot or "damp" cool. If you can find a site that is shaded during the heat of the day so much the better. It is unwise to pitch the tent under a tree that stands alone on account of possible danger from lightning. If your tent is shaded by a tree be sure there are no dead limbs to blow ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... the park, in the direction of the manor-house, a person who seemed to be walking slowly and seeking for something upon the ground. He was a long way off when Middleton first perceived him; and there were two clumps of trees and underbrush, with interspersed tracts of sunny lawn, between them. The person, whoever he was, kept on, and plunged into the first clump of shrubbery, still keeping his eyes on the ground, as if intensely searching for ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... too. About 2 p. m. we had been sent out to skirmish along the edge of the wood in which, as our generals suspected, the Rebs lay massing for a charge across the slope, upon the crest of which our army was posted. We had barely entered the underbrush when we met the heavy formations of Magruder in the very act of charging. Of course, our thin line of skirmishers was no impediment to those onrushing masses. They were on us and over us before we could get ...
— A Ride With A Mad Horse In A Freight-Car - 1898 • W. H. H. Murray
... party. Three men followed up the bottom of the canon on foot, five mounted flankers were thrown out on either side. At last, high up the canon, Kit's party was found at bay, lying in some thick underbrush. It was a desperate position to attack, but the pursuers did not hesitate. Dismounting, they advanced on foot with rifles cocked, but with all the caution of a hunter trailing a wounded grizzly. The ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... they worked their way through the underbrush. The trees were scattered in places, letting a few beams of moonlight seep through, though the dark shadows were deceptive and no objects could be distinguished beyond ...
— Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond
... them; there was not a spot that Joy could climb. Across, the great tongues of flame tossed themselves into the air, and glared awfully against the sky, which was dark with hurrying clouds. The underbrush was all on fire; two huge pine trees were ablaze, their branches shooting off hotly now and then ...
— Gypsy's Cousin Joy • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... riding from his plantation to town and left dead on the road. Dunc Boone had been seen lurking near the spot, and immediately after the killing he was met by two hunters as he was slipping through the underbrush for the swamps. There was no direct evidence against the young man, but Captain Tom had been the most popular man in the county. Reckless though he was, Duncan Boone had been forced to leave the country by the intensity of the ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... underbrush and all kinds of trees other than pecans, rob the grove of moisture, sunlight, and plant food. This growth was formerly removed by hand grubbing, but now with a large bulldozer it is pushed right out of the ground into piles where it is burned. Now the ground is clean, no stumps to grub out, and ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Seventh Annual Report • Various
... Wildcat started out through the fog to find the freckled white sphere. He threshed around in the trees and underbrush for a while, and then to his mind came a memory of the horrible words which the Potent Noble had spoken. "This place was a graveyard!" The Wildcat shuddered extensively and abandoned the search for the ...
— Lady Luck • Hugh Wiley
... crackling in the underbrush, and some one rushed out at Flossie and Freddie, who were standing under the tree looking up at the tottering trunk which ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in the Great West • Laura Lee Hope
... they approached the edge of that deep belt of forest which shrouds so large a portion of the island. She hurried along, now nearer to them lest they should be lost to view in the deep shadows, while they went on crackling and plunging through the dense underbrush. ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... hill. Some twenty feet below the level of the lane was a huge semicircular base, and from this the jagged sides reared perpendicularly to the summit of the hill. The top and slopes of this hill were covered with a dense growth of underbrush and trees. Tall sycamores bordered the road opposite the quarry, making the spot sheltered ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... driving, was sufficient to transfer the herd from the pasture to the stubble field. Chicken Little was thankful she had discarded her skirt, for they had many a chase after refractory animals through the timber and underbrush. Calico and Caliph, being mustangs, seemed to enjoy the sport as much as ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... of the river is much higher than the right, which is flooded, therefore the utan on that side presents a very different appearance, with large, fine-looking trees and no dense underbrush. All was fresh and calm after the rain which prevails at this season (February). There were showers during the afternoon, at times heavy, and the Malays were much opposed to getting wet, wanting to stop paddling, ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... and the result was a separation and careful scrutiny of the underbrush on both sides of the road, which ended in the finding of a dogwood by the lawyer, and of a striped maple by the dominie—both straight above and curled at the root. These, having removed from the bush, they brought into ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... hunting was made by the boys on foot in the woods near the mill; but here they made so much noise in the underbrush that, though they "shined" several pairs of eyes, these vanished before a shot could be fired at them. In consequence of this ill-luck they returned home tired and disgusted, and Mark said he didn't think fire hunting was very ...
— Wakulla - A Story of Adventure in Florida • Kirk Munroe
... the House Wren "in small numbers about Saltillo where occasional birds, presumably migrants, were noted in thickets or stretches of underbrush fringing cultivated fields." They obtained a single male "on the outskirts of Saltillo." Hellmayr (1934:218) listed T. a. ...
— Birds from Coahuila, Mexico • Emil K. Urban
... and toilsome riding; and only the devil's own luck, or some marvellous instinct of our horses, spared us many a stumble over roots, stones, twigs, and underbrush. What faint light the night retained for well-accustomed eyes, had its source in the cloud-curtained moon, and that being South of us, we were hidden in the shadow of the woods. But 'tis a thousand wonders the noise of our passage was not sooner heard, though De Lancey's ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... storm and snow have loosed the rocks and carried them down the mountain. Those thrown down years ago are moss-covered and have collected enough soil in their crevices to nourish underbrush and large trees. But there are bare rocks along Eagle Creek to-day large enough for a man to hew a cabin from. Standing in awe of their size one surely must look curiously up the mountain to find the ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... sounds on the midnight, Blown by a fairy boy, And the rabbits rush from the underbrush, All nearly ...
— Zodiac Town - The Rhymes of Amos and Ann • Nancy Byrd Turner
... fire began to flare. There were curious wind crackles all about him, and Nero had begun to sniff and whine. Somewhere—off there among the trees—Philip fancied he caught the stealthy pad of a footfall and the crackle of underbrush. Every instinct of his body focusing wildly upon the thought of harm to Diane, he whirled swiftly about, colliding as he did so with something—vague, formless, heavy—that leaped, crouching, from the shadows and bore him to the ground. The ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... word of approbation from his young host. However, Crow Wing and Bolderwood were in time to help do the heaviest of the work and soon the last stump was out of the soil and piled upon a flaming pyre. The several bonfires could not spread to the underbrush, so the boys were able to leave them for the time and rush away to the creek for a swim before dinner. After they had washed off the smut and smoke, they engaged in races and in diving matches until the horn blew to recall them to the house. In all aquatic sports Lot ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster
... are miles of level roads, almost free of underbrush, intersected in every direction with roads and lanes, and one can drive for hours without leaving the shelter of ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... when it roamed the prairies and hills of the State in vast herds, but owing to the removal of the protective underbrush in the form of the Referendum (which decrees that one year is necessary for its complete development), it has gone in great droves to Nevada and Oklahoma, which promise to be a ...
— Letters of a Dakota Divorcee • Jane Burr
... Stumbling over low underbrush in their rubber soled tennis shoes was not like walking out in the open, and just as Dozia breathed a sigh of relief that the landscape gardening went no further, a wild scream, shrill and piercing, cut the night ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... actual entrance to the great Bay is quite narrow and could easily be defended by mines or by fortifications on the Cayos and the peninsula. The Bay is like a great bottle with a very narrow neck. The Spaniards, in fact, established a small fort on the headland, its ruins being now hidden by dense underbrush. ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... striplings were spared many of his hardships and were still able to endure the ordeal, if the end were sure relief. Jack struck a match, and with this lighted a pine knot. He surveyed the gloomy brake carefully, and at last, finding a mound where a thick growth of underbrush gave assurance of less treacherous soil, he called to Barney to aid him. The little hillock was made into a couch by means of the saddles, and the groaning veteran carefully laid upon the by no means uncomfortable refuge. As Jack held the ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... he made his way into the woods, and, stretching himself out among the underbrush, went ...
— The Store Boy • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... through the woods were tumbledown houses, heaps of rubbish, crockery, old iron and dirt, trees chopped down and left to rot, burnt underbrush, annoying signs of the proximity of a heedless, careless, prodigal human world. And close by, between long rows of signboards, monstrously drawn and painted in glaring colors, rushed the trains, besmirching ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... forget that midnight march through the forest, with the rain falling in a deluge through the dripping trees, the lightning flashing and the thunder rolling. We stumbled along upon each other's heels, falling over logs or underbrush, the wet branches switching our faces raw and soaking us through and through. It seemed to me that we must have covered fifteen or twenty miles, at least, when the first gray of the morning brightened the horizon and a halt ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... rocks; but, before he had gone far, he sat down to reflect upon the situation. Certainly, he was not augmenting his popularity. A half-hour later, he heard a rustle, and, turning, saw Sally standing not far off. She was hesitating at the edge of the underbrush, and Lescott read in her eyes the effort it was costing her to come forward and apologize. Her cheeks were still pale and her eyes wet, but the tempest of her anger had spent itself, and in the girl who stood penitently, ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... developing the paragon chestnut in orchard farming has been on the plan Mr. Sober has just shown, by clearing away the mountain side and cutting down everything but the chestnut sprouts. This photograph was taken in a thicket where the underbrush had not been cleared away. Those are a good age now or perhaps a little bit older than we usually graft, aren't they, ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Third Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... Club-carrier, who was the terror of all the country. For oftentimes he would go down into the valleys where the shepherds fed their flocks, and would carry off not only sheep and lambs, but sometimes children and the men themselves. It was his custom to hide in the thickets of underbrush, close to a pathway, and, when a traveler passed that way, leap out upon him and beat him to death. When he saw Theseus coming through the woods, he thought that he would have a rich prize, for he knew from the youth's dress and manner that he ...
— Old Greek Stories • James Baldwin
... body just back of a fore leg. The cervus species rarely or never fall, even when stricken through the heart, knowing which, Deerfoot dashed up the slope, knife in hand, and made after the wounded buck, which could be heard threshing among the stones and underbrush. He was still floundering and running when overtaken by the youth, who quickly ended ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... snake. He was so terrified, that he tumbled headlong from the tree, and it was difficult to tell which ran away fastest, he or the snake. This incident inspired the bold boy with fear, which he vainly tried to overcome during the remainder of his life. There was a thicket of underbrush between his father's farm and the village of Woodbury. Once, when he was sent of an errand to the village, he was seized with such a dread of snakes, that before entering among the bushes, he placed his basket on an old rail, ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... cleft through the hills, perhaps a hundred yards wide here where it opened on the river, with a little stream in its centre fringed with low trees, but narrowing gradually, and becoming blocked with underbrush as it penetrated deeper into the interior. For a mile or more the course was not entirely unknown to me, although the darkness obscured all familiar landmarks. The negro, however, apparently possessed the instinct of an animal, or else had night eyes, for he never hesitated, keeping ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... megaphone. When his horse went lame, the column with which he had wished to advance, passed forward to the front unmolested, while the rear guard, to which he had been forced to join his fortune, fought its way through the stifling underbrush. ...
— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis
... in doubt the hunter kept on his course; like a shadow he passed from tree to tree and from bush to bush; silently, cautiously, but rapidly he followed the tracks of the Indians. When he had penetrated the dark backwoods of the Black Forest tangled underbrush, windfalls and gullies crossed his path and rendered fast trailing impossible. Before these almost impassible barriers he stopped and peered on all sides, studying the lay of the land, the deadfalls, the gorges, and all the time keeping in ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... lumberers have cut down all available pines and oaks within reach of the settlements, excepting where they were not worth the expence of transport. The pines, moreover, take no deep root; and, as soon as the underbrush or thicket is cleared, they fall before the storm. Provident settlers, therefore, rarely leave large and lofty trees near their dwellings ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... its hunting-time begins with the setting of the sun. Toward evening, when the shadows are rapidly lengthening across the clearings, the ermine may be seen issuing forth for its night campaign. Now it twists its lithe body like an eel in and out among the rocks and underbrush; now it stands for a moment motionless, peering about in search of a victim, its slender little body arched up in the middle like an enraged cat. It is always on the alert, whisking here and there, sniffing at every hole and corner where perchance ...
— Harper's Young People, May 25, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... said Uncle Henry indifferently. "Something in the woods, must be. Underbrush most likely. You can always tell words you don't know by the sense of the whole ...
— Understood Betsy • Dorothy Canfield
... started off to ascend the high hill which had been assigned me, while my Indians went off in other directions. This hill was perhaps half a mile from our camp-fire, and I was soon at its foot, ready to push my way up through the tangled underbrush that grew so densely on its sides. To my surprise I came almost suddenly upon a creek of rare crystal beauty, on the banks of which were many impressions of hoofs, large and small, as though a herd of cattle had there been drinking. Thoughtlessly, for I seemed to have forgotten ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young
... rapid and has many ripples; and the bed formed of gravel and smooth stones. The banks along the low grounds are of a rich loam, followed occasionally by low bluffs of yellow and red clay, with a hard red slatestone intermixed. The low grounds are wide, and have very little timber but a thick underbrush of willow, and rose and currant bushes: these are succeeded by high plains extending on each side to the base of the mountains, which lie parallel to the river about eight or twelve miles apart, and are high and rocky, with some small pine ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... he little suspected it as he lay in the sound, dreamless sleep which comes only to the truly good. There was a crashing sound in the still darkness, and Bell plunged through the thick underbrush with a cry ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... for Cajio, the road soon degenerated into a mere track, which led through some barren hills with scanty growths of a species of oak without underbrush, and here and there a sprinkling of cacti, and in the lower reaches between the hills grew dense green ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... answer. There were three men with heavy-duty blast-rifles. One was the one Calhoun had burned out of his hiding-place. That man's rifle exploded when the flames hit it. Two remained. One—so Calhoun presently discovered—was working his way behind underbrush to a shelf from which he could shoot down at Calhoun. Calhoun had dropped into a hollow and pulled Maril to cover at the first shot. The second man happily planned to get to a point where he could shoot him like a fish in a barrel. The third man had fired half a dozen times and then ...
— Pariah Planet • Murray Leinster
... he drew near the house, a footstep crackled in the underbrush, and Ham emerged from the woods. As the elder boy came up, Paul, roused out of his dreams, gave a start and ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... recent times he has lived at a considerable distance from the sea; and the rivers, which flow in deep canyons, may be changed in a day from tiny streams to rushing torrents in which no craft could keep afloat. Left to his own devices, he pays little attention to trails, but cuts his way through the underbrush directly to his destination. The government has forced him to clear and maintain several fairly good roads between the larger settlements and the coast, and these are now the highways over which he ...
— The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao - The R. F. Cummings Philippine Expedition • Fay-Cooper Cole
... feed again, all the while working nearer and nearer. The bear was now well down in the bottom of the valley, which was at this point covered with alders and intersected by a small stream. There were open patches in the underbrush, and it was my intention to shoot when she passed through one of these, for the ground was covered with over a foot of snow, which would offer ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... toward the west, where, here and there, bare poles, or branches of trees, or slips of underbrush, marked a road made across the plains through the snow. The sun was going down golden red, folding up the sky a wide, soft curtain of pink and mauve and deep purple merging into the fathomless blue, where already the stars were beginning to quiver. The house stood on the edge of a little ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... across the mountains. The abundance of grass kept them in fine condition. Upon the backs of these horses, the pioneers could traverse the treeless prairies without obstruction, and large portions of the forest were as free from underbrush as the park of an English nobleman. Invaluable as these animals were to the adventurers, they greatly increased their perils. They could not easily be concealed. Their footprints could not be effaced, and there was nothing the Indians coveted ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... tree-trunk, and are very contented. The other side of the stream is lined with endless stretches of trees,—sycamore, elm, dogwood with their starry eyes peering in innate vanity over the bank into the mirror beneath them, and underbrush of all descriptions. Where the tide has once been, and receded, is a stretch of yellow clay, now glistening from the dews of night. After a while the sun strikes this, and the wet surface glows like gold. Then your wandering eye—for you have forgotten your cork—observes a bubble as it rises and ...
— The Love Story of Abner Stone • Edwin Carlile Litsey
... next morning he was picking his way through the palmlike fern and thick underbrush of the pine forest, starting the hare from its form, and awakening a querulous protest from a few dissipated crows, who had evidently been making a night of it, and so came to the wooded ridge where he had ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... important victories in Galicia, thus placing all the passes of the Carpathians in jeopardy. But whatever his interest in conjectures regarding the possibility of victory or defeat, his own business was too urgent to admit of other issues, and so he made his way forward cautiously through the underbrush, which in places was almost impenetrable. Four-footed things, startled by this unusual invasion of their hunting ground, started up almost beside him and fled—rabbits, squirrels, a wolf, and a brown bear, which rocked upon its four legs dubiously for a moment, ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... was a dash through the dim woods where the white Indian Pipes raised their tiny, waxen tapers, and the squirrels skirled indignantly at him from the tree-tops; a leap across the stream where the water-lilies made a fairy bridge of green and gold, a scramble through the underbrush, and he was at the edge of the little pasture-field, and saw the old home buried in orchard trees, and Aunt Kirsty's garden a blaze of sun-flowers and asters. And there at the gate, gazing eagerly down the lane in quite the wrong direction, stood ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... once more, and then, when Keith was within ten feet of him, turned and sprang over the edge of the road into the thick bushes below. Keith sprang straight after him, and the two went crashing through the underbrush, down the steep side ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... and in a few minutes Charley was close to the scene of the cries with the captain right at his heels. Suddenly they broke out of the underbrush into a small open space perhaps forty feet across. Near the center of this place was Walter, waving his torch frantically back and forth. He ceased his cries as their lights flashed into view. "Stop, stop!" he shouted, "don't ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... white settler came upon his grant, he found it covered by the primeval wilderness, thickly set with old trees, whose roots, as well as branches, were interlocked firmly with each other, the surface obstructed with tangled and prickly underbrush; the soil broken, and mixed with rocks and stones,—the entire face of the country hilly, rugged, and intersected by swamps ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... that Major Anthony gave him permission to raise a crop east of the stockade, where the small-pox hospital was located. That he cleared and fenced about six acres; that there was no clearing on the land—only some of the underbrush was cut out; that there was not a rail on the place; that he cut and split all the rails and made a good fence, and raised a crop of corn; that about the first of August Mr. Crawford came to him and ...
— A Letter to Hon. Charles Sumner, with 'Statements' of Outrages upon Freedmen in Georgia • Hamilton Wilcox Pierson
... descent. Soon once more we were in underbrush and presently came square against a staked-and-ridered worm fence around a "deadening" dense with tall corn. Charmer and Dandy had climbed directly over it, scampered through the corn, and were waking every echo in a swamp beyond. The younger pair, still yoked, stood under the fence, ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable
... noon when they reached the narrow fringe of trees and underbrush—deciduous and wind-tortured all—which bordered the big, muddy, low-lying Missouri; and soon they could hear the throb of the engine at the mill, and the swish of the saw through the green lumber; a sound that heard near by, inevitably carries the suggestion of scalpel and living flesh. ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... joined the president in his horseback morning excursions. Sometimes, he said, when they came to a very steep, high, and rough hill the president would shout, "Let us climb to the top," and the diplomat would struggle over the stones, the underbrush and gullies, and return to his horse with torn garments after sliding down the hill. At another time, when on the banks of the Potomac, where the waters were raging rapids the president said, "We will go to that island ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... of briars and underbrush hid him from the road. For drowsy hours he had looked through his tangled lattice upon the life that went up and down the highway, himself unseen,—a pedler, bent under the weight of the pack upon his shoulders, making wry faces ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... in the dark, or when he had his blinders on, can't be worth very much," insisted Gilbert. "You remember the Admiral thought it was partridges nesting in the underbrush at twilight, and then we found Joanna had cleaned the dining room and hung the thing upside down. When it was hung the other end up neither father nor the Admiral could tell what it was; they'd lost the partridges and couldn't find ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... out at something with her fist. A naked arm had reached out from the underbrush and grasped her wrist. Carr wheeled and his ray pistol spat crackling flame. The savage, an undersized red man with an enormous head, rose unsteadily from his hiding place, a look of terrible hate in his contorted features. Then, like a punctured ...
— Creatures of Vibration • Harl Vincent
... of clay, which was thickly wooded. Slightly higher up the river this ridge approached more closely the bank of the stream, with trees actually overhanging the water, and a rather thick growth of underbrush hiding the ground. The river was muddy, flowing with a swift current, and we could distinguish its course only so far as the first bend, a comparatively short distance away. Nowhere appeared the slightest evidence of life, either ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... Sawmill Bottom, cutting timber. But Merrifield was an inveterate and skillful hunter, and while Joe took to doing odd jobs, and Sylvane took to driving mules at the Cantonment, Merrifield scoured the prairie for buffalo and antelope and crept through the underbrush of countless coulees for deer. For two years he furnished the Northern Pacific dining-cars with venison at five cents a pound. He was a sure shot, absolutely fearless, and with a debonair gayety that found occasional expression in odd pranks. Once, riding through ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... to have vanished from the earth, and every mammal be deeply buried in its long sleep, no winter's walk need be barren of interest. A suggestion worth trying would be to choose a certain area of saplings and underbrush and proceed systematically to fathom every cause which has prevented the few stray leaves still upon their stalks from falling with their many brethren now buried beneath ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... the birds have souls?" "I don't know," John answered, "let's get out of this." I was sure that his emotion was too strong for him. "I never feel a bit lonesome where you are, John," I said, as we made our way among the underbrush. "I think we can get out down that little gully," he answered. Then one evening in June after tea I led John down a path beside the house to a little corner behind the garden where there was a stone wall ...
— Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... drought-stricken ranges of the far south. Judging from the signs, the crafty old grisly, as cunning as he was ferocious, usually lay in wait for the cattle when they came down to water, choosing some thicket of dense underbrush and twisted cottonwoods, through which they had to pass before reaching the sand banks on the river's brink. Sometimes he pounced on them as they fed through the thick, low cover of the bottoms, where an assailant ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... white fire. In the electric moonlight the blue mountains, more mysterious than ever, stand out in bold relief. What restless tribes of savages are wandering now through the trackless forests, sleeping in lofty trees, or in some scanty shelter amid the tangled underbrush! The light that flickers in the distant gorge, perchance illumines some religious orgy—some impassioned dance of primitive and pagan men. What spirits are abroad to-night, invoked at savage altars by the incantations of the savage priests—spirits ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... breath could be spared for talk, and they pushed on in silence, now scrambling through a thicket of underbrush, tearing their clothes and not seldom lacerating their flesh also; now leaping over a fallen tree, anon climbing a hill, and again fording ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley
... all his life and he would spend it; and when there wasn't any to spend he spent on just the same. Major Alden didn't really believe the Almighty made common people. He thought they came up like weeds and underbrush and, though you couldn't cut them down exactly, you must keep them down somehow. He really believed it. Some people think ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher
... do exactly as I bid." He started back again through the trees, swiftly, swinging monkey-like from limb to limb, following a zigzag course that he tried to select with an eye for the difficulties of the trail beneath. Where the underbrush was heaviest, where fallen trees blocked the way, he led the footsteps of the creature below them; but all to no avail. When they reached the opposite side of the gorge the ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... victory was followed by a night of riot, the Swedes thus gaining time to collect the scattered remnants of their army. With a single impulse, though without a leader, they fled across the marshy meadows of Vestergoetland to the north. Their goal was Tiveden, a dreary jungle of stunted pines and underbrush, through which it was expected the enemy would have to pass. Here after two days' march they gathered, and threw up a mighty barrier of felled trees and brushwood, thinking in that way to impede the passage of the Danes. ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... but he could find no sign of life. When he strained his ears to listen there was only the sound of falling water or the clamor of a hidden creek. Sight was of almost as little service among those endless rows of towering trunks, between which the tall fern and underbrush sprang up. There was no distance, scarcely even an alternation of light and shadow. The vision was narrowed in and confused by the unchanging sameness of the ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... conjecture the force with which it came. Through the dim light, confusing to the eyes, I sought to peer ahead. The hills, huddled much closer to the shore, appeared rough in their rocky outlines, while the heavy underbrush, clinging tightly to the water-side, offered nothing in the way of a suitable camping-spot. Beyond the tumultuous sweep of this northern tributary, however, I discovered a considerable patch of grass, overshadowed by giant trees, and there I made selection of the ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... The crucifixes lay prone upon the ground; the grass grew upon the altars; and no man stopped to plead with his neighbor. Where had been fields and houses, and fair towns and lordly castles, now there was naught but woods and underbrush and thorns. And old Duke Fromont, thus ruined through no fault of his own, bewailed his misfortunes, and said to his friends, "I have not land enough to rest upon alive, ...
— Hero Tales • James Baldwin
... under his protection, while Joe kept within safe distance of Don Aikins, the young man from Bergen who claimed to be able to do anything, and any one, in the athletic world. He swung his light stick expectantly at the underbrush. Evidently he would be very pleased to have a swing at the boy with the ...
— Dorothy Dale's Camping Days • Margaret Penrose
... artillery pieces of every caliber, and the Boche with whom the woods were infested. Besides the opposition of an active enemy, were the natural barriers of deep ravines, stony ridges and cliffs, and in many places an almost impassable barrier of dense underbrush and fallen limbs ...
— The Fight for the Argonne - Personal Experiences of a 'Y' Man • William Benjamin West
... and never-perturb'd placidity of the Konigsberg sage, and did not, like the latter, understand his own limits, and stop when he got to the end of them. He clears away jungle and poisonvines and underbrush—at any rate hacks valiantly at them, smiting hip and thigh. Kant did the like in his sphere, and it was all he profess'd to do; his labors have left the ground fully prepared ever since—and greater service was probably ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... person would take them for relatives, come sailing swiftly with barely an undulation among the musical congregation. The blackbird, wariest of birds—he on the top of the larch—has hardly time to dart into the dark coverts of the underbrush, and the remainder of the crew to disperse, before the Blue and the Brown sail among them like Moorish pirates out from Salee. A sparrow is caught, but in Galloway, at least, 'tis apparently little matter though a sparrow fall. The harriers would have more victims but for the ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... their captivity, they were wandering around the outskirts of the village, and approaching the precipice at the north, penetrated the thick underbrush that grew at its base, and seated themselves in its cool shade, their sentinel taking up his position a few rods from them in the path by which they had entered. Some of them sat so as to recline against the rock that rose above them, whilst others leaned in thoughtful mood ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle
... exercise; she appeared—to the artist—more as some mythical spirit of the mountains, than as a maiden of flesh and blood. The manner of her coming, too, heightened the impression. He had heard no sound of her approach—no step, no rustle of the underbrush. He had seen no movement among the bushes—no parting of the willows in the wall of green. There had been no hint of her nearness. He could not even guess the direction from which she ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... the tree-tops, and the golden sunbeams shimmered and danced over the branches, trunks and ground, as if they had been prisoned in the woods and could never find their way out. The shadows of the tall trunks lay in transparent bars on the underbrush, luxuriant moss, and ferns, and the dew clung to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... rough underbrush similar to that through which we had approached the house. Bates swung along confidently enough ahead of me, pausing occasionally to hold back the branches. I began to feel, as my rage abated, that I had set out on a foolish undertaking. I was ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... window. Some wild design of braining him from behind with a chair flashed into her desperate mind, but when she had felt her way into Katie's room he had gone. The garden below was quiet, but there was yelling and the crackling of underbrush from the hill-side. Then a scattering of shots again, and ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... seldom been seen. "Forward!" was the word, and forward it was. The woods became a thicket, sometimes apparently impassable; but the horses, spurred by their riders, dashed at headlong speed through the trees, through the underbrush, under branches—thorns scratching the face and hands, projecting limbs tearing clothes and bruising bodies. Down hill and up hill, through marsh and bog, over logs and across streams, leaping obstacles, shouting, yelling, screaming, and hurrahing, away we went—mud ...
— Bugle Blasts - Read before the Ohio Commandery of the Military Order of - the Loyal Legion of the United States • William E. Crane
... was struck in the side by one of these missiles, which tumbled him over, but without inflicting a serious wound. A party from our ship penetrated the woods behind the town, where one of them fired at an object which he perceived moving in the underbrush. Going up to the spot, it proved to be a very aged man, apparently on the verge of a century, much emaciated, and too feeble to crawl further in company with his flying towns-people. He was unharmed ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... he burst the bonds which had fastened him to the spot and fled, unheeding the underbrush. He was pursued by a sight of the black ants swarming greedily upon the gray face and venturing ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... great pain, as you know, and perhaps I seem irritable. I'm not an amiable man at best; as for the knife, in my agony I never thought to look for it again, though I suppose if I had looked I should not have found it, since it doubtless fell into the underbrush out of sight. Let it rest there. It has not done me a friendly service to-day and I shall waste ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... condescended to reply, "Je fais le detour! Bad, voila!" Then, urging his horses on, he charged into the bushes, and drove along what had been once a cart trail (one could hardly call it a road), overgrown with underbrush. Long branches met overhead, and we were kept busy, alternately warding them, off our faces and holding on to our seats—for the track was a succession of uneven hills, hollows, and short turns, with which our driver seemed ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon
... yet—in contrast to a mass of foliage in the early autumn before the leaves had begun to turn, in which the yellow-grays one often sees predominated, he suddenly thought to himself: "The tree-trunks and underbrush do not stand out; they are all of one piece, each keeping its place, while my house"—as he rather inelegantly but forcibly expressed it—"sticks up like a sore thumb." Later, this very clever man made an analysis of the local color in these several grays, and his subsequent matching ...
— Outdoor Sketching - Four Talks Given before the Art Institute of Chicago; The Scammon Lectures, 1914 • Francis Hopkinson Smith
... cuffing his ears, and reviling him for a "Tief! A hoss steal! A rascal!" In the morning they mounted him on an unbroken colt, with his hands tied behind him and his legs tied under the horse, and drove it into the briers and underbrush, where his face and hands were torn by the brambles, until the colt quieted down of itself, and followed in line with the other horses. The third day, as they drew near the town of Old Chillicothe, where Boone had been ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... extremely hard walking as I advanced through tangled underbrush, over unlevel ground, the night so dark in those shadows I could but barely perceive the outlines of a hand held before the eyes. Fortunately the distance was even shorter than I had anticipated, but, when ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... little trail past stumps where nasturtiums and alyssum mingled with the underbrush, and were in the redwoods, and at the brookside. Peter saw a slender girl in pink pushing a plank about with a pole. She turned in surprise to ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... regarded it as his own and had laid the same claim to it that, in the first days of the world, the first men had to their forests on land. Besides, who else could dispute his ownership of this underwater property? What other, bolder pioneer would come, ax in hand, to clear away its dark underbrush? ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... to keep to the left, although the woods were thicker there. They pushed forward, as if passing through a jungle. Branches whipped them in the face, and beneath their feet the underbrush crackled. ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish
... poor Jimmy, were unusually fleet, and they soon overtook Cassey. Bob's hand was almost upon him when the man doubled suddenly in his tracks and darted off into the thick underbrush. ...
— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman
... other and human adolescents, to relish the spectacle of the maternal anxiety. Ever and anon the sound of the mare's troubled call rang on the air. Then the colt would come with a burst of speed, a turbulent rush, out of the underbrush, and, with its keen head-tones of a whinny, all funnily treble and out of tune, dash on in advance. The rider of this preoccupied steed was a grizzled, lank, thin-visaged mountaineer, with a tuft of beard on his ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... the big bays, the shout in that silence caused them to leap wildly. The tote road was rough and rocky and the equipage was light. Almost instantly the horses tore the tongue from the jumper, which was trigged by a bowlder. The animals crashed around in a circle through the underbrush, leaped into the tote road, and went galloping back toward Adonia, seeking their ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... and set out in pursuit of the canoe. The Spaniards had already doubled the point called Hraga and were a league down the river, but they were exhausted with hard rowing and the light pirogue of their pursuers gained so rapidly upon them that their only hope was to take refuge in the thick underbrush along the shore, where the Indians, being naked, could not penetrate on account of the thorns. The canoe and the pirogue touched land almost at the same time and not far from one another. Fray Juan afterwards recounted to Las Casas how he was overtaken ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... winter-killed apple-trees and ancient stunted currant-bushes struggle for life against sturdy young pine and spruce and birch. Many a rod of heavy tumble-down stone wall—New England Stonehenges—may be seen, not as of old dividing cleared and fertile fields, but in the midst of a forest of trees or underbrush: ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... as close to the west edge of Bear Canon as he could endure. In two or three places the flames had jumped the wall and were trying to make headway in the scant underbrush of the rocky slope that led to a hogback surmounted by a bare rimrock running to the summit. This natural barrier would block the fire on the west, just as the burnt-over area would protect the north. For the present at least the ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... dark ere I leave the caon on my way to Carlin. Farther on, the gorge widens, and thick underbrush intervenes between the road and the river. From out the brush I see peering two little round phosphorescent balls, like two miniature moons, turned in my direction. I wonder what kind of an animal it is, as I trundle along through the darkness, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... a much wilder place than Kentucky. There was no road leading to Pigeon Creek; only a path through the forest. It was so narrow that sometimes Tom had to clear away some underbrush before they could go on. Or else he had to stop to cut down a tree that stood in their way. Abe, who was big and strong for his age, had his own little ax. He helped his ...
— Abe Lincoln Gets His Chance • Frances Cavanah
... much longer time Lop-Ear and I remained and watched. Now and again we could hear the crashing of heavy bodies in the thickets and underbrush, and from the darkness of the other side, across the circle, we could see eyes gleaming in the firelight. In the distance we heard a lion roar, and from far off came the scream of some stricken animal, splashing and floundering in a drinking-place. Also, from the ...
— Before Adam • Jack London
... mounted and rode on towards the quarters (there is no white people's house here), where I could see St. Helena Village across the creek—a Deserted Village of a dozen or more mansions with their house-servants' cabins behind them, and two churches in a large pine wood, free from underbrush, where there are only one mulatto woman and her two children, belonging to this place, the sole occupants.[28] The village is directly on the creek on a bluff like that on which Beaufort is situated, about eight feet high, and is the place where ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... been killed, an attempt was made to bring his guns back by hand over the rocky ground, but it could not be done, and we had to abandon them. Hescock also had lost most of his horses, but all his guns were saved. Bush's battery lost two pieces, the tangled underbrush in the dense cedars proving an obstacle to getting them away which his almost superhuman exertions could not surmount. Thus far the bloody duel had cost me heavily, one-third of my division being killed or wounded. I had already three brigade commanders killed; ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... She had grown used to his howls. He had come close to her cabin once in the day-time. She had tried to creep on him and show her friendliness. But he had fled in terror at the first glimpse of her dress through the parting underbrush. ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... the minutiae of history, a story of the war as seen by a private in the ranks, not by one who, as a favored spectator, could survey the movements of a whole army at a glance, and hence could, must, individualize brigades, divisions, army corps. It is the war in field, woods, underbrush, picket-post, skirmish-line, camp, march, bivouac. During 1864 no memorandum was kept, and a diary kept during the spring of 1865 was lost, within a year after the close of the war. Hence I have depended on memory alone, aided ...
— In The Ranks - From the Wilderness to Appomattox Court House • R. E. McBride
... mounted enemy could swing his gunbarrel into line. The bullet ripped away the lower part of Pegleg's face and grazed the cheek of the crouching youngster behind him. The white-eyed nephew slid head first off the buck-jumping mule and instantly scuttled on all fours into the underbrush. The rifle dropped out of Trantham's hands and he lurched forward on the mule's neck, grabbing out with blind, groping motions. Dugmore stepped two paces forward to free his eyes of the smoke, which eddied back from his gunmuzzle into his face, and fired twice rapidly. The mule was ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... here we were puffing up a hill in France, through underbrush, across shell holes to a hidden trench choked with telephone cables that should lead underground to an observation post where a part of the staff of the French army sat overlooking the battle of the Champagne. As we puffed and huffed up the ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White
... struck out at something with her fist. A naked arm had reached out from the underbrush and grasped her wrist. Carr wheeled and his ray pistol spat crackling flame. The savage, an undersized red man with an enormous head, rose unsteadily from his hiding place, a look of terrible hate in his contorted features. Then, ...
— Creatures of Vibration • Harl Vincent
... trampling—but apparently the newcomers did not see Martin and Greyson. There was a crackling of underbrush by feet no longer feeling need of caution, then another space of silence before safety was made sure for the ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... it much more picturesquely. They rode in coats of scarlet, in the crisp, clear morning, to the winding of horns and the baying of hounds, to the thud-thud of hoofs, and the crackle of underbrush. Across fresh-plowed fields they went, crashing through forest paths, leaping ditches, taking fences, scrambling up the inclines, pelting down the hillside, helter-skelter, until, panting, wide-eyed, eager, blood-hungry, the hunt closed ...
— Personality Plus - Some Experiences of Emma McChesney and Her Son, Jock • Edna Ferber
... one's shoulders. The moonlight gave to this forest of great trees a weird, fantastic look. I felt like a knight entering an enchanted wood. But nothing disturbed our silence except the sudden awakening of a great bird or the stealthy rustle of an animal in the underbrush. Near midnight we rode into a grove of manacca palms as delicate as ferns, and each as high as a three-story house, and with fronds so long that those drooping across the trail hid it completely. To ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... Lydia, who was fascinated by the manoeuvre of the girl, did not notice the fact, Mr. Briggerland had reached the shore, pulled on a pair of rubber shoes, and with his mackintosh buttoned over his bathing dress, had begun to climb through the underbrush towards the spot where the glasses had glistened. When Lydia ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... in the shade. [Seeing the negroes who carry the chair] The negroes are good! [Speaking at a distance] Torches, there, you understand you are not to come until you receive the signal? [The faint reflection of the torches is seen at the back of the stage, through the underbrush. Enter the musicians.] Musicians? There— at the back. Now, a little distinction and life! Vary your poses from time to time. Stand straight, mandolin! Sit down, alto! There. [Severely to a swordsman] You, first mask, don't look so harmless—I want a villainous slouch! Good! ...
— The Romancers - A Comedy in Three Acts • Edmond Rostand
... answer of any kind. Jabe waited till the moon, still red and distorted, had risen almost clear of the ridge. Then he called again, and yet again, and again waited. From straight across the strangely-shadowed water came a sudden sharp crashing of underbrush, as if some one had fallen to beating the ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... Mollie led the way through a tangle of trees and underbrush to the center of the little island. Here they found the cave which was only an opening behind an immense old tree that had been uprooted by a storm. A flat rock protruded over the hollow, and the sand had gradually drifted away until the cavity was hardly large enough to hold the three ...
— Madge Morton, Captain of the Merry Maid • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... dinner, out of some provisions stowed away in the old wagon; after which Mitty's father and eldest brother pulled off their coats, stripped up their shirt-sleeves, and went to work to make a "clearing," as they called it, for a log house—felling the trees, and cutting and burning the underbrush. ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... again the way was blocked, trying to beat down a few more of the barriers, open up a little more of that untrodden territory. And only the little band itself would ever know how stony that path, how deep the ditches, how thick and thorny the underbrush. "Why this couldn't have been so bad," the crowd said, after it had flocked in—"strange it ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... at Toulgas in the beginning was very unfavorable, being a long narrow string of villages along the Dvina which was bordered with thick underbrush extending a few hundred yards to the woods. We had a string of machine gun posts scattered through the brush, and when our line of defense was occupied there was less than two platoons left as a reserve. With us at this time we had Company "A" of the 2nd Tenth Royal Scots (British) under Captain ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... a whirring sound familiar to his senses, and saw the oscillating reflection of a bright light around a bend in the road; an automobile. He hastily dived into the underbrush at the side. He had no reason to be afraid, but he felt a shivering repugnance to showing himself to his fellow-creatures in ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... the robber, who fired once more, and then, when Keith was within ten feet of him, turned and sprang over the edge of the road into the thick bushes below. Keith sprang straight after him, and the two went crashing through the underbrush, down the ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... to you, when you were walking alone and in contemplative mood, to lie flat on your face in the grassy underbrush of a forest, amid the peculiar vegetation, of many and varying species, that grows between the fallen autumn leaves, and to let your eyes stray along the level of the earth before you? Gradually the idea of height vanishes, the interlaced branches of the ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... reached a narrow part of the road, where the woods were all about them, the Frenchmen and Indians who were waiting for them behind the great trees and underbrush opened fire upon the British troops, and there came just such a dreadful time as Washington had feared. But even now Braddock would not give in. His soldiers must fight as they had been drilled to fight in Europe; and ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... we can't be shore thet they was rejoicin' expressed in the underbrush an' the forests, ez he says, but I do say, ez I said before, thet Sonny an' the little girl has had the purtiest an' joyfulest weddin' I ever see in this county, an' a good time was had by everybody present. An' it has made me mighty happy—it ...
— Sonny, A Christmas Guest • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... beyond doubt that its primal cause is the removal of the forest cover, such as underbrush, weeds, and grasses, along the streams, which allows the rainfall to run off rapidly. The grazing over these areas by sheep and goats not only exhausts this forest cover, but from the cutting up of the soil and the loosening effect of the thousands of tiny hoofs, the erosive ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... spring woods, streaked with the white dashes of the dogwood, and hung with the tassels of the maple. The foliage was still unfolding, patterned with fresh creases, the prey of a continuous, frail unrest. Little streams chuckled through the underbrush, and from the fusion of woodland whisperings bird notes detached themselves, soft flutings and liquid runs, that gave another expression ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... struggle for a home which will provide a safe and generous support in his old age is that during all the labor and waiting he is enjoying a delightful climate, in which no blizzard drives him from his work. No cyclone endangers his life and fortune. No snakes lurk in the underbrush. No clouds of dust blind his eyes. No sultry summer suns make him gasp for breath, and no intense cold freezes his face or feet. He can work if he wishes as many days as there are in the year, and know that every ...
— A Review of the Resources and Industries of the State of Washington, 1909 • Ithamar Howell
... started off at a brisk trot, and in an hour we were upon the road, which we found crowded with troops and wagons. Pressing through the underbrush along-side the road, we kept on at a rapid pace. We soon heard shouts and cheers ahead of us, and in a few moments came in sight of a farm-house, in front of which was an excited crowd. Men were swarming in at every door and window. The yard was filled with furniture which the troops were angrily ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... thus gaining time to collect the scattered remnants of their army. With a single impulse, though without a leader, they fled across the marshy meadows of Vestergoetland to the north. Their goal was Tiveden, a dreary jungle of stunted pines and underbrush, through which it was expected the enemy would have to pass. Here after two days' march they gathered, and threw up a mighty barrier of felled trees and brushwood, thinking in that way to impede the passage of the Danes. All about them the land, though not mountainous, was rough ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... his breath was recovered, Herbert got up, and headed for these woods. A few minutes found him in the midst of them. He made his way with some difficulty through the underbrush, parting the thick stems with his hands, until he reached a comparatively open space of perhaps an acre in extent. In the midst of this space a rude hut was visible, constructed of logs, and covered with the branches of trees. In front of it, sitting on the stump of a tree, which ...
— Try and Trust • Horatio Alger
... strayed from the party, and with his torch held above his head was slowly making his way through the underbrush, when, emerging from the thicket, his foot touched something which but softly resisted it. Thinking it to be some old and mossy log, he shifted his torch to the other hand, and was preparing to step over the obstacle whatever ...
— Randy and Her Friends • Amy Brooks
... all around towered and frowned the rocks; there was not so much as a crevice opening between them; there was not a spot that Joy could climb. Across, the great tongues of flame tossed themselves into the air, and glared awfully against the sky, which was dark with hurrying clouds. The underbrush was all on fire; two huge pine trees were ablaze, their branches shooting off hotly now and ...
— Gypsy's Cousin Joy • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... became intolerable. He reached for his revolver, and getting quickly out of the bunk, ran to the doorway and threw open the door, to find himself peering into a blackness like a wall, and to hear a hasty crunching of the underbrush that sounded like some animal in ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... about the hill, the trail over which the dead and the mourners go, and the way was through a vast cocoanut-orchard, the trees planted with absolute regularity lifting their waving fronds seventy or eighty feet above the earth. There was no underbrush between the tall gray columns of the palms, only a twisted vegetation covered the ground, and the red volcanic soil of the trail, cutting through the green, was like a ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... from the skirmish-line of the rebels. Without heeding the command, General McPherson and his party wheeled their horses, and at that moment a heavy volley was poured in, killing McPherson and so frightening the horses that they became unmanageable and plunged into the underbrush in different directions. My aide became separated from the General and the rest of the party, and was knocked from his horse by coming in contact with a tree, and lay for some time in an unconscious condition on the ground. As soon as he was sufficiently recovered he returned on foot to ...
— The Battle of Atlanta - and Other Campaigns, Addresses, Etc. • Grenville M. Dodge
... trails the fight occurred. Nearly half a mile separated Roosevelt's men from the regulars, and between, and on both sides of the road in the thick underbrush, was concealed a force of Spaniards that must have been large, judging from the terrific and constant fire they poured in on ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis
... that shook their fruit upon the ice in spots least frequented by skaters. Along the draws that emptied into the stream were pawpaw trees, with their tender foliage, and their soft wood, which little boys delighted to cut for stick horses. Beneath all these trees grew a dense underbrush of buckeyes, blackberries, raspberries, gooseberries, and little red winter berries called Indian beads by the children. Wild grapevines, "poison" grapes, and ivies of both kinds wove the woods ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... ceaseless crackle of rifle fire, could this be determined; for with their smokeless powder and their Indian-like skill in concealment nothing could be seen of their array. Over to the westward on the placid waters of the bay the huge Monadnock was driving shell after shell into the dense underbrush across the abandoned rice fields and the marshy flats that lined the shore. Over to the east resounding cheers and crashing volleys, punctuated by the sharp report of field guns, told that the comrade brigade was heavily ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... when they reached the narrow fringe of trees and underbrush—deciduous and wind-tortured all—which bordered the big, muddy, low-lying Missouri; and soon they could hear the throb of the engine at the mill, and the swish of the saw through the green lumber; a sound that heard near ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... right and the left were advancing, the left-center was repulsed before a strong position which the enemy held in force. They were posted upon an eminence, in front of which were thickets and underbrush. Plenty of artillery strongly supported, crowned this eminence, and Hardee's utmost efforts to carry it had been foiled. So furiously played the batteries of the enemy, that nothing could be seen of the position, but sheets of flame and clouds of ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... below the fort. "It was much swollen, and rushed by with great velocity, washing away the banks and carrying with it numberless snags and trees." Never is the Colorado tranquil. As they followed up the stream they suddenly found the road washed away, and were obliged to cut a new path through the underbrush. This proved a long task, so with the pack-mules he pushed on, leaving the waggons to come later. Antoine Leroux was the guide. When they reached the place he had selected for a camp and had unpacked the mules, it was found that the water could not be approached ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... old man would show himself at daylight in different places removed from his camp in the woods. While squadrons of avengers were scouring the ravines, the river bottoms and the tangled underbrush, he was lying quietly on his arms. Sometimes his pursuers camped within hearing and got their water ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... lame, the column with which he had wished to advance, passed forward to the front unmolested, while the rear guard, to which he had been forced to join his fortune, fought its way through the stifling underbrush. ...
— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis
... made of small saplings and underbrush, hastily collected, the mildness of the weather rendering anything beyond what sufficed for the purposes of cooking and drying the men's clothes, superfluous. The soldiers' tent was pitched at some distance from our own, but not too far for us to ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... tenth time, and stood uncertainly in the dimness. From tall, moss-shrouded trees, wrist-thick vines hung quietly, scraping the spongy ground like the tentacles of some monstrous tree-bound octopus. Fitful little plants grew straggly in the shadows of the mossy trunks, forming a dense underbrush that made walking difficult. At midday some few of the blue sun's rays filtered through to the jungle floor, but now, late afternoon on the planet, the shadows ...
— Survival Tactics • Al Sevcik
... Some underbrush, which, farther on, became forests, embellished the horizon. The doctor went nearer to the ground; the anchors were thrown out, and one of them soon caught in the boughs of a ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... better to consider this very good world as a garden, whose beauty depends largely upon our individual exertions to make it fair. We may cultivate and enjoy the flowers, or let them become so overrun with underbrush that the blossoms are smothered and hidden under the dank growth of the evil-smelling ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... to pass through innumerable thickets of underbrush and briers, and by reason thereof I tore my already much-worn clothes almost into shreds, and lacerated my flesh severely, especially on my arms and legs. I arrived in the swamp, however, without being followed by the dogs, and while proceeding slowly and dejectedly along, my steps were suddenly ...
— Biography of a Slave - Being the Experiences of Rev. Charles Thompson • Charles Thompson
... The underbrush rustled and Flor heard the sound of disturbed leaves and heavy footfalls. A hunting charger was approaching, bearing one of the hunters. Quickly, Flor rose to his feet, sidling farther back into the thicket. Possibly, he might remain unseen. He ...
— Millennium • Everett B. Cole
... Indians were cuffing his ears, and reviling him for a "Tief! A hoss steal! A rascal!" In the morning they mounted him on an unbroken colt, with his hands tied behind him and his legs tied under the horse, and drove it into the briers and underbrush, where his face and hands were torn by the brambles, until the colt quieted down of itself, and followed in line with the other horses. The third day, as they drew near the town of Old Chillicothe, where Boone had been held captive, they were met by the chief Blackfish, ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... added Jerry. "Look out!" he shouted, and he pulled Bob down into the underbrush beside him only just in time, for there came a burst of bullets from a machine gun, concealed in a clump of trees, and but for Jerry's timely act when he saw it, ...
— Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line - The Motor Boys Fighting for Uncle Sam • Clarence Young
... so that the little treetops were always well over us. The patch of woods was dark. A soil of black loam was under us, a thick soft underbrush reached our knees, and lacy, flexible leaves and branches were at our shoulder height. We pushed them aside, forcing our way softly forward. It was not far. The little murmuring voices ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... little black bear feeds, but he could find no sign of life. When he strained his ears to listen there was only the sound of falling water or the clamor of a hidden creek. Sight was of almost as little service among those endless rows of towering trunks, between which the tall fern and underbrush sprang up. There was no distance, scarcely even an alternation of light and shadow. The vision was narrowed in and confused by the unchanging sameness of the great ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... presenting scenes not to be found reproduced elsewhere with any degree of exactness. Looking into the depth of the forest as it slopes away on either side, the impression is of a magnificent park, undefaced by what are called improvements. This effect is produced by the scarcity, or entire absence of underbrush, and a beautiful surface covering of grasses or flowering plants of all kinds and colors, varied here and there with masses of ferns of unusual size and delicate beauty. The most unexpected and lavish feature of the rich display is the many miles of fragrant honeysuckle ...
— Cave Regions of the Ozarks and Black Hills • Luella Agnes Owen
... chamber and out by the rock door, which was rolled aside and standing open. Then around the mass of the mountain and skirting the grove, past the prostrate Pascherette she sped, casting a glance of bitter hate at the sorely wounded octoroon, but never halting until she reached a point of the underbrush immediately behind the spot where Venner and Tomlin still ranged back and forth ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... answer. He penetrated the underbrush, noting where the broken branches had been bent upright after the forced entrance of the car, the better to hide it. The young inventor was, seeking some clew to discover the owner of the machine. To this end he climbed up in the ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-boat - or, The Rivals of Lake Carlopa • Victor Appleton
... after this, the shorter yellow-legged man did hit a bird. It was a water-turkey, that had been sitting on a tree, just as we turned a corner. The big bird spread out its wings, made a doleful flutter, and fell into the underbrush ...
— A Jolly Fellowship • Frank R. Stockton
... was not far off. The night was pitch-dark. Led by Washington, we got through the thick underbrush without much trouble. The grave was dug near the water's edge, where the Missouri and the Yellowstone, meeting, form an angle. A large fire of dry cottonwood at the head of the grave fitfully lit up the dismal scene. A bundle ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... whom the woods were infested. Besides the opposition of an active enemy, were the natural barriers of deep ravines, stony ridges and cliffs, and in many places an almost impassable barrier of dense underbrush and fallen limbs ...
— The Fight for the Argonne - Personal Experiences of a 'Y' Man • William Benjamin West
... Christmas that in the department devoted to toys and games you could not have placed a sheet of foreign notepaper between mothers (with a sprinkling of aunts and grandmas) unless you wanted it torn to pieces before you could count "One!" Children were massed together in a thick, low-growing underbrush, and of their species only babies were able to rise, like cream, to the top. The air, or rather the atmosphere (since all the air had been breathed long ago), was to the nerves what tow is to fire. Nobody could be in it for ten minutes without wanting to hit somebody else or push somebody ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... the fence and led the way toward a wood thick with underbrush, laughing until his heart pained. As ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... the neighborhood of the marl-pit was so irregular, and the thorny underbrush so thick, that when pedestrians wished to reach the nearest highway they, were compelled either to make a long detour or to cross the deepest part of the excavation by means of the trunks of two great trees, which had been cut in ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... rugged peaks and snow fields these natural amphitheaters present a pleasing contrast. Scarcely any underbrush exists in them but many beautiful flowers, shrubs, and trees abound; three hundred distinct plants are said to exist; pretty lakelets gem their surface; and all are drained by trickling streamlets or ...
— The Beauties of the State of Washington - A Book for Tourists • Harry F. Giles
... said a voice almost in a whisper. The next instant a shot rang out, and Gay stumbled forward as though he had tripped over the underbrush, while his gun, slipping from his shoulder, discharged its load into the air. His first confused impression was that he had knocked against a poplar bough which had stuck him sharply in the side. Then, as a small drift of smoke floated toward him, he ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... looked equally large. But what gave the scene its aspect of immensity was the vast spaces separating tree from tree. It was like some gigantic, supernatural hall in a life after death. The lowest branches were fifty yards or more from the ground. There was no underbrush; the soil was carpeted only by the dead, wet leaves. He looked all around him, to find his direction, but the cliffs of Sant, which he had descended, were invisible—every way was like every other way, he had no idea which quarter to attack. He grew frightened, and muttered to himself. Craning ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... gray kitten appeared out of the underbrush, and frisked trustfully across to him. He put out a hand, caressed it, picked it up. In a moment the feminine voice replied, ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... to the left, although the woods were thicker there. They pushed forward, as if passing through a jungle. Branches whipped them in the face, and beneath their feet the underbrush crackled. ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish
... were said by a huntsman peacefully seated at the edge of the forest of Ile-Adam, who was finishing an Havana cigar while waiting for his companion, who had lost his way in the tangled underbrush of the wood. At his side four panting dogs were watching, as he did, the personage he addressed. To understand how sarcastic were these exhortations, repeated at intervals, we should state that the approaching huntsman was a stout little man whose protuberant stomach was ...
— Adieu • Honore de Balzac
... low underbrush in their rubber soled tennis shoes was not like walking out in the open, and just as Dozia breathed a sigh of relief that the landscape gardening went no further, a wild scream, shrill and piercing, cut ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... spirited girl I think Father might have loved me, but I was neither. At first I did not think or care about my lack of beauty; then one day I was alone in the beech wood; I was trying to disentangle my skirt which had caught on some thorny underbrush. A young man came around the curve of the path and, seeing my predicament, bent with murmured apology to help me. He had to kneel to do it, and I saw a ray of sunshine falling through the beeches above ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... reported, and my staff and orderlies being engaged reforming troops and caring for prisoners, I rode alone to investigate. After proceeding in the woods a short distance, to my surprise I came upon Tucker's brigade in line of battle, partly concealed by underbrush. To avoid capture I resorted to a ruse. In a loud voice I gave the command, "Forward," and it was repeated by the Confederate officers all along the line. I turned to ride towards my own troops. The dense thicket prevented speed and the marines ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... Grant groves, and Mariposa belongs to the state. It is against the law to cut the trees in those groves. Their worst enemy is fire, and a troop of cavalry is sent every year to guard them, and to keep out the sheep-herders, whose flocks would destroy the underbrush and young trees. But, unfortunately, lumbermen have put up mills near the Fresno and Kings River groups, and, wasting more than they use, are destroying magnificent trees thousands of years old in order to make shingles. When nature has taken such good care of this rare ...
— Stories of California • Ella M. Sexton
... the trees and underbrush swing into place, covering her exit. So tense and motionless he stood, one might have suspected him of trying to conjure her back again by the simple magic of heart and will. It turned out a disappointing piece of conjuring, however; ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... secrets of the affections are hid, and to whom all hearts are laid open, she had heard the story of Hawkins's folly, and the existence of the "Idiot Asylum." Alone, on Hawkins Hill, she had determined to penetrate its seclusion. Skirting the underbrush at the foot of the hill, she managed to keep the heaviest timber between herself and the "Blazing Star" tunnel at its base, as well as the cabin of Hawkins, half-way up the ascent, until, by a circuitous route, at ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... with weariness as he strode along the highway, for in the crisp air a tonic was borne, but loss of sleep had made his senses dreamy, and all things about him were touched with the spirit of unreality—the dead leaves fluttering on the underbrush, the purple mist rising from the fields, the water-mirrors flashing in the road; and so surrendered was he to a listless brooding, forgetful even that he moved along, that he did not notice, up the road, a man leap aside ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... from his limb, withdrawing his supporting arm from Rod's waist, and was about to descend to the ground when the pack again turned in their direction. A heavy crashing in the underbrush not a dozen rods away sent Wabi in a hurried scramble ...
— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... in hand everything connected with my little command, I advanced with five or six men to the edge of a growth of underbrush to make a reconnoissance. We stole along under cover of this underbrush until we reached the open ground leading over the causeway or narrow neck before mentioned, when the enemy opened fire and killed a soldier near my side by ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... as soon as their boat was seized by the profane touch of the savages, fell back as if lifeless in their canoe. The assembled flotilla was directed to the shore. The 'devils' were lifted out rigid and lifeless and carried solemnly into the forest. The leaves of the underbrush closed behind them and they were concealed from sight, but from the deck of the ship the French could still hear the noise of cries and incantations that broke the stillness of the woods. After half an hour Taignoagny and Domagaya issued from among the trees. Their walk and their actions were solemnity ...
— The Mariner of St. Malo: A Chronicle of the Voyages of Jacques Cartier • Stephen Leacock
... have been struck by the same fact concerning its loneliness, for hurriedly replacing his pistol in his breast pocket, he rode slowly forward. I instantly conceived the plan of striking across the belt of underbrush that separated me from this old dwelling, and by taking my stand opposite its front, intercept a view of Mr. Blake as he approached. Hastily dismounting, therefore, I led my horse into the bushes and tied her to a tree, ...
— A Strange Disappearance • Anna Katharine Green
... Amory said, shuddering. "Any kind of foliage or underbrush at night. Out here it's so broad and easy on ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... and dashed madly away, strength having come with sudden abhorrence. She looked after him in alarm, her eyes wide with the fear that he was bereft of reason. Down the rocks and up the beach he fled, disappearing among the strangely shaped trees and underbrush that marked the outskirts of the jungle. Again she leaned back against the rock and looked at the unfriendly billows beyond, a feeling that she sat deserted forever on that barren shore plunging her soul into the ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... that morning. The Rebel dead and badly wounded laid where they had fallen. The bottom and opposite side of the ravine showed how destructive our fire and that of the canister from the howitzers had been. The underbrush was cut, slashed, and torn into shreds, and the larger trees were scarred, bruised and broken by the thousands of bullets and other missiles that had been poured into them from almost every conceivable direction ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... condemned to live in a mental jungle where his arm will soon be too feeble to clear away the growths that enclose him, and his eyes too weak to find the light." The man who has allowed his mental capacities to clear his way through the dense underbrush of religious dogma finds that he has emerged into a purer and healthier atmosphere. In the bright light of this mental emancipation a man perceives the falsities of all religions in their historic, scientific, and metaphysical aspects. The healthier mental viewpoint ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... simple as it sounded. The stream had worn a deep channel among the rocks. Trees had fallen across it, undermined by the swift current. Here it roared through a narrow gorge and there spread into a wide pool, then again plunged through underbrush and among rocks in its haste to reach the lake far below. The goats made slow progress and, whenever it was possible to do so, wandered away into easier paths and had to be ...
— The Swiss Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... Ferry, picking at the underbrush as we sauntered, and for some time he said no more. Then he asked, "You want me to apply that to myself, in—in the present case?" and to my tender amazement, while his eyes seemed to count his slackening steps, he laid his arm across ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... inconspicuous formations, by using such formations as to minimize the effect of the enemy's fire. Discipline at this stage of the attack is essential. Each company in the firing line will probably start its advance upon its objective in column of squads, but taking advantage of all cover. If thick underbrush is found, squad columns would probably be used. If the enemy's artillery fire becomes too effective platoon columns or thin lines are used, dependent upon terrain, cover and the time element. Every opportunity is taken to assemble the companies and continue ...
— The Plattsburg Manual - A Handbook for Military Training • O.O. Ellis and E.B. Garey
... more upon Theosophy. Every strange weed and sucker that can grow anywhere flourishes in the soil of her mind, and if a germ of truth or common- sense does chance to exist in any absurd theory, it is choked by the time it has lain there among the underbrush for a little space; so that when she begins her harvesting (which is always a long while before anything is ripe), one can never tell precisely what sort of ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... until the road turned toward the range and an opening which he followed into a steeper and narrower rift beyond. Here there were no clearings in the rocky underbrush until he reached Richmond Braley's land. A long upturning sweep ended at the house, directly against the base of the mountain; and without decreasing his gait he passed over the faintly traced way, by the ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... view with the fury of a beast, rending the wood away and trampling the underbrush, reeling and muttering until he saw her. She looked at him. Her hands dropped, she stood very still with drawn face, grayish-brown, both hands unconsciously out-stretched, and the cotton swaying, while deep down in her eyes, dimly, slowly, a horror ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... the light now freely streamed, the past seemed quite dead. The first rains had washed the traces of their footsteps from the sandy paths, the winds had swept every other lingering memorial into the underbrush. But Albine, with grief at her throat, shot out a protesting glance. She could still plainly see their lightest footprints on the sandy gravel, and, as they passed each bush, the warmth with which they had once brushed against it surged to her cheeks. With ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... as I bid." He started back again through the trees, swiftly, swinging monkey-like from limb to limb, following a zigzag course that he tried to select with an eye for the difficulties of the trail beneath. Where the underbrush was heaviest, where fallen trees blocked the way, he led the footsteps of the creature below them; but all to no avail. When they reached the opposite side of the gorge the gryf was ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... before long!" Tommy argued. "He can't make any headway out there in the underbrush, and the fellow who was here will probably run away from him before he gets three rods from ...
— Boy Scouts in Northern Wilds • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... place than Kentucky. There was no road leading to Pigeon Creek; only a path through the forest. It was so narrow that sometimes Tom had to clear away some underbrush before they could go on. Or else he had to stop to cut down a tree that stood in their way. Abe, who was big and strong for his age, had his own little ax. He helped his ...
— Abe Lincoln Gets His Chance • Frances Cavanah
... left the lady to whose arm she had been clinging, and making her way along behind bushes and underbrush, she managed to sneak in at the door of the hut, without having been seen by the party ...
— Dorothy Dainty at the Mountains • Amy Brooks
... CHANTECLER, tossing and twisting her head so that the colours ripple at her throat.] Have you noticed these two shades? They are our own especial colours—the Dawn's and mine! Princess of the underbrush, queen of the glade, I am pleased to wear the yellow locks of an adventuress. Dreamy and homesick for my unknown home, I choose my palaces among the rustling flags and withered irises that fringe the pool. I dote upon the forest, and when it smells ...
— Chantecler - Play in Four Acts • Edmond Rostand
... Clay selected was Lexington in Kentucky,—then a small village in the midst of beautiful groves without underbrush, where the soil was of virgin richness, and the landscape painted with almost perpetual verdure; one of the most attractive spots by nature on the face of the earth,—a great contrast to the flat prairies of Illinois, or the tangled forests ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord
... to find the necessary timbers of sufficient size, for they must be at least a foot in diameter. When found, the trees are cut down and carried to the site selected, which must have fairly level surroundings, free from dense wood and underbrush, so as to afford a clear space for the ceremonial processions and dances. Four heavy posts are necessary—"legs," the Navaho call them—and these must be trimmed so as to leave a strong fork at the top of each at least 6 feet from the ground when set upright. Four others, for the horizontal ...
— Navaho Houses, pages 469-518 • Cosmos Mindeleff
... spanned a creek some twenty feet below. The colonel paused for a moment beside the railing, and looked up and down the stream. It seemed narrower and more sluggish than his memory had pictured it. Above him the water ran between high banks grown thick with underbrush and over-arching trees; below the bridge, to the right of the creek, lay an open meadow, and to the left, a few rods away, the ruins of the old Eureka cotton mill, which in his boyhood had harboured a flourishing industry, but which had remained, since Sherman's army laid waste the country, ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... the Harlem River. The several columns pushed forward nearly at the same time. Rall and Knyphausen encountered the most serious obstacles, and met with the most obstinate resistance. Their course lay through woods and underbrush and heavy abattis, felled by the Americans. As they approached Rawlings, his men received them with a destructive and determined fire, which lasted a long time. Rall's force, including the newly arrived Waldeckers, fought desperately, and, as Cornwallis ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... hid him. As the crashing sound of the huge dog through the underbrush ceased he noticed a woman coming leisurely toward him. Her arms were full of bitter-sweet berries and flaming autumn leaves. She wore no hat and Fenneben saw that her gray hair was wound like a coronal about her head. ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter
... and its breath was hot and sultry. As Pascherette plunged deeper into the woods, the heavy boom of the seas along shore died away and gave place to the softer, more vibrant hum and murmur of the great trees. The track, little more than a line of flattened underbrush, vanished before she had gone fifty yards; but the little octoroon was no stranger to nocturnal rambles, her keen eyes, and, keener still, her sense of direction, led her unerringly through the shades toward ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... something mildly though surely compelling in Tom's manner. Alf Drew went along, though he didn't wish to. The two were just at the fringe of the thick underbrush when there came a warning sound just ahead ...
— The Young Engineers in Nevada • H. Irving Hancock
... as I spake them thus gently) I espied the fugitive on his knees, saw him whip up one of my muskets (all in a moment) and fire or ever I might stay him. The shot was answered by a cry and out from the underbrush a man reeled, clasping his hurt and so fell and lay a-groaning. At this his comrades let fly their shot in answer and made off forthwith. Deserted thus, the wounded man scrambled to hands and knees and began to creep ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... hours in the saddle. All semblance of a trail seemed to end a mile or so beyond the camp. The ride became a succession of scrambles across treacherous slides of shale, succeeded by plunges into apparently impenetrable walls of underbrush and low-hanging trees. The general course of the river was followed. At times they had climbed to such a height that the stream was merely a white line beneath them, and its voice could not be heard. Then they would descend and cross and recross the stream. The wild ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman
... that has been paid to developing the paragon chestnut in orchard farming has been on the plan Mr. Sober has just shown, by clearing away the mountain side and cutting down everything but the chestnut sprouts. This photograph was taken in a thicket where the underbrush had not been cleared away. Those are a good age now or perhaps a little bit older than we usually graft, aren't ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Third Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... village that Miss Cather lays her chief stress but upon the girl's hard, unspeculative, daemonic integrity. She lifts herself from alien conditions hardly knowing what she does, almost as a powerful animal shoulders its instinctive way through scratching underbrush to food and water. Thea may be checked and delayed by all sorts of human complications but her deeper nature never loses the sense of its proper direction. Ambition with her is hardly more than the passion of self-preservation in ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren
... nest, Half-hidden in the underbrush: A withered leaf, in phantom jest, Has nestled in it like a thrush With ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
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