"Trigger" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and shirt and tore a rag from his shoulder, disclosing a vivid wound. "I ain't the only one that's quick on the trigger!" ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... of a musket lock, as the piece was brought to a full cock. It was too dark to see anything. My companion carried an Enfield rifle, and instantly stopping his horse, he cocked his piece and pulled the trigger, almost without a pause. Of course I was somewhat alarmed and astonished; but before I could do more than stop my horse, my escort dismounted, handed me his reins, and whispering that I was to remain there, walked slowly forward toward the spot where I had ...
— The Oaths, Signs, Ceremonies and Objects of the Ku-Klux-Klan. - A Full Expose. By A Late Member • Anonymous
... river, and saw no blacks there; as we proceeded we gathered nondas, and lived upon them and the meat; we stopped at a little creek and it came on raining, and Costigan shot himself; in putting his saddle under the tarpaulin, a string caught the trigger and the ball went in under the right arm and came out at his back under the shoulder; we went on this morning all of us, and stopped at another creek in the evening, and the next morning we killed a horse named Browney, smoked him that night and went on next ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray
... riding the horse that he himself had ridden that afternoon from Antioch to Daphne, followed on a mule by Cadmus, the slave who had brought the letter which had pulled the trigger that set the catapults of destiny in motion. Making a wide circuit, they helped Scylax catch ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy
... formidable-looking soldiers were the Flemish gunners, or harquebusiers, so named from the barbarous Latin word arcusbusus, evidently derived from the Italian arcabouza—i.e., a bow with a tube or hole. It was made with a stock and trigger, in imitation of the crossbow. The match, no longer applied by the hand to the touchhole, was fixed into a cock, which was brought down to the pan by the motion of the trigger. This being at the time a recent invention, excited no little ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... in his fury, and, snatching a rifle from one of his Indians who were near him, aimed it at Claude, and pulled the trigger. ...
— The Lily and the Cross - A Tale of Acadia • James De Mille
... that the chance was too good to be missed. Of course, I might have had a pot at him from the bank, but the chances were I wouldn't have hit him in a vital place. So I swam across to the sandbank, put the muzzle of my gun in his mouth, and pulled the trigger. I have rarely seen a ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... Mrs. Baker might be given to him. 'Drawing my revolver quietly, I held it within two feet of his chest,' Baker writes, 'and looking at him with undisguised contempt, I told him that if I touched the trigger, not all the men could save him: and that it he dared to repeat the insult I would shoot him on the spot. At the same time, I explained to him that in my country such insolence would entail bloodshed; and I looked upon him as an ignorant ox who knew no better; and that ...
— Noble Deeds of the World's Heroines • Henry Charles Moore
... or a mountain wolf," mutters Maxime Valois. He resumes his tramp along the rocky ramparts of the Californian Coast Range. His eyes are strained to pierce the night. He waits, his finger on the trigger of ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... back before his eyes to vibrate into stillness. It was a bamboo dagger, sharpened to a keen edge and point, hardened by charring in a slow fire. Fastened to a young sapling, it had been bent down over the trail and secured by a trigger his foot had released in passing. Level with his thigh, it had been designed to pierce the abdomen of the Hillmen's natural foes. He bent to examine the glutinous material with which the dagger was poisoned, and paled as he considered his close ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... of the Umbrella. The machine is thus kept expanded during descent. The car is fastened to the centre cord, and the whole attached to the balloon in such a manner that it may be readily and quickly detached, either by cutting a string, or pulling a trigger. Consequently, in the East, where the Umbrella has been from the earliest ages in familiar use, it appears to have been occasionally employed by vaulters, to enable them to jump safely from great heights. Father Loubre, in his curious account of Siam, ...
— Umbrellas and their History • William Sangster
... so that if he or his companions met Marcum they were prepared to kill him. The plot, so Mose declared, was to entice Marcum to his office on some pretext or other. Mose was to waylay him and pull the trigger. Mose went further. He told Marcum that the county officials had promised him immunity from punishment if he would carry out the plot and kill Marcum. When at last the election contest furore had quieted down Marcum concluded ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... fell over backwards. "Why, yes. It's sudden, but ... why, yes. I could use more capital, and I want a crack salesman. I'll trade—if you're quick on the trigger. I've got two or three people interested so far, but ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... was in a perfect frenzy of rage at the humiliation the stranger had put upon him, had at last succeeded in drawing the revolver. He had stopped, and now he deliberately raised it to Tarzan's breast and pulled the trigger. The hammer fell with a futile click on an empty chamber—the ape-man's hand shot out like the head of an angry python; there was a quick wrench, and the revolver sailed far out across the ship's rail, and dropped ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... of his wife flinging off vigorous men as if they were so many feathers, is often enough to deter a man from ever striving to wrong her. He will be like the child who, having pulled the trigger of some terrific engine, has ever afterwards an incredible respect for the smallest spring. I have known a man, gentle and amiable in his ways, whose eyes were fixed upon those of his wife, exactly ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... 'Pears like I nebber hear a cannon sound so big. De Ku Kluckers 'peared ter hear it too, fer dey comed squar outen h'yer inter de big road. Den I opened up an' let her bark at 'em ez long ez I could see a shadder ter pull trigger on. Wonder ef I hurt enny on 'em. D'yer know, 'Gena, wuz enny on ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... again on all-fours, the shaggy hair on his neck and shoulders seeming to bristle as he turned toward us. As he sank down on his fore feet, I had raised the rifle; his head was bent slightly down, and when I saw the top of the white bead fairly between his small, glittering, evil eyes, I pulled trigger. Half-rising up, the huge beast fell over on his side in the death throes, the ball having gone into his brain, striking as fairly between the eyes as if the ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... the sun for full half of the year, Made each glacier a blizzard blown trap, They strung out volcanoes half way to Japan Each one with a hair trigger cap. They planned for the coast line a system of storms Each equipped with a ninety mile breath And then spread o'er it all the fog that men call The North Coast mantle ...
— Rhymes of a Roughneck • Pat O'Cotter
... wearing a Mackinaw and shoe-packs. Saw a bear loping along. He had—Morton had—a .44-.40 Marlin, but only one shell. Thrust the muzzle of his rifle right into the bear's mouth. Scared for a minute. Almost fell off his snow-shoes. Hardest thing he ever did, to pull that trigger. Fired. Bear sort of jumped at him, then rolled over, clawing. Great ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... if he was to be saved from a serious, perhaps even a fatal, stab, prompt action was necessary, so without waiting for further developments I cocked my gun, and, making a lunge with it at the man who seemed to be Smellie's most formidable antagonist, pulled the trigger just as the muzzle struck his side, and poured the contents of the barrel into his body. At such very close quarters the charge of shot took effect like a bullet, and the fellow staggered backwards and fell to the ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... had to pass, and it opened the ball with a general and profound courtesy to the piping pickets; ducking in perfect time, as though it had been brazed on a rod. Being half capable of thinking for itself, it fired a volley by the simple process of pitching its rifle into its shoulder and pulling the trigger. The bullets may have accounted for some of the watchers on the hill side, but they certainly did not affect the mass of enemy in front, while the noise of the rifles drowned any orders that might have ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... admit of the entrance of any bear that was likely to come that way. The roof was held in this position by a stout lever, which rested across the limb of a convenient tree. A rope led from the other end of the lever, down through a hole in the roof, to the trigger, to which the bait—an ear of corn—was attached. The bear was expected to crawl through the opening and seize the ear of corn; and in so doing, he would spring the trigger, release the lever and the roof would fall down and fasten him in the pen. When all the finishing ...
— The Boy Trapper • Harry Castlemon
... passed out of sight between Bartley and Colonel Clifford, for what the young people heard now was quite enough to make what Sir Lucius O'Trigger calls a very pretty quarrel. Bartley, hitherto known to Mary as a very oily speaker, shouted at the top of his voice in arrogant defiance, "You're not a child, are you? You are old enough to read papers before you ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... move," was the laconic but excellent speech of Mr. Henry Plumb. He already had his forefinger on the trigger of ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... the gun aside and turned away. It was better so. Possibly at the climaxing instant he might have lacked the firmness to aim and press the trigger. This was simpler, easier, more in keeping with Vincent Farley's deserts; more satisfying to ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... instantly sprang upon his feet. Dice were then thrown upon the head of a drum, and he told the numbers that were thrown up, by bowing his head as many times as there were numbers indicated. He discharged a pistol, by drawing with his teeth a string that was fastened to the trigger. He fired a small cannon by means of a match which was attached to his right foot, and he exhibited no signs of fear at the report of the cannon. He leaped through a hoop several times, with the greatest agility—his master holding the hoop at ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth
... democracy is not a quick-trigger war-engine and can't be made into one. When the quick-trigger engines get to work, they forget that a democracy does not consider fighting the first duty of man. You can bend your energies to peaceful pursuits or you can bend them to war. It's hard to do both at the same time. The Germans are the ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... fired at ran forward three or four steps, and then pitched flat on his face. For a flash Aldous thought that it was Mortimer FitzHugh. Then, along his gun barrel, he saw FitzHugh—and pulled the trigger. It was a miss. ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... he said. "You've got to coax him, and not use force. Pull the trigger easily, as though you loved it, and hold the butt affectionate-like against the shoulder. It's an easy matter to shoot as you're shooting now. There's shooting and shooting, and you've got to shoot straight. If you don't you're no dashed good! Give me the rifle, you're ...
— The Amateur Army • Patrick MacGill
... safe out of the corner where he had me trapped, with all the deck to dodge about. Just forward of the main-mast I stopped, drew a pistol from my pocket, took a cool aim, though he had already turned and was once more coming directly after me, and drew the trigger. The hammer fell, but there followed neither flash nor sound; the priming was useless with sea-water. I cursed myself for my neglect. Why had not I, long before, reprimed and reloaded my only weapons? Then I should not have been as now, a mere ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the face of Jean Croisset became no more than a mask of what it had been. The taunting smile left his lips and a gray pallor spread over his face as he saw Howland's finger crooked firmly on the trigger of his revolver. In another instant there came the sound ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood
... hasty; she was hasty. It is easier to set forces of love or hate moving than to check them in motion. Sometimes I think, Burke, that people were in certain ways less reckless in the good old days when they had perpetually before their eyes the vision of a hair-trigger God, always cocked and ready to shoot if they crossed the line of duty. But Nelly is coming bravely through a severe test of character. May I offer ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... a stronger card than I possess. I might urge that by pulling the trigger you would certainly alarm the house and the neighbourhood, and put a halter round your neck. But it strikes me as safer to assume you capable of using a pistol with effect at three paces. With what might happen subsequently I will not pretend to be concerned. The fate of your neck"—he ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... don't need it, do you?" said Casey. "Observe, the gentleman still keeps his sawed-off yeggman's delight in his pocket. Pull it, friend, pull it! Don't scorch the cloth by pressing the trigger where it is. Steady, Shiner, while the ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... the opinion that the wave of the hat was merely a bit of Latin extravagance. They soon found out, however, that it had the significance of a signal. For, as the fellow dropped into cover, the grass became alive with human forms. Coyote Pete's finger, which had been trembling upon the trigger, pressed it. ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... of birds tearing a cloth with their beaks and feet, shrieking, tugging, and fighting, as if each wanted it for himself. 'Well,' said the Hunter, 'this is wonderful! It is just as the old woman said'; and he took his gun on his shoulder, pulled the trigger, and shot into the midst of them, so that their feathers flew about. Then the flock took flight with much screaming, but one fell dead, and the cloak fluttered down. Then the Hunter did as the old woman had told him: he cut open the bird, found its heart, ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang
... that grim crime beneath the surgeon's knife, The honorable gentlemen deplored the loss of life; Bear witness of those chanting choirs that burk and shirk and snigger, No man laid hand upon the knife or finger to the trigger! ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... the trigger of this pistol," challenged Tag, "will you be able to offer the girls ...
— The High School Boys in Summer Camp • H. Irving Hancock
... doctor clutched his revolver, with his finger on the trigger. In spite of his pledged word, he did not hesitate. If the adversary touched the end of the bed, the shot would be fired ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... up and brought a rifle to his shoulder. At that I let out a yell, and he turned to me like a flash, and pulled his trigger. But he was in too much of a hurry, an' the ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... a gasping cry and tried to pull the trigger, but it was stiff, her fingers had gone to sleep and refused to obey her. The pistol ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... courage of another type of American girl. The knife looked terrible; but it was sheathed and tucked into a belt. Anthony's Browning was in Monny's hand, and hidden only under her serge coat. Out it came, with a warning click of the trigger. And with an astonished, frightened gurgle in his throat ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... i., p. 415.).—Swords "ceased to be worn as an article of dress" through the influence of Beau Nash, and were consequently first out of fashion in Bath. "We wear no swords here," says Sir Lucius O'Trigger. ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 37. Saturday, July 13, 1850 • Various
... the rifle and aims at a target a foot high on the other side of the room, and when his aim is satisfactory, pulls the trigger. When this is done an electrical connection is made which shoots forward the rod which is on the standard, so that its point punches a hole in a miniature target like a visiting card, which is placed in front of it, which hole is ...
— A report on the feasibility and advisability of some policy to inaugurate a system of rifle practice throughout the public schools of the country • George W. Wingate
... wouldn't suit me to own up that I was afraid of my friends—and I don't want to believe there are any of them who would injure me. If there were, I could not draw trigger on them in ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... fight was now begun in earnest, and B.-P., on a rock directing the movements of his force, was surrounded by the deafening roar of artillery. In nearly every cave on those hills savages lay with rifle to shoulder, finger on trigger, waiting to pick off the besiegers as they came bounding over the rocks towards them. The Cape Boys never wavered; up they dashed, panting and sweating, to the very mouths of the caves, fired their rifles ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... one shot at the constable, Mears, and subsequently chopped at him with his dirk, he went into the house, seized a loaded pistol, and on coming out, said: 'Now, am I not your Saviour?' The words were scarcely out of his mouth, when he pulled the trigger of his pistol, and shot ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... the situation, Druse now brought the butt of his rifle against his cheek by cautiously pushing the barrel forward through the bushes, cocked the piece, and glancing through the sights covered a vital spot of the horseman's breast. A touch upon the trigger and all would have been well with Carter Druse. At that instant the horseman turned his head and looked in the direction of his concealed foeman—seemed to look into his very face, into his eyes, into his brave, ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... could not last. Much as they had suffered in the assault, the assailants were too numerous to be longer held at bay. With a feeling of despair, Harold recognised the futile click that followed his pressure on the trigger and told him that he had ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various
... the step again. His finger was trembling on the trigger, when down the path leisurely walked an old gentleman attired in black, a hammer in his hand, and a pair of gleaming spectacles poised placidly upon the bridge of an intellectual Roman nose. And this queer game halted in the middle of the deer-path, all unconscious ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... was in readiness Robinson bade Friday follow him. They went slowly out into the forest along the stream. Soon Robinson espied a rabbit sitting under a clump of grass. Robinson raised his gun, took careful aim, pressed the trigger. There was a flash and loud report and there lay the rabbit dead. But Friday, too, was lying on the ground. He had fainted from astonishment and fright. Robinson dropped his gun and raised the poor fellow up to a sitting position. He quickly recovered. He ran to get the rabbit. He ...
— An American Robinson Crusoe - for American Boys and Girls • Samuel. B. Allison
... structures and modes of behaviour. The expression of the masculine and feminine characters is in some cases under the control of hormones or chemical messengers which are carried by the blood from the reproductive organs throughout the body, and pull the trigger which brings about the development of an antler or a wattle or a decorative plume or a capacity for vocal and saltatory display. In some cases it is certain that the female carries in a latent state the masculine features, but these are kept from ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... peered along the sights. I heard a little sigh of satisfaction as he cuddled the butt into his shoulder; and saw that amazing target, the black man on the yellow ground, standing clear at the end of his foresight. For an instant he was rigid and motionless. Then his finger tightened on the trigger. There was a strange, loud whiz and a long, silvery tinkle of broken glass. At that instant Holmes sprang like a tiger on to the marksman's back, and hurled him flat upon his face. He was up again in a ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... warning, had begun to shriek and whirl, cutting to and fro with his terrible campilan, and before any one could prevent, he had felled two troopers. With a howl, Lewis plunged into their midst, pistol leveled, but before he could pull the trigger, the Moro buried the sword in his own vitals ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... the child he was endeavouring to soothe and made for the bed and his own pistol, and, mistaking a reflection of the assassin for the assassin himself, sent his shot sidewise at a mirror just as the other let go the trigger which drove a similar bullet into his breast. The course of the one was straight and fatal and that of the other deflected. Striking the mirror at an oblique angle, the bullet fell to the floor where it was picked up by the crawling child, and, as was most natural, thrust ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... little Animals at work, even as in the contrivance of killing a Fox or Wolf with a Gun, the moving of a string, is the death of the Animal; for the Beast, by moving the flesh that is laid to entrap him, pulls the string which moves the trigger, and that lets go the Cock which on the steel strikes certain sparks of fire which kindle the powder in the pann, and that presently flies into the barrel, where the powder catching fire rarifies and drives out the bullet ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... skirmishers were just beyond a little valley, behind trees on the opposite hill, about two hundred yards from us. I could see them looking out from behind the trees and firing. I took good aim at one and pulled the trigger; his bullet came back at me; I loaded and fired; I saw him no more, but I could see the smoke shoot out from the side of the tree and hear his bullet sing. I thought that I ought to have hit him; I saw him again, and fired, and missed. Then I carefully considered the distance, ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... that box that you have dragged about London and carried on your defenceless shoulders, sleep, at the trigger's mercy, the ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... Buck struggled to his feet to face his assailant, drawing his gun instinctively. The knife had bitten too deeply, however. With a groan he fell; weakly he tried to level his gun, his finger twitching convulsively at the trigger. Peruna waited to see if he had strength enough to fire. A sneering smile added to the evil appearance of his face. Seeing Buck helpless, he snatched the gun from his hand. Then he turned his victim over so he could reach the pocket of his waistcoat. With the blood-stained knife he ripped open the ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller
... much bravery to pull a trigger behind a bush," muttered Decoud to himself. "Fortunately, the night is dark, or there would be but little chance of saving ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... friends. Creeping softly along, he came in view of them standing near the fence, reloading their guns, and looking intently at the people at the fort gate. Taking [255] a deliberate aim at one of them, he touched the trigger. His gun flashed, and the ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... nothing more; he only knew that he raised his arm and pressed with all his strength upon the trigger. Soon he saw a little smoke before him; his opponent was still standing in the same position, and there was a small white cloud above his head. They had both fired. All was over! His second and the doctor felt him, unbuttoned his garments, and asked anxiously: "Are you wounded?" He replied: ...
— Bel Ami • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... loaded gun is such another stock of substance capable of yielding energy in consequence of a change of state in the mechanism of the lock, which intervenes between the finger of the man who pulls the trigger and the cartridge. If that change is brought about, the potential energy of the powder passes suddenly into actual energy, and does the work of propelling the bullet. The powder, therefore, may be appropriately called ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... way," he went on to explain, "we mean getting an object in the proper focus, and then clicking the trigger of the camera. We are ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren
... blowpipes, through which they released a shower of darts. But the darts bounced off the fur, and the thing came on. Bradley fumbled for his gun, and almost dropped it in his excitement. When he finally brought it up into aiming position, his hand was trembling, and his finger could hardly catch the trigger. ...
— Divinity • William Morrison
... shot every animal in the herd seemed to flatten itself and settle to its work. They did not run—they simply flew across the ground, their legs showing only as a blur. The one I killed was four hundred yards away, and I held four feet ahead when I pulled the trigger. They could not have been traveling less than fifty-five or sixty miles an hour, for they were running in a semicircle about the car while we were moving at forty miles in ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... were probably amongst the boldest sportsmen in the world, and they formed the most picturesque and, romantic section of the rebels. Their only weapon was an old-fashioned percussion gun, with long barrel and a brass trigger seven to eight inches in length. Many of them fired not from the shoulder, but from the hip. They never missed. They could only fire one charge in an attack, owing to the time required to load. They were trained to stalk ...
— Korea's Fight for Freedom • F.A. McKenzie
... of all control. He pressed the trigger under his finger and the bullet struck the man before him, who had turned to continue his flight, full in the back. "And that is how I became a murderer." With these words Herbert Thorne concluded his narrative. He appeared quite calm now. He was really calmer, ...
— The Lamp That Went Out • Augusta Groner
... shortest way of doing this. He, too, was alarmed now. Raising his gun above his head, he pulled the trigger three times in quick succession. As many sharp flashes leaped into the air, and as many ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Texas - Or, The Veiled Riddle of the Plains • Frank Gee Patchin
... Grigosie lowered the rifle which he had held ready for use, his finger resting lightly on the trigger; but he did not move from his post until ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... was another matter. Instinctively the spy knew his danger. This was not a man to hesitate about pulling a trigger, and his life, in the hollow of Stair Garland's hand, would weigh no heavier than a puff of dandelion smoke which a gust of wind carries along with it. So from his first acquaintance with him the spy had ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... turned. Dick levelled his pistol instantly at Austin, with murderous hate in his eyes, and drew the trigger. The pistol clicked harmlessly. Austin, self-conscious, did not raise his pistol. But Dick, broadening his chest, glared at him and shouted, ...
— Viviette • William J. Locke
... at least without honor, filled himself full of brandy, cocked a forty-five-calibre revolver, put the muzzle in his mouth, pulled the trigger, blew off the back of his head, and was "accidentally shot ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... an egg of meat. He rode a little behind me, with his gun across his saddlebow, and a pistol near his hand; and at the slightest pause on my part, or if I turned to look at him, he muttered his constant 'Forward, Monsieur!' in a tone which warned me that his finger was on the trigger. At such a distance he could not miss; and I saw nothing for it but to go on meekly before him to the Roca ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... start a chemical change. You already know this in a practical way. You know that you have to rub the head of a match and get it hot before it will begin to burn; that gunpowder does not go off unless you heat it by the sudden blow of the gun hammer which you release when you pull the trigger; that you have to concentrate the sun's rays with a magnifying glass to make it set a piece of paper on fire; and that to change raw food into food that tastes pleasant you have to heat it. If heat did not start chemical change, you could never cook ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... some days he had been in despair, and desired several different Indians to shoot him; and an Indian boy saw him kill himself in the following manner; he put the muzzle of his gun under his chin, and with his great toe pushed the trigger."[1] ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... of pre-arrangement that determined whether the stone from the cliff should fall on point A or point B—the same sort of process that guided the pen to make legible and effective writing instead of illegible and ineffective scrawls—the same kind of control that determines when and where a trigger shall be pulled so as to secure the anticipated slaughter of a bird. So far as energy is concerned, the explosion and the trigger-pulling are the same identical operations whether the aim be exact or random. It is intelligence which directs; it is physical ...
— Life and Matter - A Criticism of Professor Haeckel's 'Riddle of the Universe' • Oliver Lodge
... at the windows, lest some eye might be spying her action even through the thick blinds, she took the weapon in her hand and held it up so that she might feel, if possible, how it would be with her when she should attempt the deed. She looked very narrowly at the lock, of which the trigger was already back at its place, so that no exertion of arrangement might be necessary for her at the fatal moment. Never as yet had she fired a pistol;—never before had she held such a weapon in her hand;—but she thought that she could do it ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... see that Montcalm was preparing to advance, and in a few moments all his troops appeared in rapid motion. They came on in three divisions, shouting after the manner of their nation, and firing heavily as soon as they came within range. In the British ranks not a trigger was pulled, not a soldier stirred, and their ominous composure seemed to damp the spirits of the assailants. It was not till the French were within forty yards that the fatal word was given, and the British muskets blazed forth at once in one crashing ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... is on his pistol, On its ornamented stock, While his finger feels the trigger And is busy with the lock— The other seeks his ataghan, And clasps its jewell'd hilt— Oh! much of gore in days of yore ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... outlines of things were more or less vague; but I followed the dog about until at last I made him out standing on a pile of boards a little way off. It was my chance. I raised the gun quickly and took aim. I had both barrels cocked and my finger on the trigger, when something told me quite distinctly not to shoot; to put down the gun and go closer. I did so, and found, not the dog as I thought, but my enemy whom I had threatened but an hour or two before, asleep at full length on the stack, with his coat rolled under his head ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... a good many years in a frontier town, was too accustomed to this method of punctuating one's remarks and calling the undivided attention of one's listener to them, to be much surprised. At any rate, he showed none, and besides he knew Edestone to be a perfectly cool man whose trigger finger ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... while the dead eyes of the stuffed birds—those never-absent familiars in such collections, though murdered to extinction out of doors—flashed as they had flashed to the rising sun above the neighbouring moors on the fatal morning when the trigger was pulled which ended their little flight. It was then that the historian produced his manuscript, which he had prepared, he said, with a view to publication. His delivery of the story having concluded as aforesaid, the speaker expressed his hope that the constraint ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... one of the boulders. He was not expecting an ambush, and the spear struck his shoulder, entering the top of the lungs and breaking off. He dropped the rifle. As it left his hand he must have pulled the trigger, for there was a report. Sax was running just in front of Mick. He heard the report, looked round, and saw the stockman stagger. He dashed back. His act saved Mick's life, for, as the white boy stooped to pick up the rifle, he saw Coiloo standing behind the rock with another ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... very proud of themselves and of the effect their rifles with telescopic sights had produced when put into the hands of gillies and deer stalkers, and at every twenty yards or so there was a Scottish Horseman looking along his sights, finger on trigger, and by his side a spotter whose periscope was fixed on the opposite loophole. The moment a Turkish shadow darkened the loophole the word was given, the bullet sped. Not a very big mark a loophole at over 100 yards but they got it, they said, one ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... having noticed it before. She went in and asked to look at some of the pistols they had in the window. Several were brought out for her to see, and she chose a small one. The young man who served her showed her how to load it and pull the trigger. He wrapped it in brown paper and made a loop in the string for her to carry it by. She ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... by masons (in the building-trades). He groped his way along by it to the station of the next officer, who warned him of the deadly consequences of disobedience. Thence he made his way onward, holding to the Clue of Faith—until he touched a trigger of some sort, which let down upon him an avalanche of tinware and such light and noisy articles, which frightened him so that he started to run, and was dexterously tripped by the Deacon Militant and a spearman, ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... anywhere. Sure, we can isolate the virus. It grows nicely on monkey lung cells. But that doesn't help. The thing has no apparent antigenicity. It parasitizes, but it doesn't trigger any immune reaction. We can kill it, but the strength of the germicide is too great for living ...
— Pandemic • Jesse Franklin Bone
... Atkinson said, lifting the muzzle of the revolver. "When I squeeze the trigger, it'll be like blowing the lock off a prison door. I'll go yelling to the others, and we'll smash down the whole goddamned place. We'll smash it down, so we'll have to rebuild it. We'll pull apart every robot you've got. We'll tear apart the food lockers and have a celebration for a week, ...
— Planet of Dreams • James McKimmey
... pull his trigger, Drake gave backward a step into the doorway. Merryfield's clutch toward his right hand missed the gun, fastening instead on the sleeve of his heavy coat. Swearing wildly while the woman and children screamed behind him, the ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... rest of us. There, in what remained of a package done up roughly in newspaper, was a shot gun with its barrel sawed off about six inches from the lock, fastened to a block of wood, and connected to a series of springs on the trigger, released by a little electromagnetic arrangement actuated by two batteries and leading by wires up along the moulding to the picture where the slightest touch would ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... his gun if he fired it," he said, worried and distressed by what was taking place before his eyes; "and if I did not, I could tell by the way they acted whenever he pulled trigger. ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne
... figure continued its onward career; and Freeman once more levelled his weapon,—when a voice, which gave him such a start of surprise as well-nigh caused him to pull the trigger for sheer lack of self-command, called out, "Why, you abominable young villain! What the mischief do you mean? Do you want to ...
— The Golden Fleece • Julian Hawthorne
... expected Brassy to open fire so quickly, so was not prepared for defense; but he was just so little behind him in time, that before the man could pull trigger a second time, he fired, and his bullet went straight where aimed, between the eyes of the one he intended to kill, when he dropped his hand ...
— Buffalo Bill's Spy Trailer - The Stranger in Camp • Colonel Prentiss Ingraham
... which I needed but a slight modicum of common sense to be aware was close at hand. I placed the muzzle of one of the revolvers against the keyhole of the drawer to which my unseen guide had previously directed me, and pulled the trigger. The lock was shattered, the contents of the drawer were at my mercy. I snatched up a bundle of letters, about which a pink ribbon was wrapped. Startled by a noise behind me, immediately following the report of the pistol, I ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... years old at de Surrender, but I took notice. Dem was scarey times an' when you is scared you takes trigger-notice. It was nex' to de las' year o' de War 'fore Sherman got to Mer-ree-dian—not Sherman hisse'f but his sojers. Dey burnt up dat big house on Eighth Street hill an' built camps for de sojers in de flower garden. De cap'ns went an' live at Marse ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Mississippi Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... Thinking it as well to be prepared, he quietly loaded his gun, and then rose up to reconnoitre. Holdfast sprang forward, and Edward looking in the direction, perceived Corbould partly hidden behind a tree, with his gun levelled at him. He heard the trigger pulled, and snap of the lock, but the gun did not go off; and then Corbould made his appearance, striking at Holdfast with the butt-end of his gun. Edward advanced to him and desired him to desist, or it would be the ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... the trigger of the auto-rifle and his lip drew in a little. "Quite so," he said curtly, and, turned to the door. "Slocum!" he shouted. "Come out of there. We can use ...
— The Adventurer • Cyril M. Kornbluth
... mechanism is furnished, in which it will be seen that the firing plug travels in a bore formed through the stock; in a line with the barrel. This plug had an upwardly extending finger, so it could be drawn back against the resistance of the spring. Below the plug was a trigger, with a hook-shaped forward end, in such a position that when the plug was drawn back the hook would catch and hold the plug until the lower right-angled projection of the trigger was pulled back. This would release the plug, and the spring would ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Mysteries of the Caverns • Roger Thompson Finlay
... whispered to Dicky, and Dicky went into our room and fetched the large toy pistol that is a foot long, and that has the trigger broken, and I took it because I am the eldest; and I don't think either of us thought it was the cat now. But Alice and H. O. did. Dicky got the poker out of Noel's room, and told Dora it was to settle the cat with ...
— The Story of the Treasure Seekers • E. Nesbit
... You haven't the nerve. There's nothing to you. You're just a cheap crook, and that's all. You wouldn't find the nerve to pull that trigger in a ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... out. She tugged despairingly at the blaster's trigger. Nothing happened. Before she could realize that she hadn't turned off the safety, Calhoun twisted the weapon from her fingers. He ...
— This World Is Taboo • Murray Leinster
... though the action was infinitely slow. Five minutes passed before he was able to get his rifle to his shoulder, and a second five minutes passed ere he dared, lying on his back and aiming straight upward, to pull the trigger. It was a clean miss. No bird fell, but no bird flew. They ruffled and rustled stupidly and drowsily. His shoulder pained him. A second shot was spoiled by the involuntary wince he made as he pulled trigger. Somewhere, in the last three days, though he had no recollection ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... done what I could to teach knaves the commandments. Yes. Jack Whitcomb was brave. Brave as the bravest. His glance was as keen and his mouth was as silent As a trailer's should be who looks and who listens By day and by night, having no one to talk to. His finger was quick when it handled the trigger, And his eye loved the sights as lightning loves rivers. I've seen him stand up when the odds were against him. Stand up like a man who takes coolly the chances. That proves he was ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... words the travelers were courteously dismissed; and as Anton went out he saw the officer wearily throw himself back into an easy-chair, and with bent head begin to play with the trigger ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... respeck," sez she, "your intellectle part, But you wun't noways du for me athout a change o' heart: Nothun religion works wal North, but it's ez soft ez spruce, Compared to ourn, for keepin' sound," sez she, "upon the goose; A day's experunce'd prove to ye, ez easy 'z pull a trigger, It takes the Southun pint o' view to raise ten bales a nigger; You'll fin' thet human natur, South, ain't wholesome more 'n skin-deep, An' once't a darkie's took with it, he wun't be wuth his keep." "How shell I git it, Ma'am?" sez I. "Attend the nex' camp-meetin'," ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... in the gilded Salle Schmidt those four long mirrors in the corners, which could only be known as doors when some inspector or other functionary pressed his foot on a trigger level with the floor in front of one of them. When this was done, a mirror would instantly move so promptly that Mary had named those doors the ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... showed indications of impatience. He fingered the trigger of his weapon, and then slowly raised it on a ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... and discharged his arrow at the same moment that Godfrey had pulled his trigger. The arrow struck the bear in the throat, and such was the force with which it was sent that the head showed at the back of the neck. Godfrey's bullet struck it in the chest, and the bear at once rolled over. Thinking it was killed, he crawled ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... admiration for the hardihood of those who participated in it were always loud and frequent. But he, too, had a reputation to sustain. The Americans stood grimly silent before him. Harris's finger twitched nervously along the trigger, and a smile played over his thin lips. The man was aching ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... old skunk, you ain't got the grit to shoot sour apples," was Billy's answer. "I know your kind—brave as lions when it comes to pullin' miserable, broken-spirited bindle stiffs, but as leery as a yellow dog when you face a man. Pull that trigger! Why, you pusillanimous piece of dirt, you'd run with your tail between your legs if ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... the people worked in their drills. If you raised your head cautiously and looked through between the branches of a shrub, you could see him, and Bauldie actually covered him with his rifle. The unconscious farmer knew not that his life hung upon a thread, or, rather, upon Bauldie's trigger. Bauldie looked inquiringly to his chief, for he would dearly have loved to fire a cap, but Speug shook his head so fiercely that the trapper dropped down in his lair, and Speug afterwards explained that the renegade had certainly deserved death, but that it was dangerous to fire ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... you've been goin' around ever since January loaded up to the muzzle with spite and sure-thing vengeance, same as an old-fashioned horse pistol used to be loaded with powder and ball, it must be kind of hard, just as you're set to pull trigger, to have to quit and swaller the whole charge. Liable to give you dyspepsy, if nothin' ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... think so indeed!" cried Morrison emphatically, breaking in. "With modern industrial conditions hung on a hair trigger as they are, it's as though a boy had exploded a fire-cracker in the works of a watch. That means his whole fortune gone. Old Peter put everything into coal. Austin will not have a cent—nothing but those Vermont scrub forests of his. What a mad thing to do! But it's been growing on him for ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... patent was a very old one. A tube of brass, thickening towards the butt, at which was a square chamber firmly welded to a socket for receiving the pole, formed the gun itself. Within the chamber aforesaid a nipple protruded from the base of the tube, and in line with it. The trigger was simply a flat bit of steel, like a piece of clock spring, which was held down by the hooked end of a steel rod long enough to stick out beyond the muzzle of the gun three or four inches, and held in position by two flanges at the butt and muzzle of the barrel. On the opposite side of ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... respectfully craving her permission, I must say a few words about this enterprising wife of mine. Though in years nearly old as myself, in spirit she is young as my little sorrel mare, Trigger, that threw me last fall. What is extraordinary, though she comes of a rheumatic family, she is straight as a pine, never has any aches; while for me with the sciatica, I am sometimes as crippled up as any old apple-tree. But she has not so much as a toothache. As for her hearing—let me enter ...
— I and My Chimney • Herman Melville
... to do it, Billy. It's to save you torture, old fellow, just to save you useless suffering, Billy." He drew his pistol from his belt, took careful aim just behind the pony's ear, and, turning his head away, pulled the trigger. ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... up the rifle, planning to shoot up at the cliff in a venture to frighten them away. She aimed, pulled the trigger, and the rifle-shot rang out making the echoes roar and roll through the chasm as if an army ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... turning on a pivot therein. A constantly rotating rubber-covered roll c5 is extended across the entire keyboard beneath the cams, which stand normally as shown in Fig. 5, out of contact with the roll. When the parts are in this position, the cam-yoke is sustained at its free end by the yoke-trigger c8, and a cross-bar in the cam engages a vertical pin c7 on the frame, whereby the cam is prevented from falling on to the roller, as it has a tendency to do. Each of the yoke-triggers c6 is connected with a vertical bar c8, which ...
— A Book of Exposition • Homer Heath Nugent
... naked, the miners wore all the clothing they possessed. Here the terror of the peons was an old American mine-boss rated "loco" among them, who went constantly armed with an immense and ancient revolver, always loaded and reputed of "hair trigger," which he drew and whistled in the barrel whenever he wished to call a workman. A blaze crackling in the fireplace was pleasant during the evening in the manager's house, for "Peregrina" lies even higher above the sea than "Pingueico"; ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... we really haven't time for all that sort of flapdoodle now. [He starts to his feet as if she had pulled a trigger and straightened him by the release of a powerful spring, and goes past her with set teeth to the little table]. Oh, take care: you nearly hit me in the chin with ...
— How He Lied to Her Husband • George Bernard Shaw
... them has any hobbyhorse, to use the phrase of Sterne. Not one has a ruling passion, such as we read of in Pope. Who would not have expected them to be insipid likenesses of each other? No such thing. Harpagon is not more unlike to Jourdain, Joseph Surface is not more unlike to Sir Lucius O'Trigger, than every one of Miss Austen's young divines to all his reverend -brethren. And almost all this is done by touches so delicate that they elude analysis, that they defy the powers of description, and that we know them to exist only by the general effect ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... say that amongst his other perfections he was a perfect shot—the best in the department,—and the moment he touched the trigger death winged his charge at two hundred paces. With a single ball from his rifle would he bring down the wild cat from the highest branches, and cut the poor squirrels in two, stop the howl of the wolf, or shiver the iron frontal bones of the ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... attacked an L.V.G.; at fifteen meters; just ready to shoot, when a bullet in my fingers made me let go the trigger; reservoir burst, good landing two kilometers from the trenches between two shell-holes. Inventory of the "taxi": one bullet right in the face of my Vickers; one perforative bullet in the motor; the steel stone had gone clear through it as well ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux
... of the jollies along the deck, lanterns were quickly lighted, and looking out I could see the Frenchmen scampering off, tumbling down the hatchways, or hiding under the guns. They discovered that they had made a slight mistake. Not a trigger was pulled, and except for a few prods with the points of bayonets, which caught the Frenchmen in their nether ends, no blood was drawn. Captain Collyer had not been quite so fast asleep, nor had boys Bluff and Cuff been quite so ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... the low arm of a tree, and as the rider came abreast of him touched the trigger, and the steel-pointed quarrel flew true and strong against the temple of the passing horseman. He fell from his horse like a stone, and the well-trained animal at once stood still by the side ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... was thrown up before him; Steve's rose with it. Over yonder old Packard's men squared themselves in their saddles and made ready for grim work. Yellow Barbee gave a signal all unneeded to his men; his own rifle in his eager hands, was ready, the trigger yielding to his ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory |
