"Single file" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that my presence might prevent bloodshed, I allowed myself to be placed at their head. The old Chief followed next, then a number of fiery young men; then all the rest, single file, along the narrow path. At a sudden turn, as we neared their village, Nourai, who had attacked me the Sabbath day before, and his brother were seen lurking with their muskets; but our young men made a rush in front, and ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... way through the forest and four ghostly figures followed in single file. They made no noise as they passed among the cypresses and magnolias, and oaks of the drooping foliage. No one spoke, but the leader laughed more than once in his throat, a laugh which never passed the lips, ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... narrow door prisoners were being conducted into the still dark courtyard on a cold early morning in winter. They walked in single file—a soldier, a prisoner, a soldier, a prisoner, a soldier—there seemed to be no end to it; there was a steady shuffling of feet across the courtyard. A small gate opened in the wall with a creaking sound. All walked through it. ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... just as they started, and from that moment not a word was further spoken amongst the party, the men preserving a solemn silence and marching one after the other in single file, Moose and Noah Webster leading the way, and tracking the course of the Indians like sleuth-hounds, seeing traces of the passage of those of whom they were in pursuit in places where, as in the rocky bottom of a dry ravine they presently ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... of Castle Kearney was part of my uncle's property, and was well cultivated; but we very soon got into the primeval forests, where the woodman's axe had been employed only in cutting a path along which baggage animals could proceed in single file. The trees were mostly live-oak or pine, amid which grew magnolias and laurels. The ground was very uneven, though from the river it looked level. We had to cross what is called a hummock, which was in reality ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston
... the earth. They did nothing but take a paseo into the woods, a paseo among the houses, a paseo at the landing-place, looking at us and our vessel, and too lazy to speak fast; while the others were driving—or rather, driven—about, at a rapid trot, in single file, with burdens on their shoulders, and followed up by their task-masters, with long rods in their hands, and broadbrimmed straw hats upon their heads. Upon what precise grounds this great distinction ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... with all speed to reach it at some point ahead of them, and succeeded. Finding they had not passed he turned and went south, and in a thick canebrake met his foes face to face. The whites were spread out in line, while the Indians, twenty in number, came on in single file, all on horseback. The cane was so dense that the two parties were not ten steps apart when they saw one another. At the first fire the Indians, taken utterly unaware, broke and fled, leaving eight of their number dead; and the victors also took twenty-eight horses. [Footnote: Draper ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt
... impressive performance of the 'Shout,' or religious dance of the negroes. Three or four, standing still, clapping their hands and beating time with their feet, commence singing in unison one of the peculiar shout melodies, while the others walk round in a ring, in single file, joining also in the song. Soon those in the ring leave off their singing, the others keeping it up the while with increased vigor, and strike into the shout step, observing most accurate time with the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... "VETUS," but recognising the Home Secretary, advanced without further hesitation. Lord GEORGE HAMILTON walked arm-in-arm as far as the door with Sir M. HICKS-BEACH. Here they were observed to hastily relieve themselves from contiguity and enter in single file. As they had up to that moment been engaged in earnest conversation, this little incident caused a sensation among the crowd looking on. The new Chief Secretary was easily recognised as he descended from his hansom with a ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, Jan. 2, 1892 • Various
... In single file the band flitted silently along the ridge and plunged into the swamp. The prisoners were closely guarded. At the slightest sign of treachery the long knives would slither between their ribs. This they well knew and their devout prayer was that their friends on the knoll ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... to watch the cattle maneuver as they form in line, single file, ready for the march. They move forward in an easy, deliberate walk one behind the other and may be seen coming and going in every direction. They make their trips with great regularity back and forth from grass to water, ...
— Arizona Sketches • Joseph A. Munk
... and the DAYONG, taking a fowl's feather, sprinkles drops of water from the basin upon all the assembled mourners, pouring out the while a stream of words, the purport of which is — may all evil things, all sickness and such things be kept away from you. Then the mourners return in a single file through the V formed by the cleft pole, each one again placing his foot on the fowl (which dies before the end of the ceremony), spitting as he goes through, and exclaiming, "Keep off evil" (BALI JAAT, I.E. literally, spiritual or supernatural ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... Indian canoe paddled by some squaws. It proved a rich prize, for in it were buffalo meat and some kettles. Broth was soon made and served to the weakest. The strong gave up their share. Then amid much joking and merry songs, the column marched in single file through a bit of timber. Not two miles away was Vincennes, the goal ...
— Hero Stories from American History - For Elementary Schools • Albert F. Blaisdell
... evening of the day on which this unfortunate surprise took place, the Indian army, consisting of eight hundred and forty-seven warriors, painted and equipped for war, marched in single file through a prairie near the fort and in full view of the garrison, and encamped on an adjacent elevation on the opposite side of the river. From this situation, frequent conversations were held by them with the whites, in which they ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... were peering eagerly among the trees, on the alert for any moving object. Suddenly, at a little distance, and coming directly toward us, we saw a party of Indians. There were five of them, all men, walking in single file, as noiselessly as ghosts, their moccasined feet causing not even a rustle among the dry leaves that carpeted the woods. All the horrible stories we had heard of Indian cruelty flashed into our minds, and for a moment we were dumb with terror. Then I remembered ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw
... such as described, provided with an oval top cover of white ducking, with "flaps" in front and a "puckering-string" at the rear, came to be known in those days as a "prairie schooner;" and a string of them, drawn out in single file in the daily travel, was a "train." Trains following one another along the same new pathway were sometimes strung out for hundreds of miles, with spaces of a few hundred yards to several miles between, and were many weeks ...
— Crossing the Plains, Days of '57 - A Narrative of Early Emigrant Tavel to California by the Ox-team Method • William Audley Maxwell
... are!" Max's voice could be heard in the hall outside, ushering in his guests. "Go single file down this passage—you can't get ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... along in single file until they came to the ford. They reined up sharply. One of them dismounted and dragged the body of Fadeaway to the bank. They grouped around gazing at the hole in ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... and caressed her after the manner of philosophical soldiers, that is, soldiers partial to that which is good. She was soon comfortably ensconced between the sheets. But to avoid quarrels and strife, my noble warriors drew lots for their turn, arranged themselves in single file, playing well at Pique hardie, saying not a word, but each one taking at least twenty-six sols worth of the girl's society. Although not accustomed to work for so many, the poor girl did her best, and by this means never closed her eyes the whole night. ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... the next period in the dance by beating their tomtoms. As soon as they commence the gaun again appear, coming from the east as before, and stop in single file in front of the cedar tree on the eastern side. There the spectators throw hadintin upon them and offer prayers, after which the five gaun take the same positions as before in front of the small trees. Upon the trees little wheels of cedar twigs have been hung; ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... band set forth, the aged guide in advance, bending against the storm and clasping her poor rags about her. In the darkest part of the wood, where the roaring of wind and groaning of branches seemed the louder for the booming of waters, she cautioned the band to keep in single file, but to make haste, for the way was far and the gloom was thickening. Bending their heads against the wind they pressed forward, she in advance. Suddenly, yet stealthily, she sprang aside and crouched beneath a tree that grew at the very ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... we watch a hundred brown-sailed Cornish fishing-smacks follow each other in single file across the harbor bar and go sailing out into the west as the sun goes down—a most beautiful sight, of which Marty feels all the mystery and the charm and the pathos, and Chips all the jollity and ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... find out something of the number and character of warships in the fleet of which the Dewey was a unit. As daybreak came stealing up over the horizon they looked about them to discern many other warships all about them. Far to port, strung out in single file about a half mile apart, were three huge liners that they took to be troopships. Deployed around them were destroyers—-four of them—-riding like a protecting body guard. Bobbing about at intervals in the maritime procession were other submarines, their ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll
... morning, the troops moved forward. The ground was difficult, for the road ran between terraced fields on the side of the ravine, and obliged men and animals to pass in single file. It was not, therefore, until twelve o'clock that the rear guard moved out of the camp. Beyond this point, the road up the pass was not difficult. From the summit, a wide view was obtained. At the end of the valley—six miles distant—the plain of the Khost country was seen. It was seen that—owing ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty
... marching with their loaded rifles, fully cocked, resting horizontally upon their shoulders; and as we marched naturally in single file, and as we used cordite cartridges with bullets of high penetration, there was still a prospect of a bullet going through one or more of us. Once or twice again a rifle went off unexpectedly by accident. It would have been terrible for any ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... front room, after payment from the red-headed ruffian, Phil, the men clambered in single file up a wooden ladder to the street level. A trap-door was put into place and closed. Then the men began to shoot "craps" for a readjustment of the spoils, with the result that Red Phil, as his henchmen called him, was the smiling possessor of most of the ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... July fourteenth. Inspiring scenes and tragic sacrifices for liberty come to our minds. Sixteen women march in single file to take their own "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" to the White House gates. It is the middle of a hot afternoon. A thin line of curious spectators is seen in the park opposite the suffrage headquarters. ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... one who had horses to his wagon. The wagons went in single file, and as the train wound and curved I saw that the other wagons were drawn by oxen. Three or four yoke of oxen strained and pulled weakly at each wagon, and beside them, in the deep sand, walked ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... thrilled by the wind, yet bearing a strange resemblance to human figures! Pressing a few yards further, he himself presently became a part of this shadowy procession, which on closer scrutiny revealed itself as a single file of Indians, following each other in the same tireless trot. The woods and underbrush were full of them; all moving on, as he had moved, in a line parallel with the vanishing coach. Sometimes through the openings a bared painted limb, a crest of feathers, ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... the French pressed on, but were prevented by artillery fire from building a pontoon bridge at Soissons. A large number of infantry, however, crossed in single file the top girder of the ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... were walking along in single file, the male bird leading, holding his head erect, and marching like the drum-major of a regiment of Guards. On the margin of the bank they halted and looked at the horse, which now stood facing them; a minute's scrutiny satisfied both parties that there ...
— "Five-Head" Creek; and Fish Drugging In The Pacific - 1901 • Louis Becke
... scanned the dancers, scanned the muddled lines trailing in single file in and out among the tables, scanned the horn-blowing, kissing, coughing, laughing, drinking parties under the great full-bosomed flags which leaned in glowing color over the ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... arrangements with Mr. Fox. This done, we were ranged along the wall in order of seniority, and after too long a delay for a country where the chief magistrate has no right to keep people waiting, the old General came in, followed by all the members of his Cabinet, who walked in single file, and so kept behind him. He then advanced toward Mr. Fox, whom Mr. Webster presented to him. Mr. Fox read to him his address. Then the President took out his spectacles and read his reply. Then, after having shaken hands ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... calming to the grey of dawn when Chrisfield stopped marching. His eyelids stung as if his eyeballs were flaming hot. He could not feel his feet and legs. The guns continued incessantly like a hammer beating on his head. He was walking very slowly in a single file, now and then stumbling against the man ahead of him. There was earth on both sides of him, clay walls that dripped moisture. All at once he stumbled down some steps into a dugout, where it was pitch-black. An unfamiliar smell struck him, made him uneasy; but his ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... mild-mannered one who had first met and guided Parr on the night of his banishment from the human village, also pleaded to go. Several others would have joined the party, but the deterioration of legs and feet made them poor walkers. The four went single file—Parr, then big Ling, then Ruba, then Izak. Each carried, on a vine sling, a leaf-package of fruit and a melon for quenching thirst. They also ...
— The Devil's Asteroid • Manly Wade Wellman
... retrace our way across the stones and sand. From time to time we dismounted and tried to walk, but it was difficult to keep pace with our galloping animals, eager to return home. Time was pressing, so we were finally obliged to ride, becoming stiffer and sorer every minute. In single file as we had come, we made our way back. Presently I heard a sort of flumping sound behind me, and I turned, to see E—— and her donkey lying side by side in the road, motionless. Dr. Reinsch jumped off his animal, I rolled off mine, and we both ran back to the bundles of khaki and fur lying ...
— Peking Dust • Ellen N. La Motte
... Eagle had displayed a flag of truce, and now he surrendered the guilty chiefs whose hearts had been bad. Every one came where the dead prophet lay to get a look at him. For a space of hours Pretty Eagle and the many other Crows he had deceived rode by in single file, striking him with their whips; after them came a young squaw, and she also lashed ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... was at the rear of the trader's party; but the ground being good, we left our people and cantered on to the advanced flag. It was curious to witness the motley assemblage in single file extending over about half a mile of ground:—several of the people were mounted on donkeys; some on oxen: the most were on foot, including all the women to the number of about sixty, who were the slaves of the trader's people. ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... necessary to remove the sheep from one side of the river to the other, the shepherd crosses the plank, sounding his horn, and each individual of the flock passes regularly after him in single file. Even in the highest floods, there has never occurred one ...
— Minnie's Pet Lamb • Madeline Leslie
... to guard the camp; the little company of sixteen could not be divided. They set off in single file, Tom leading the way, not because he had any hope of treading in his former course, but because he alone had traversed the forest, and ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... and presently they entered a thicker grove of trees than any they had before noticed. The trunks were so close together that the birds could only pass between then in single file, but as they proceeded in this fashion it was not long before they came to a circular space which the child-lark knew at once must be ...
— Policeman Bluejay • L. Frank Baum
... jailer appeared among us and gave us a minute description of the different roads leading west into the mountains, warning us of certain dangers. At eleven o'clock Miss Emma came with the great keys, and we followed her, in single file, down the stairs and out into the back yard of the jail. From the broken gratings in front, the bit of rope and strip of blanket were left dangling in ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... an' have to camp over tomorrow in some coulee, there's no tellin' who'll run onto us. This south slope's infested some plentiful by the riders of three or four outfits." He headed his horse down the steep descent, the others following in single file. ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... at the door, Dodd and I made our way out of the church, and returned to the house to drink tea. I had just finished my last cup and lighted a cigarette, when the door suddenly opened, and half a dozen men, with grave, impassive countenances, marched in in single file, stopped a few paces from the holy pictures in the corner, crossed themselves devoutly in unison, and began to sing a simple but sweet Russian melody, beginning with the words, "Christ is born." Not expecting to hear Christmas carols in ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... assembled. They at length came to a narrow pass, with a steep hill covered with trees and underbrush on one side, and a swamp, impenetrable with mire and thickets, upon the other. Along this narrow way they could march only in single file. The silence of the eternal forest was around them, and nothing was to be seen or heard which gave ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... by one, with a man carrying a light in front. The passage was too narrow to allow of two abreast, and too low for any one to stand upright in it. So, single file, on hands ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... background as it was said that the chaplains were not allowed in the front line. The trenches were at Houplines to the east of Armentieres. We marched down the streets till we came to the edge of the town and there a guide met us and we went in single file across the field. We could see the German flare-lights and could hear the crack of rifles. It was intensely interesting, and the mystery of the war seemed to clear as we came nearer to the scene of action. The ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... harness still hanging upon them, though the sledges they drew, covered with stone dust and broken pieces, were some distance away from them. A company of half a score of children were ascending in single file, along a slanting plane of planks, into the hollow in the cliff upon which work had been renewed. Along the rock-wall ahead of them a scaffold had been erected and here were men drilling holes in the stone, or driving ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... Senior Company Commander was accordingly left behind to collect what he could and follow on, and we started off with the rest of the Divisional Reserve to do the six or seven miles in the dark in single file. We could not use the road—so-called—from Kubeibe to Beit Iksa, as we could not discover whether the village was wholly in our hands, so we wandered on in pitch darkness with no path of any kind to show us the best way along the most precipitous ...
— The Fife and Forfar Yeomanry - and 14th (F. & F. Yeo.) Battn. R.H. 1914-1919 • D. D. Ogilvie
... genera much less closely related, and genera related in different degrees, forming {129} sub-families, families, orders, sub-classes, and classes. The several subordinate groups in any class cannot be ranked in a single file, but seem rather to be clustered round points, and these round other points, and so on in almost endless cycles. On the view that each species has been independently created, I can see no explanation of this great fact in the classification of ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin
... remark Toby watched with no little interest all that was passing on around him. Each of the wagons had a lantern fastened to the hind axle, and these lights could be seen far ahead on the road, as if a party of fireflies had started in single file on an excursion. The trees by the side of the road stood out weird and ghostly looking in the darkness, and the rumble of the carts ahead and behind formed a musical accompaniment to the picture that ...
— Toby Tyler • James Otis
... Indians accompanied the prairie chief, and these marched in single file, each treading in the footsteps of the man in ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne
... then Ruby. then Plant. in single file. Tupper works behind arm-chair and gets up stage and puts ...
— Oh! Susannah! - A Farcical Comedy in Three Acts • Mark Ambient
... caution. This for two distinct reasons—the sloping path is difficult even by day, at night requiring all the skill of experienced riders to descend it. Still with the traitor at their head, who knows every step, they gradually crawl down the cliff, single file, again forming "by twos" as they reach the more practicable ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... the right way now. I must say she is very, very well for her, and complains scarce at all. Yesterday, she went down sola(at least accompanied by a groom) to pay a visit; Belle, Lloyd and I went a walk up the mountain road—the great public highway of the island, where you have to go single file. The object was to show Belle that gaudy valley of the Vaisigano which the road follows. If the road is to be made and opened, as our new Chief Justice promises, it will be one of the most beautiful roads in the world. But the point is this: I forgot I had been three months in civilisation, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was passed on the Tarn, our ten little boats following each other single file on the narrow river, winding around the feet of mighty cliffs, or wandering out into sunny pasture lands where solitary peasants, interrupted in their labors, listened in astonishment to the chorus thundered from the passing boats, ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... again saddled, and the party set out on their way, riding single file along the narrow bush track towards the ranges in which the little mining camp was situated. The sun was well towards the west when they came in sight of the rough, bark-roofed shed with uncovered sides, ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke
... always moved in single file with men about three yards distance. We learned to like and admire ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie
... grace; with that supple, elastic undulation which would have been coquettish had it not been undeniably natural. Reaching the wall that enclosed the right side of the park, she opened a wicket that led into a narrow path through a large field of ripe corn. She passed into this path, followed in single file by Mademoiselle Marie and by Camors. Until now the child had been very quiet, but the rich golden corn-tassels, entangled with bright daisies, red poppies, and hollyhocks, and the humming concert of myriads of flies-blue, ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... them around the shoulder of a hill. It was tolerably smooth, but they were obliged to go single file, so there was very little ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill
... temporary armed alliance between England and Montenegro, which remark seemed to please him greatly. A great cairn of stones marked the border, and the adjutant reined in his horse, for we were going to ride in single file, to tell us that it would be better to unsling our carbines. "It looked better," he said. Many Albanians could be seen working peacefully in their fields, and huts dotted the mountain-sides. It was a scene of agricultural peace, enhanced by ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... of Blackfeet. They succeeded in making the frontier in safety. We remember to have seen them with their band, about two or three months afterward, passing through a skirt of woodland in the upper part of Missouri. Their long cavalcade stretched in single file for nearly half a mile. Sublette still wore his arm in a sling. The mountaineers in their rude hunting dresses, armed with rifles and roughly mounted, and leading their pack-horses down a hill of the forest, looked like banditti ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... behind him, following in single file, three men, a God-sent majesty in step and countenance. Vergilius and Manius moved aside, saluting solemnly as the men passed. The young tribune turned to his ...
— Vergilius - A Tale of the Coming of Christ • Irving Bacheller
... a narrow muddy causeway by a little river overhung with willows, girls ahead of her in single file and girls in single file behind, Miriam drearily recognised that it was June. The month of roses, she thought, and looked out across the flat green fields. It was not easy to walk along the slippery pathway. On one side was the little grey river, on the ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... minutes they were on shore. Still all was silent as the grave. Hauling the bow of the canoe on the beach to keep it fast, the three men took their weapons, and, entering the woods in single file, walked cautiously but swiftly in the direction of the smoke. They soon reached the spot, and the scene which met their eyes was one which, while it accounted for the silence that reigned around, filled their minds with ...
— The Pioneers • R.M. Ballantyne
... that Peterkin walked along the sands between us. We had two ways of walking together about our island. When we travelled through the woods, we always did so in single file, as by this method we advanced with greater facility, the one treading in the other's footsteps. In such cases Jack always took the lead, Peterkin followed, and I brought up the rear. But when we travelled along the sands, which ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... better organized than was the quartermaster's corps with the Army of the Potomac in 1864. With a wagon-train that would have extended from the Rapidan to Richmond, stretched along in single file and separated as the teams necessarily would be when moving, we could still carry only three days' forage and about ten to twelve days' rations, besides a supply of ammunition. To overcome all difficulties, the ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... they slunk, single file, the bare feet and the illy-shod alike going silently and sleuth-like over the polished stairs. They skulked past open doors with frightened defiant glances, the defiance of the very poor for the very rich, the defiance that is born and bred in the soul from a face to face existence ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... had lined the path with borders of moss six inches wide, and with strips of bark had decorated the huts and shelters. Across the tiny ravines they had thrown what in seed catalogues are called "rustic" bridges. As we walked in single file between these carefully laid borders of moss and past the shelters that suggested only a gamekeeper's lodge, we might have been on a walking tour in the Alps. You expected at every turn to come upon a chalet like a Swiss clock, and ...
— With the French in France and Salonika • Richard Harding Davis
... was little traffic. Occasionally a long dray, on a gigantic pair of wheels, drawn by a long string of white Normandy horses in single file, with blue harness and jangling bells, filled up the roadway. Costermongers trundled their barrows along with strange, unmusical cries. Now and again an empty cab returning to its stable, with weary horse and semi-somnolent coachman, crawled through ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... morning in Saxe-Coburg, looking from the window of our little hotel upon the town square, that we saw crossing and recrossing it a single file of women with semicircular, heavy, wooden tanks fastened upon their backs. They were carrying in this primitive fashion to a remote cooling room these tanks filled with a hot brew incident to one stage ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... order that steel helmets should be worn and box-respirators kept in the alert position in this part of the line. So first we girded up ourselves in compliance with orders. Then our guide made us walk in single file and keep close to the houses as we walked along the main street. "He has a beautiful view of the chateau gates and can see movement in the centre of the ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)
... looked over the snow, I could see the caravans following each other, in single file, and a number of dogs ...
— The Land of the Long Night • Paul du Chaillu
... we are in for it," said Denviers, as the savage led us towards a narrow gap in the heart of the mountain up which we had been toiling. Through this a number of the men passed in single file, and we were bidden to follow them. We halted irresolutely and turned round, only to see the wild horde pressing on behind, impatient ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... a thin turf that covered the jut of rock. The dogs were right. Taito Perico had climbed the tree and scaled the cliff. The dogs were hoisted by means of a lariat, the men gained the shelf, and clambering along in single file they presently reached the summit. A furious barking led them on; then those in the rear heard a shout. The savage was seen, half a mile away, crossing an opening at a run and striking at the dogs that leaped and yelped around him. Leaving his companions ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... German was killed the same company was ordered to take a position farther to the right. They walked along, goose-fashion, single file, moving by the right flank toward their new position. Next to the last man in the rear was a corporal, a new man, just a few months in the service. Biff! ping! bang! went the deadly missiles. One struck ...
— Bamboo Tales • Ira L. Reeves
... where men must march in single file, and where pack-horses were crowded off precipices, introduces them at length to Syria, within whose bounds the Palestine of their desire was included. Antioch lay in their way, and was besieged with many difficulties and dangers; some from the presumption of a foolish ...
— Peter the Hermit - A Tale of Enthusiasm • Daniel A. Goodsell
... obscuring the air as if it were midnight darkness, that they may not be seen from any distance. This obscurity, when once raised, lasts for seven days; and they are perfectly acquainted with all the passes of the mountains, in which they march one after another in single file, so that no one can possibly escape them, but all who fall in their way, must encounter death or captivity, the old being slain, and the young sold for slaves. I Marco, who write this book, was once very near ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... is secured a leather harness of breast straps called otapanapi into which each hauler adjusts himself. Thus, while the majority of the crew land upon the shore and, so harnessed, walk off briskly in single file along the river bank, their mates aboard endeavour, with the aid of either paddles, sweeps, or poles, to keep the craft in ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... see now that there were different footpaths from along shore and across country. In all these there were straggling processions walking in single file, like old illustrations of the Pilgrim's Progress. There was a crowd about the house as if huge bees were swarming in the lilac bushes. Beyond the fields and cove a higher point of land ran out into the bay, covered with woods which must have kept away ...
— The Country of the Pointed Firs • Sarah Orne Jewett
... couple of active horses, and rode up the mountain path that led in a zigzag direction over the fells to the valley of the Springs. They rode in silence at first—partly because the nature of the track compelled them to advance in single file, and partly because each was in the worst possible humour of which his nature was capable, while each felt indignant at the other, although neither could have said that his friend had been guilty ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... reach of the fire-gleam, and moving well within the shadow away from the bright moonlight, a dozen figures moved stealthily towards the sleeping men. They approached in single file, stooping down till their chins touched their knees, and moving so warily that each one stepped in the footprints of the others, and so silently that, while the sounds of the sleepers' breathing came on the air, no sound followed the movements of the approaching ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... and wearying journey. The men were obliged to march in single file along narrow roads which bordered precipices. Several mules, one of them laden with gold, lost their footing and were plunged down the cliff. Napoleon was forced to dismount and go on foot to keep warm. For a short time he ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... how charming a travelling-party you belong to, the moment they are all mounted and climbing a mountain, single file, you feel yourself a unit in creation. Everybody has turned his back upon you, and you have turned your back upon everybody. You are a solitary traveller. Are you aghast at your own situation on the steep slope of a mule's ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... main procession there was a single file of five and twenty gentlemen pensioners, ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... in the wet, sweet, sun-warmed forest, hands clasped, that nesting birds flew boldly about them, unafraid, and two wildcats, trotting softly in single file, green eyes blinking, passed within a ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... Hill, an eminence which commanded the country toward the east; on the right was El Caney, a fortified village held by a small force of Spaniards. The country between the two points was a jungle, the roads hardly better than trails, where troops frequently had to go in single file. The fight at El Caney was severe, the enemy being well-entrenched, well-armed and protected by wire entanglements and block houses, and General Lawton suffered a loss of more than 400 killed and wounded before driving the Spaniards out of their position. ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... said hysterically, and the next instant was standing upon a chair, pale as a ghost. It was a wonder she had not mounted the dresser, too, for there, issuing in creepy single file from the wainscoting, came mice—mice of various tints. A red one led the grewsome rank, a black and white one came next, then in decorous procession followed the guilty green one, a yellow one, a blue one, and finally—horror of horrors!—a red-white-and-blue mouse, ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers
... "when I looked out, I felt the futility of bed, so I made an assignation with the Hound when I met it trooping along with Russ in single file to the bathroom. Why does your Hound always accompany you there, Russ? Dogs must think us awfully irrational beasts, and yet—does that Hound really think you could elope for ever and be no more seen, with nothing on but pyjamas and a towel? I suppose he thinks ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... In single file they crept through the prepared opening in the barbed-wire entanglement, and so out into No Man's Land, where they took up their spike-team formation. Phipps-Herrick was the leader, the other men were the wheelers. They had agreed on a code of silent signals: ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke
... trot across the flats, over the little hills, and into the scrub pine. The valley gradually narrowed until it forced the skirmishers into a solid body, when the lieutenant took the lead, with the command tailing out in single file. The signs of the Indians grew thicker and thicker—a skirmisher's nest here behind a scrub-pine bush, and there by the side of a rock. Kettles and robes lay about in the snow, with three "bucks" and some women and children sprawling about, frozen as they had ...
— Crooked Trails • Frederic Remington
... drop into St. Peter's at their leisure, to kneel on the pavement, and say a quiet prayer, there are certain schools and seminaries, priestly and otherwise, that come in, twenty or thirty strong. These boys always kneel down in single file, one behind the other, with a tall grim master in a black gown, bringing up the rear: like a pack of cards arranged to be tumbled down at a touch, with a disproportionately large Knave of clubs at the end. ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... as the canoes had been drawn from the water and carefully concealed, the Seminoles and their captives turned into the gloom of the shadowy cypresses, and made their way in single file along the narrow trail that led away from the lagoon. It was often covered with water, and a misstep on either side of its entire length would have plunged the unfortunate who should make it into ...
— The Flamingo Feather • Kirk Munroe
... come! (They listen. No one speaks. The stony boots come on. Enter in single file a procession of seven green men, even hands and faces are green; they wear greenstone sandals, they walk with knees extremely wide apart, as having sat cross-legged for centuries, their right arms and right ...
— Selections from the Writings of Lord Dunsay • Lord Dunsany
... in single file, headed by the hunter, who ascended by narrow tracks, where two could not have gone abreast. There was ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... tell you. About night we landed at one of them little Missouri towns high up toward Iowa, and had supper at the tavern, and got a room upstairs with a cot and a double bed in it, but I dumped my bag under a deal table in the dark hall while we was moving along it to bed, single file, me last, and the landlord in the lead with a tallow candle. We had up a lot of whisky, and went to playing high-low-jack for dimes, and as soon as the whisky begun to take hold of Bud we stopped drinking, but we didn't let him stop. We loaded him till he fell ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... men to follow in single file, sergeant," he said; "keeping touch with each other. As long as we are on the beaten track we know we are right, but there may be bowlders or anything else close by on ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... think I must have made a mistake. The cowl-like habit turned out to be the coarse native blanket, used for so many purposes by rustic Indians, and which they wear in this monastic fashion in the, sometimes chill, early mornings, or when it is wet. Their walking in single file was not in order to assist them in the preservation of perpetual silence, but because jungle footpaths make this mode of progression a necessity, and country folk get so used to walking in this fashion that when they emerge on to the high-road they preserve ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... could give them, they advanced to the gate. This gate stands close to an angle in the wall, and from the parapets a storm of musketry fire was poured upon them. When they reached the ditch they found the drawbridge destroyed, but crossed in single file upon the beams on which it rested. The gate was of course closed, but a small postern-door beside it was open, and through this the mutineers added a heavy fire to that which streamed from above. The sappers ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... words in a loud tone. The incessant jabbering which they had kept up from the moment they halted instantly ceased, and one after another a number of young warriors, perhaps twenty, rode out in single file upon the prairie. After gaining a distance of about one hundred yards from the main body they increased the intervals separating them to some fifty paces, and then inclining the course so as to form a sort of half circle, they increased their speed and ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... is said that the Ohio runs red with blood! There are huge slaughterhouses behind the town, something on the plan of the abattoirs of Paris—large wooden buildings, with numerous pens, from whence the pigs march in single file along a narrow passage, to an apartment where each, on his entrance, receives a blow with a hammer, which deprives him of consciousness, and in a short time, by means of numerous hands, and a well-managed caldron system, he is cut up ready ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... annual Harar caravan,—a large body, composed of an aggregate of numerous small caravans, which all march together that their combined strength may give mutual support. Down the whole breadth of the plain, like a busy stream of ants, they came in single file, one camel's nose tied to his leader's tail. Immediately on their flanks were Somali, armed with spear and bow, the men who tended them and looked after the loading. Outside them again were occasional detachments of men riding ponies, all armed, ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... in a line, single file; Fitzhugh, after a lively gallop, led us all. Soon he came alongside the rear buffalo, at which he fired. The animal faltered, and with another shot Fitzhugh brought him to the ground. Crosby dashed past and leveled another of ...
— An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill (Colonel W. F. Cody) • Buffalo Bill (William Frederick Cody)
... carriage road continues all the way, in places steep enough and tortuous, as the rough broken nature of the country necessitates. By another road or trail, paralleling our own, a continuous string of camel caravans proceeds in single file at a leisurely gait, the animals loaded with merchandise for the Kabul market and others in Central Asia. It is a rough, desolate and uninteresting country, yet grand and beautiful in its way, and one is at once struck with the difficulties to be encountered ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... will go first, as he knows the way, and I will follow him; the rest drop in in single file, with the sergeant at the rear. Keep close enough to distinguish the man in front, and be careful where you put your feet. No noise, not a word spoken unless I pass back an order; then give it to the next man in a ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... point her meditation suffered interruption. The three cormorants, having finished their sun-bath, rose from the sand and flapped off, flying low and sullenly in single file over the sea parallel ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... ornamented our horses' heads and our own hats, we prepared to ascend the second mountain. This is as steep, or nearly as steep as the first; but we were already confident in the sure-footedness of our horses, and even able to admire the view as we ascended single file. After much rain, this path must of course be completely impassable. The day had now become oppressively warm, though it was not later than eleven o'clock; and having passed the hills, we came to a dusty high-road, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... After him in single file came the four porters, laden with a small tent, some tinned provisions and brandy, ammunition, a box containing beads, watches, etc. for presents, blankets, spare clothing and so forth. These were stalwart fellows enough, ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... of the shrubbery as the horses of the outlaws pushed their way through to the higher ground, and it was not long before he caught sight of them, riding in single file, the captain leading ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... their heels there came into the town, not the Sultan himself, but a troop of his prisoners from the mountains. Ten of them there were in all, guarded by ten soldiers, and they made a sorry spectacle. They were chained together, man to man in single file, not hand to hand or leg to leg but neck to neck. So had they walked a hundred miles, never separated night or day, either sleeping or waking, or faint or strong. The feet of some were bare and torn, and dripping blood; the faces of all were black with grime, and streaked with lines of sweat. And ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... point in single file, came a long line of some thirty canoes, uncouth, shapeless things, each hewed out of a great cypress log. In the end of each an Indian stood erect plying a long pole which sent their clumsy looking crafts forward ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... Chekiang provinces a line of half a dozen white goats were often seen feeding single file along the pathways, held by a cord like a string of beads, sometimes led by a child. Here, too, one of the most common sights was the water buffalo grazing unattended among the fields along the paths and canal banks, with crops all about, One of the most memorable ...
— Farmers of Forty Centuries - or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan • F. H. King
... him, he beheld an exclusive little procession consisting of two damsels in single file, the first soiled with house-moving, the ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... the visitors had to give way to men who marched in single file carrying what seemed to be huge cheeses, but the guide explained that within these were cups, saucers, bowls, and basins, and men mounted on ladders piled these yellow tubs up the walls of the ovens. When the visitors ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... soon afterwards a strange procession headed by the band and guarded by children, entered the field. A row of geese, waddling solemnly in single file, came first, and then turkeys stalked among their broods; a boy led a handsome goat and long-legged calf, and in the rear straggled a flock of sheep. When all were driven into pens the sale began and the crowd laughed ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... three additional men for this excursion, so that they now had five guides, none of whom were superfluous, since they carried with them various barometric instruments which required careful handling. They began the ascent in single file, but the slopes soon became so steep and the light snow (in which they floundered to the knees at every step) so deep, that the guides resorted to the usual method in such cases of tying them all together. ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... still there were no signs of any indication to move forward. So the long-eared steed was mounted and the ford of the Aguadores reconnoitered. The bullets were zipping through the rank tropical jungle. Two or three men were hit. Those who moved forward were going single file, crouching low, at a dog trot. There was no evidence of hesitation or fear here. Some of the "Brunettes" passed, their blue shirts unbuttoned, corded veins protruding as they slightly raised their heads to look forward, great drops of perspiration rolling ...
— The Gatlings at Santiago • John H. Parker
... nothing of importance, but in reality telling him with great glee of how he had succeeded in lulling the captain's suspicions. Presently the whole party reached the thicket in which the well was situated, and as the path was narrow they had to walk in single file, the children who were carrying the axes falling behind. And then suddenly, and almost without a sound, thirty or more stalwart savages, led by the young Kaibuka and his uncle, leapt on the unsuspecting white men, who in a few seconds were clubbed to ...
— The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton - 1902 • Louis Becke
... chaperons! The last tale is of the kind consideration of the liege lady. From the room where the members of the royal family assemble apart, she walks, not to take her seat on the throne, but to stand in front of the steps which lead to it, that the ladies who advance towards her in single file may not have to climb the steps with stumbling feet, often caught in their trailing skirts, till the wearers were in danger of being precipitated against the royal knees as the ladies bent to kiss the Queen's ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... directly I set foot on it. It was the most innocent structure in the world—like a thousand others in Essex and Holland—topped by a narrow path, where we walked in single file with arms akimbo to keep our balance in the gusts of wind. Below us lay the sands on one side and rank fens on the other, interspersed with squares of pasture ringed in with ditches. After half a mile we dropped down and came back by a short circuit inland, following a mazy path—which ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... there are only a few local roads or paths. They are usually 2 yards in width, made by the various owners, and can not be well traveled in rainy weather. They are more properly horse and mule trails, and oblige people to go in single file. In late years much has been attempted to improve the highways connecting the principal cities, and more has been accomplished than in Spanish colonies. There is a good made road connecting Ponce on the southern coast with San ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... keen as at its initial giving. Was there ever a troubadour of old who struck upon as royal a castle in his wanderings? While he lay thus, meditating upon his blessings, little brown cottontails would shyly frolic through the yard; a covey of white-topknotted blue quail would run past, in single file, twenty yards away; a paisano bird, out hunting for tarantulas, would hop upon the fence and salute him with sweeping flourishes of its long tail. In the eighty-acre horse pasture the pony with the Dantesque face grew ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... Esther, stepping in single file, and their manner showed that they acknowledged her their leader in every sense. She was truly an extraordinary woman. Not even the great Thayendanegea himself wielded a stronger influence among the Iroquois. ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... single file, each man with a led camel ridden by a woman, except that Yasmini directed her own mount and for the most part showed the way, her desert-reared guide being hard put to keep his own animal abreast of her. There is a gift—a trick of riding camels, very seldom learned by the city-born; ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... through the blinds; it's dark there." Gem obeyed softly, and Tom disappeared around the corner of the house, followed by the dogs, who understood from their master's low order, that a secret reconnaissance was to be made, and moved stealthily behind him single file, big Turk first, then Pete Trone, Esq., and last of all plebeian Grip, his tail fairly sweeping the ground in ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March
... cut and turn over the soil as an English plough, drawn by two or three powerful horses, would do it. The ground is, in fact merely scratched, and, in order that the scratching may be a little more complete, a number of ploughs follow each other in single file over the ground. As many as from six to twelve, or more, ploughs will thus work together upon one plot, the ploughmen chatting with each other all the time. A sower sprinkles the seed before them, and the ploughs loosen and scatter the ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... over the wire fence and through it, firing heaters wildly. There were lights in the buildings, now, and a picked group of men came out of one of them, swinging in single file; the heaters chopped them to pieces before they had much of a chance. A tower light went on and then the really big guns ...
— The Man Who Played to Lose • Laurence Mark Janifer
... in single file past the counter in the store and get rice and tea and flour dealt out to them, and then each one receives a portion of meat. The agent speaks to each of them by name, calling them Jim, Dick, or Charlie. ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... out—by the bridge of boats across the Scheldt. It was a narrow plank road, and as vehicles had to go across in single file at some distance apart, the pressure can be imagined. For an hour and a half we stood in the densely packed Cathedral square watching the hands of the great clock go round and wondering when a shell ...
— A Surgeon in Belgium • Henry Sessions Souttar
... single file, all the way to the garden door. There they strained their sight down the path, beyond him, but the bower was quite dark. "Corinne, chere, ought not one of us to go, yo'seff?—to spare her feelings—from that li'l' negro? You don' think one of ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable
... Friday, May 14th, and our long cavalcade proceeded in the usual single file down along the creek in the direction of the Indian smoke. Scarcely had we gone three miles when suddenly we heard a yell and the bark of a dog. Then we discovered two squaws on the other side who had been gathering seeds, and who were now giving the alarm, for we were close upon an ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... the brig, both returning to the ships, and in less than an hour three hundred men had landed. From the spot where they had obtained a footing, the only approach to Fort Ingles was by a precipitous path which could only be passed in single file. The fort itself was only accessible by a ladder that had been drawn up, as soon as the party driven back from the landing place had returned. An attack seemed well-nigh hopeless; but the Chilians' confidence in their leader was unbounded, and none doubted but that ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... only a chance, but a strange one," he went on, with his eyes fixed on the topmost ridge of his brown puttie. "We were climbing the face of a kopje, one day. It was very steep, and we crawled up a narrow trail in single file. Two days before, our guns had been shelling the whole kopje, and they must have cracked it up badly. All at once, the man above me loosened a great lump of rock. I was exactly underneath it. It gave a little bound outward, went ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... tramps; every condition between prosperity and destitution. A procession was also constantly flowing from the hospital to the quartermaster's stores—the same procession, with one military touch; for this time the men did not straggle, but were marched single file in charge of a sergeant. The next procession was from the stores to the men's quarters; but now each man had a great bundle under his arms containing his entire kit wrapped up in ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... be exterminated. On this occasion, after the performance of an Umsebeuza, or war song, - which is exactly like all the other songs, - the chief makes a speech to his brothers and friends, arranged in single file. No particular order is observed during the delivery of this address, but every gentleman who finds himself excited by the subject, instead of crying 'Hear, hear!' as is the custom with us, darts ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... in single file along the narrow path. The sweetness of a long sunny day came up from the grass that brushed Jean's skirts. For many minutes the new mound they were approaching was screened by the tall growth, but when they saw it, Jean stopped ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... walk in single file while taking exercise, as the tramway was not wide enough for two, and the rock, even when fully uncovered, did not afford sufficient level space for comfortable walking, although at low water (as the reader already knows) it ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne |
