"Wildcat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... A great table in the middle was comfortably littered with books and magazines. All the available wall space, from floor to ceiling, was occupied by filled bookshelves. It seemed to Daylight that he had never seen so many books assembled in one place. Skins of wildcat, 'coon, and deer lay ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... talk wore off in a fortnight. Yet he was popular with teachers as well as pupils. His head was crowned with a mass of sandy hair and his impertinent face plastered with freckles. The boy was quick and full of grace as a wildcat and so well built and lithe that he was a terror on ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock
... Tyope do? He belongs to his hanutsh, his daughter to hers; and the people of Tyame have no faith in those of Shyuamo, for they mistrust them. But warn the mot[a]tza; tell him to be prudent; for Tyope is cunning,—as cunning as shutzuna and as treacherous as the wildcat, and my grandson is young. But let them go together, for I am glad to see Tyame and Tanyi become ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... ever know me to show fear, de Lussan?" cried the captain bending forward and staring at the Frenchman, his eyes glittering in the darkness like those of a wildcat. ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... again. Only eight yards to go and four downs to do it in. Clint scented victory and his nerves grew tense as he waited. Then he was pushing and wrenching and once more the hole was opened wide and once more Freer, playing like a wildcat, smashed past him. Clint followed through, met a Claflin back and sent him staggering aside. Freer, tackled but still fighting, dragged himself on and on. And ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... other feeble folk were to gather food for the warriors, of whom the principal ones were the Bear, Wolf, Wildcat and Bison. The Swallow served as messenger to the birds, and the swift Trout carried the news to the finny tribes, for all were ...
— Wigwam Evenings - Sioux Folk Tales Retold • Charles Alexander Eastman and Elaine Goodale Eastman
... gallant. The last I saw of her, absolutely wrecked alow and aloft, her whole midships a fuming inferno, she had one gun forward and one aft still spitting forth fury and defiance like a wildcat mad with wounds. ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... that year the meat-markets in that section of the country were remarkably bad. It was sometimes difficult for a panther or a wildcat to find enough food to keep her family at all decently, and there were cases of great destitution. In years before there had been plenty of deer, wild turkey, raccoons, and all sorts of good things, but they were very scarce now. This was not the first time that our young Jaguar ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... endangered &c v.; fraught with danger; dangerous, hazardous, perilous, parlous, periculous^; unsafe, unprotected &c (safe, protect) &c 664; insecure. untrustworthy; built upon.sand, on a sandy basis; wildcat. defenseless, fenceless, guardless^, harborless; unshielded; vulnerable, expugnable^, exposed; open to &c (liable) 177. aux abois [Fr.], at bay; on the wrong side of the wall, on a lee shore, on the rocks. at stake, in question; precarious, critical, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... in that instant Seppi leaped forward and, seizing the goat by the tail, pulled back with all his might. Leneli sprang to the rescue of Seppi, grasping him firmly around the waist, and screaming like a wildcat as she added ...
— The Swiss Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... yet many of the joys of Arcady are here—bright, singing birds, wide adventurous rivers, innumerable streams, the squirrel in the wood and the bracken, the wildcat stealing through the undergrowth, the lizard glittering by the stone, the fish leaping in the stream, the plaint of the whippoorwill, the call of the bluebird, the golden flash of the oriole, the honk of the wild geese overhead, the whirr of the mallard from the sedge. And, more ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... all right," said Peter. "Now I'll tell you something. If you had gone away in that ambulance to an anesthetic and an operation, no wildcat that ever indulged in a hunger hunt through this canyon could have put up a howl equal to the one that I ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... constantly planning—purely a militarist, believing in slaughter as in a religion, and confident that art, science, poetry, and the good of the world were happily advanced thereby—Gipsy had become, though technically not a wildcat, undoubtedly the most untamed cat at large in the civilized world. Such, in brief, was the terrifying creature which now elongated its neck, and, over the top step of the porch, bent a calculating scrutiny upon the wistful ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... scheme that'll knock all these wildcat ones just to flinders, see if it don't," remarked Tom Betts, waving ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... of the men with their guns; they knifed another one, an' they killed Riley with their bare hands. It wasn't no pretty sight to see—the inside of that house. And last of all they got Piotto, fightin' like an old wildcat, into a corner with his daughter; and William Drew, he took Piotto into his arms and busted his back. That don't sound possible, but when you see Drew you'll know ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... mink, coon, muskrat, wildcat, and beaver. Besides this the stores advertised that they would take for their articles cash, beeswax, and country produce or tallow, hogs' lard in white walnut kegs, butter, pork, new feathers, good horses, and also ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... an enraged wildcat mother," Jack told him, "and without a sign of a gun to back you, that's the time to spell prudence in big capital letters. They've got terrible claws, and can use them to tear a fellow's clothes to ribbons, not to mention what they'll do to your hide. No use talking, Steve, ...
— Jack Winters' Campmates • Mark Overton
... he went on, "I wouldn't want you a little bit. But it's Her. She's got her mind made up to do the right thing and have us all be somebody, and when she makes her mind up——" He hesitated and studied the ceiling for some seconds. "Believe me," he continued, "Mrs. Effie is some wildcat!" ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... might prove harmful to his cause if this affair should ever be contested in the courts, Miss Ladd decided to take a hand and do what she could to pacify the young heir who had suddenly been transformed into a veritable wildcat. She had no doubt that there was good cause in his past experience for the development of such character in him, but expediency demanded that ...
— Campfire Girls at Twin Lakes - The Quest of a Summer Vacation • Stella M. Francis
... standing head: "On to Richmond!"] but eventuating in a defense of Washington, humiliating as was this reverse, promoted all sorts and conditions of men, moneyed, well-grounded, and investing in the new government securities, fluctuating like wildcat stock, to pester the President with Jeremiads and counsel. To one deputation from his home parts he administered this caustic rebuke in such illustration as was habitual ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... the moon is no more fanciful than several of the proposals seriously received by Englishmen under the spell of speculation. As in the kingdom of Cacklogallinia, so in London, men mortgaged their homes and women sold their jewels [4] in order to purchase shares in wildcat companies, born one day, only to die the next. As the anonymous author of one of many South Sea Ballads wrote in his "Merry Remarks upon Exchange ...
— A Voyage to Cacklogallinia - With a Description of the Religion, Policy, Customs and Manners of That Country • Captain Samuel Brunt
... and on Herminius He leaned one breathing space; Then, like a wildcat mad with wounds, Sprang right at Astur's face. Through teeth, and skull, and helmet, So fierce a thrust he sped, The good sword stood a handbreadth out Behind the ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... "You mean a wildcat, don't you, Toby?" whispered Landy, for the two boats were close enough together for the occupants to have shaken hands, had ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas
... monkeys cowering at his approach in the branches overhead; he can shake the earth with a vibrating, resonant purr, like the sound of faint thunder in the foot-hills; he can mew and snarl like an angry wildcat; and he can roar like a lusty lion cub. But it is when he lifts up his voice in the long-drawn moan that the jungle chiefly fears him. This cry means that he is hungry, and, moreover, that he is so sure of his kill that he cares not if all ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... recovered instantly. "We've just dug a hole and pulled the hole in after us, that's all! When we get everything doped out to suit us, we'll snap out of it and that bird'll think he's been petting a wildcat!" ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... "Ho! did you see him blink when he came up? It was worth while, Jerry, even if I have to fight you, but I don't believe I shall. You see, your father had to go off, and he asked me to keep the peace, and I said I would; and I didn't see any other way, wildcat that you are. A sweet condition the Charmer would have been in to go back to his Mamma, if I had not done ...
— The Merryweathers • Laura E. Richards
... laughed. "Thar's been many a lively young fellow that's tried it, but she's hard to ketch as a wildcat. She won't have nothin' to do with other folks, 'n' she nuver comes down hyeh into the valley, 'cept to git her corn groun' er to shoot a turkey. Sherd Raines goes up to see her, and folks say he air tryin' ...
— A Mountain Europa • John Fox Jr.
... aims to git Mistuh Wildcat, den. I done got me a couple o' guinea-fowls for watch, en dey sho does set up a mighty potrackin' w'en anything strange comes ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... conversation assailed their ears as the people scurried by; references to old companies and their latest projects, and to new companies and new finds; talk about the menace of the runs pinching out, and talk about the danger of over-stocking the world's zinc markets; grumbling talk about the wildcat exploitation going on at every corner, and envious talk about a report that some wildcat promoter had just succeeded in selling a face of ore that had cut blind under the drill of the buyer in a few lamentable days; condemnatory ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... din day in, day out, passes my comprehension. You had not been gone fifteen minutes when Missy tuned up. I patted and, 'She-e-d' her, but she got her head above cover, squinted around the room, and not finding you, set up a squall that would have scared a wildcat. The more I patted, the worse she screamed, and her feet and hands flew around like a wind-mill. I took her up, and trotted her on my knee, but bless you! she squirmed like an eel, and her little bald head bobbed up and down ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... discovery was made? Well, the T. P. Company had the whole country plastered with coal leases and finally decided to put down a fifteen-hundred-foot wildcat. The guy that ran the rig had a hunch there was oil here if he went deep enough, but he knew the company wouldn't stick, so he faked the log of the well as long as he could, then he kept on drilling, against orders—refused to open his mail, for fear he'd find he was ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... replied the old man in a confidential whisper, "hit want nobody on de topside er de yeth but ole Brer Wildcat." ...
— Southern Stories - Retold from St. Nicholas • Various
... flew at him like a wildcat. Rainey struck out, and his fists hit at the top of the breed's head without stopping ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... badly he might have behaved, her conduct had been worse than his. He could have made himself warm and comfortable with anger, and could have assured himself that under any circumstances he must be right to escape from the clutches of a wildcat such as that. But at the last moment she had shown that she was no wild cat to him. She had melted, and become soft and womanly. In her softness she had been exquisitely beautiful; and as he returned home he was sad and dissatisfied ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... know when you may want a shooting iron up in the woods. There might be an old wildcat prowling around these diggings, which would take a dislike to the shape of my face, so he'd attack us. And I'm homely enough as it is right now, without inviting a cat to make the map ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... explanation Ottenburg had not paid much attention. He seemed to be looking at a fixed point: the yellow glass eyes of a fine wildcat over one of the bookcases. "You've never heard her at all, have you?" he asked reflectively. "Curious, when this is her second season in ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... he cried in despair, "is it possible that you think me capable of murdering a wounded adversary? Is it.... Be quiet, you little wildcat, you," he added. ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... and warn Brother Emmanuel that he go not forth. Belike he might come out in search of us, since the hour is long past when we should have been with him. That must not be. Go and tell him all we have seen; whilst I will creep like a wildcat round the house, and see if there be other spies keeping watch like those we ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... and be expeditious in doing their work.—In this profession of slaughtering, destructive instincts, long repressed by civilization, become aroused. His feline physiognomy, at first "that of a domestic cat, restless but mild, changes into the savage appearance of the wildcat, and close to the ferocious exterior of the tiger. In the Constituent Assembly he speaks with a whine, in the Convention he froths at the mouth."[31146] The monotonous drone of a stiff sub-professor changes into the personal accent of furious passion; he hisses and grinds his teeth;[31147] ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... with about a hundred other corporations of various kinds—most of them with names that sound like the zoo—Yellow Wildcat, Jumping Leapfrog, and that sort of thing. It seems Horse's Neck is played out and they are going to ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... little fellow, yet the stern necessities of a settler's life had compelled his father to teach him the use of a gun; and although Balser had never killed a bear, he had shot several deer, and upon one occasion had killed a wildcat, "almost as big as a cow," ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... lair, supper-less and frantic with hunger, after a day of fruitless hunting through the dead forest world, a giant wildcat had been stirred from its first fitful slumber in the ledge's crevice by the impact of the child upon the heap of leaves. The human scent had startled the creature and it had slunk farther back into the crevice. The more so when the ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... I boiled over, and lifted my hand to strike him; and he, drawing a knife from his rags, squatted back and grinned at me like a wildcat. At that, forgetting everything but my anger, I ran in upon him, put aside his knife with my left, and struck him in the mouth with the right. I was a strong lad and very angry, and he but a little man; and he went ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... antiquated coupes, and mules and horses and a courtyard full of liveried servants. Inside, it still looked barbaric, with its magnificent display of rich silks and furs. Great skins of tiger, panther, leopard, wildcat, sable, were hanging in profusion on all sides, interspersed with costly embroideries, wonderful brocades, and all the magnificence and color of the gorgeous East. It was the idea of Kwong, our pet rickshaw-boy, ...
— Peking Dust • Ellen N. La Motte
... was made to live in the forest. He has much skill and ingenuity. The wildcat shows us we must think, must use tact, must be shrewd when we set out to do anything. The wildcat is ...
— Myths and Legends of the Great Plains • Unknown
... "He's like a wildcat to-night," said the duke in an aside to the little Frenchman, referring to his lordship. "Demme, I'd rather not cross him. You seem to forget that his sister is out ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... According to his established methods, Whetstone would allow him to mount, still standing with that indifferent droop to his head. But one who was sharp would observe that he was rolling his old white eyes back to see, tipping his sharp ear like a wildcat to hear every scrape and creak of the leather. Then, with the man in the saddle, nobody knew what ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... northward, and you will reach the brow of a hill from which the native village will be visible. Descend and attack it at once, if you find men to fight with; if not, take possession quietly. Mind you don't take the wrong turn; it leads to places where a wildcat would not venture even in daylight. If you attend to what I have said, you can't go wrong. ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... all directions to gain the earlies possible intelligence of the progress of the movement, and to make such resistance to it as might be possible. One of these outposts was stationed at Wildcat Gap, an inexpressibly wild and desolate region, sixty miles from Camp Dick Robinson, where the road entering Kentucky from Tennessee at Cumberland Gap crosses the Wildcat ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... behind and tripped him heavily into the dust, then landed upon him like a wildcat and bit and tore at him until with a scream of pain he managed to throw it off. Even as he struggled to his feet it sprang again upon him, kicking and clawing, and he turned quickly, and scrambling into the buggy seat, gathered ...
— Anything Once • Douglas Grant
... all of the olden time; down in a deep dell, sheltered by uplands north, east, and west; looking south down the valley to the Sussex downs, which were seen in the hazy distance uplifting their graceful outlines to the blue sky, across a vast canopy of treetops; beneath whose shade the wolf and the wildcat, the badger and the fox, yet roamed at large, and preyed upon the wild deer and the lesser game. It bore the name of Walderne, which signifies a sylvan spot frequented by the wild beasts; the castle lay beneath; the parish church rose on the summit of the ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... grey glint of light which he knows is reflected from the horns of the cattle tied to the trek-tow. Presently, however, I saw another glint of light which I guessed came from the spear of Saduko, who was seated by the ashes of the cooking fire wrapped in his kaross of wildcat skins. Slipping from the voorkisse, or driving-box, I came behind him softly and touched him on the shoulder. He leapt up with a start which revealed his nervous nature, then recognising me through the soft ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard
... the words when the wildcat gave another snarl of rage. Then the tail of the beast began to quiver, and suddenly, with a cry, it leaped down from the tree, striking the ground directly in front of the ...
— The Rover Boys on a Hunt - or The Mysterious House in the Woods • Arthur M. Winfield (Edward Stratemeyer)
... answered, "you made me like a wildcat that day. I nearly killed you, twice. You remember that low parapet on the roof? I was behind that, waiting for you with a loaded pistol. You were all very near your deaths that morning. In the King's service, of course. For just a minute, I thought ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... he crept through the bushes to the little stream in the ravine and drank deep again. His glance caught a pair of red eyes gleaming through the dusk and he saw a wildcat treading lightly. But the cat did not snarl or arch its back. Instead it moved away without any sign of hostility and climbed a big oak, in the brown foliage of which it was lost to Henry's sight. In his mind the thought grew stronger that he was being accepted as a brother ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Huns have got him," said Frank gloomily. "He isn't among the dead or wounded as far as we've been able to find. But I'll bet they thought they had hold of a wildcat when they ...
— Army Boys on the Firing Line - or, Holding Back the German Drive • Homer Randall
... this granary, the larger following to prey on them. To-night there would be owls and in the darkness tragedies. In the morning, perhaps, he would find a feather which had floated from a breast. A hundred years ago, he reflected, the wolves would have gathered here also and the cougar and the wildcat for ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... he met a sight that, for the instant, chilled him to the backbone. There, between the blaze and the tree under which John Barrow was sleeping, crouched a wildcat, a large, fierce-looking creature, with fire-shot eyes and a stubby tail which was moving noiselessly from side by side, as the creature prepared itself ...
— The Rover Boys In The Mountains • Arthur M. Winfield
... said Uncle Lucky, "why we are always having so many accidents. Maybe I had better get a chauffeur." "You won't need any chauffeur after I'm done with you," said a deep growly voice, and out from behind a clump of bushes jumped a wicked wildcat and bit one of the front tires, she was ...
— Billy Bunny and Uncle Bull Frog • David Magie Cory
... there is revealed the whole workings of a great American railroad system. There are adventures in abundance—railroad wrecks, dashes through forest fires, the pursuit of a "wildcat" locomotive, the disappearance of a pay car with a large sum of money on board—but there is much more than this—the intense rivalry among railroads and railroad men, the working out of running schedules, the getting through "on time" in spite of all obstacles, and the ...
— Tom Swift among the Fire Fighters - or, Battling with Flames from the Air • Victor Appleton
... sahib!" he shouted. "I knew that one would come for me! This hill wildcat has fought until the ropes cut both of us; but take time, sahib! I can wait. Attend to the duty first. Only let him who comes bring water with him, for ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... swans. We met from time to time monstrous fish, which struck so violently against our canoes, that at first we took them to be large trees, which threatened to upset us. We saw also a hideous monster; his head was like that of a tiger, his nose was sharp, and somewhat resembled a wildcat; his beard was long; his ears stood upright; the color of his head was gray; and his neck black. He looked upon us for some time, but as we came near him our oars frightened him away. When we threw our nets into the water we caught an abundance of sturgeons, and ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Volume I. - Voyages Of Discovery And Early Explorations: 1000 A.D.-1682 • Various
... his dialect, and spent many hours in his company. He told us the folk lore of his tribe. More than forty myths or animal stories of his have been recorded and preserved. They are as interesting as the stories of Uncle Remus. The escapades of wildcat, the lion, the grizzly bear, the bluejay, the lizard, and the coyote are as full of excitement and comedy as any ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... Chicago, and in the neighborhood of the Beaver lake region in northern Indiana, and at many other points. The furs handled by them consisted of the marten (sable), mink, musk-rat, raccoon, lynx, wildcat, fox, wolverine, badger, otter, beaver, bears and deer, of which the most valuable were those of the silver-gray fox and the marten. The value of these furs mounted into the hundreds of thousands of dollars and ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... came back to me, we locked grimly in a fierce struggle for the mastery. I had felt the straining grip of strong arms before, but De Croix surprised me,—he was like steel, quick of motion as a wildcat, with many a cunning French wrestling trick that tried me sorely. I heard a quick exclamation of surprise from the girl, a shout of delighted approval from Jordan, and then there was no sound but the harsh trampling ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... the way wildcat "mining" men have robbed the unsuspecting public. For these rupture swindlers take ...
— Cluthe's Advice to the Ruptured • Chas. Cluthe & Sons
... such a one. He might not look like a Viking, but after all it is the soul that counts and, as this afternoon's experience had taught her, Ramsden Waters had a soul that seemed to combine in equal proportions the outstanding characteristics of Nero, a wildcat, and the second mate of a ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... continent, telling of the heroic fight made by the British troops, August 23-26, to keep from being annihilated by the Germans. The withdrawal of the British army before the German advance was compared to the pursuit of a wildcat by hounds, the English force backing stubbornly toward the River Oise, constantly showing its teeth, but realizing that it must reach the river or perish. The report of Field Marshal French created much surprise in England, as it was not known until ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... fringe of willows along the river she came, until, at their very edge, there broke upon her already taut nerves the hideous and uncanny scream of a wildcat. The girl stopped short in her tracks. She felt the chill of fear creep through her skin, and a twitching at the roots of her hair evidenced to her the extremity of her terror. Should she turn back? The horses might be between her ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the projectiles hit Devers' ship," said Roger. "One of them on the power deck. Must've smashed the reaction tanks and made the stuff wildcat, because it blew him ...
— Sabotage in Space • Carey Rockwell
... a wildcat, and he was fast getting the best of me, when I managed to give him a rap on the head. That quieted him, and over he went." With an exclamation of disgust, he added: "It was a d——d nasty job. I'm sorry I ever went ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... concealed in the lining of my coat. I got work at villainous wages in the establishment of John A. Gray and Green in Cliff Street, and I found board in a sufficiently villainous mechanics' boarding-house in Duane Street. The firm paid my wages in wildcat money at its face value, and my week's wage merely sufficed to pay board and lodging. By and by I went to Philadelphia and worked there some months as a "sub" on the "Inquirer" and the "Public Ledger." Finally I made a flying trip to ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... have scoured after us in silence, hunting us in the dark for the last mile. For as we stood out, a black blot on the hilltop against the night sky, they broke out in chorus just behind us, for all the world like a pack of hounds who had treed a wildcat; and too close for any fool lying to ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... storm having done considerable damage at the school, they were given an unexpected fall vacation, and the chums decided to spend it on Wildcat Island, situated at the foot of the lake. There were several strange things connected with this island, such as a mysterious wild man who had been seen there; and besides, it was shunned because of the fierce bobcats that had possession. How our boys camped on this island, ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen
... as they walked mournfully home, amid the astonished gaze of the returning school children. "I don't believe there was a wildcat ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... fifteen hundred dollars instead of two thousand. "I ain't attempting," says he, "to decry the celebrated moral aspect of parental affection, but we're dealing with humans, and it ain't human for anybody to give up two thousand dollars for that forty-pound chunk of freckled wildcat. I'm willing to take a chance at fifteen hundred dollars. You can charge the difference up ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... so fierce he took my appetite away for several hours each time I saw him," said Stubby Woodchuck, "and I am sure he looks fully as terrible as Ki-yi Coyote or Tom Wildcat. Yes, sir, we have a very mean and dangerous enemy in Mr. Brushtail, and we must keep ...
— Doctor Rabbit and Brushtail the Fox • Thomas Clark Hinkle
... But, notwithstanding its slowness, most of the fierce creatures find it better to leave the porcupine to himself, and his innocent occupation of "barking" the trees. He generally proves more than a match for any of them; and, in fact, neither wolf, panther, nor wildcat, can kill him—as there is not a spot of his body which they can touch when he prepares himself for their attack. On the other hand, he frequently kills them— only in self-defence, however, as he never attacks any animal, but lives ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... "attacking" or leaping upon their victims and "seizing" them with malevolent delight. The concrete comparison was ready to their hand in the attack of fierce beasts of prey; and as the tiger leaps for the head to break the neck with one stroke of his paw, the wildcat flies at the face, the wolf springs for the slack of the flank or the hamstring, so these different disease demons appear each to have its favorite point of attack: smallpox, the skin; cholera, the bowels; the Black Death, the armpits and the ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... at him, kicking his shins with her feet, poking him with her knees, and gouging his eyes and digging his face with her nails. As well might Sandy try to make love to a cornered wildcat. He threw her from him, and Tess, springing up, uninjured, raced up the hill. Sandy's words, broken by fierce ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... do anything but detest. She was the patientest creature you ever saw. She was even too patient. If I had been tied to such a cub, I think I should have cultivated the beautiful and benignant qualities of a wildcat; there would have been one good fight, and one of us would have been living, and the other would have been dead, and that would have been the end of it. But Mrs. Jedwort bore and bore untold miseries and a large number of children. She had had nine of ...
— The Man Who Stole A Meeting-House - 1878, From "Coupon Bonds" • J. T. Trowbridge
... rasslin' with the logs. That put meat on my bones! I could 'a' gone back an' made a mess o' the hull party with the toe o' my boot but I ain't overly fond o' killin'. Never have been. I took my time an' slopped erlong toward shore with the runt under my arm cussin' like a wildcat. We got ashore an' I made the leetle sergeant empty his pockets an' give me all the papers he had. I took the strip o' rawhide from round my belt an' put a noose above his knees an' 'nother on my wrist an' sot down ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... cat's a plumb fool," declared Cap'n Amazon. "They'll desert ship as soon as wink. Treacherous critters, the hull tribe. Why, when I was up country in Cuba once, I stopped at a man's hacienda and he had a tame wildcat—had had it from a kitten. Brought it up on a ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... with a sense of GUILT. During that whole night I lay under the influence of the rigor, and from its inception I felt that I was under the curse of God. I have never done one act of duty in my life—sins against God and man beginning as far as my memory goes back—a wildcat in ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... next morning. He drew a breath of pure ecstasy, rolled over and began pummelling the inert form of Bob, who had shared his blanket on an improvised bed in the cabin. The Delaware boy opened an eye, closed it again with carefully assumed drowsiness, and the next instant leaped like a joyful wildcat on his tormentor. There was a beautiful tussle that was only broken off ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... rate, was just a simple, straightforward brute, if a murderous one. There was no mystery about him, nothing uncanny, no suggestion of a stealthy, deliberate wildcat turned into a man, or of an insolent spectre on leave from Hades, endowed with skin and bones and a subtle power of terror. Pedro with his fangs, his tangled beard, and queer stare of his little bear's eyes was, ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... Polly called him, felt compelled to apply to rod to Dick—unjustly, as it afterward appeared—Bud burst into a tempest of passionate tears, and, leaping upon the Colonel's back, clung there clawing and striking like a wildcat until Allen was forced to let Dick go. It is shrewdly indicative of the Colonel's character that not only did he refrain from punishing Bud on that occasion, but, when floggings were subsequently due the little fellow, laid on the rod less heavily out of regard for the loyalty to his brother he had ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller
... afraid?" demanded Fred. "A wolf cannot harm you, and at the worst, a wildcat or two are no ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... Jim, a very little man, with nervous hands and remarkable steady eyes. He had punched cows over those ranges for ten years, and his experience had made him a wildcat in a fight. Oscar Larsen was a huge Swede, with a perpetual and foolish grin. Sour Creek had laughed at Oscar for five years, considered him dubiously for five years more, and then suddenly admitted him ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... said so, Lysander did not doubt but that it would be so. He concluded, therefore, not to catch Toby—that night. Moreover, he resolved to go back to his quarters and sleep. He was afraid of that wildcat; he dreaded the thought of trusting himself in the house with her. He durst not kill her, and he durst not go to sleep, leaving her alive. The Germans, perceiving his fear, looked at each other and grunted. That grunt was ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... ever done that was rational?" cried his mother sharply. "From the beginning, when she was a baby of three months old, and howled at me because I kissed her, and that dreadful mother of hers flew at me like a wildcat and said I had the evil eye, Leam Dundas has been more like some changeling than an ordinary English girl. I declare it sometimes makes my heart ache to, see her with those awful eyes of hers, looking as if she had seen one does not know what—as if she was being literally ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... wildcat, and peep through bark so close he could almos' touch her; but he only lift edge of bark, and slide in wampum belt. Coquan work war-belt for him, and know who it is at once. Then she go out, an' they talk together, far from ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... interrupted and couldn't talk it out. Well, I can't go back to him and resume, no more'n a wildcat bank. For one thing, I wouldn't take him ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... topics are the construction of ships, the mariner's compass, and astronomy. The stories of the land pioneers open up a still richer field of natural science study for the common schools. Among animals are the beaver, otter, squirrel, coon, bear, fox, wildcat, deer, buffalo, domestic animals, wild turkeys, ducks, pigeons, eagle, hawk, wild bees, cat-fish, sword-fish, turtle, alligator, and many more. Among native products and fruits are mentioned corn, pumpkins, beans, huckleberries, ...
— The Elements of General Method - Based on the Principles of Herbart • Charles A. McMurry
... moment when he was deep within the heart of the forest he thought he heard hurried footsteps behind him. He felt for his dirk and turned round. The moon's beams pierced the trees and fell upon a glistening pool of water where a wildcat was slaking its thirst. There was naught else ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... at least was not going to have Lee for an orderly. He knew what it was to have a fine orderly, and Lee was almost too good to be true at all. Why, only the week before, Lee had offered to get Frank a wildcat cub for a pet. Frank's mother, Mrs. Anderson, and his father, the Major, had refused to have the savage little creature about and Frank had had to tell Lee so. He had kept teasing Lee for some sort of pet, however, and as a joke Lee had just presented him with ...
— Battling the Clouds - or, For a Comrade's Honor • Captain Frank Cobb
... ashamed of you! There ain't no one but you; coming into general headquarters with a flutter in the stack, so full that you can't whistle, air-pump a-squealing 'count of water, smeared from stack to man-hole, headlight smoked and glimmery, don't know your own rights, kind o' runnin' wildcat, without proper signals, imagining you're first section with a regardless order. You want to blow out, man, and trim up, get your packing set out and carry less juice. You're worse than one of them slippin', dancin', three-legged, no-good Grants. The next time I catch ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... perhaps with reason. Exasperated at some prank played at his expense by a little "yearling" toward the close of his first—the "plebe"—encampment, Loring actually kicked the offender out of his tent. The boy was no match for the older, heavier man, but flew at him like a wildcat then and there, and Loring suddenly found himself in a fierce and spirited battle. The little fellow had pluck, science and training, and Loring's eyes and nose were objects to behold in less than a minute. For ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... younger insisted on riding on horseback at my side. She was an ugly little hoyden of five years, this Giovanna, who, squat of stature and swarthy as a gypsy, bestrode her little pony like a man; but, though by nature stubborn and subject to fits of anger in which she bit and scratched like a wildcat, to me she had taken a fancy as ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... to lead. His bewildered smile is a prelude often to a strong move in action. Older and wiser men learn to love this lean wildcat who knows the strategic spots in the anatomy of the foe; who can spit scorn at the Agrarians and venomous contempt at the Liberals; who dares to glorify a government of authority and of force as though it ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... all over, felt inclined to scratch her mother, like a wildcat; but the apprentices were coming. So she cooled her head in a basin of cold water and dressed with all speed, assisted by Ma, who perhaps regretted having been so hasty; but you had to be, with devils like that! And Ma's anger returned when, on reaching the stage ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... through the hanging moss on the cypress trees. A great whooping crane waded into view and flapped away in clumsy fashion. A flock of teal duck, flying swift and true as an arrow, came winging their way to the river. At the water hole where the crane had been feeding the yellow eyes of a wildcat, cheated of its prey, shone for a flash and withdrew. By use of his field glasses Payne saw a mother turkey, low-crouched and stepping softly, leading her brood to shelter in the scrub. Farther away the glasses picked out the antlers and head ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... kissing by generations of European passions, whereas about Japanese mouths there is always something sullen and pinched and colourless. The bridge of her nose and her eyes of deep olive green, the eyes of a wildcat, gave the lie ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... with a modest reticence that amounted almost to being ashamed. "After I made sure that we had Chadron's raiders cooped up where they couldn't get out, I went up and got her. Thorn wasn't there, nobody but the Indian woman, the 'breed's wife. She was the jailer—a regular wildcat ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... playing?" shrilled Furneaux, nevertheless active as a wildcat in his spring to the French window, there to snatch at the blind and turn the knob ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... Doubleday, between heavy jaws and large teeth, shifted slowly or chewed savagely at a half-burned cigar and bored into Van Horn. Van Horn was in no mood for speculative comment: "You might as well talk to a wildcat," he said. "Pulling that wire has left him ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... that gun," he said, and would have immediately overpowered his adversary had not several of the by-standers furiously closed in upon him. Single-handed he was forced to defend himself against these, his fellow-citizens, as well as against Mink, who struggled like a wildcat for the possession of his gun. One man seized the marshal from behind, pinioning his arms. Another hung upon his neck. A third dogged at his knees, a fourth ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... helpless in his cabin, suffering patiently with the rheumatism which crippled him, Smith hunted two whole days without killing any game, and then came home faint with hunger and fatigue. Tecaughretanego bade his little son bring him a broth which the boy had made with some wildcat bones left by the buzzards near the camp, and when Smith had eaten he rebuked him for his despair, and charged him never again to doubt that God would care for him, because God always cared for those children of his who trusted in him, ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... play of life and death went on outside, the three people, the man, woman and child, in the cave slept as soundly as sleep the drunken or the just. They were full-fed and warm and safe. No beast of a size greater than that of a lank wolf or sinewy wildcat could enter the cave through the narrow entrance between the heaped-up rocks, and of these, as of any other dangerous beast, there was none which would face what barred even the narrow passage, for it was fire. Just at the entrance the all-night fire of ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... yet but a stripling, stirred up the people of Dover to drive the proud Eustace out of their town, in good King Edward's time, when he slew with his own hands a French knight. He fought by the side of our Harold when he tamed Griffith, the wildcat of Wales. He was in Flanders, to our great loss, when the Normans invaded England, and there he heard, with grief, of the death of our Harold and the slaughter at Senlac. Now, hearing that many brave men yet defy the tyrant ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... before. Never seen one go on like you went on. And when you hit Dick, Millie, for what you said he'd done, I felt bad for Dick, though I hadn't much cause to care for what happened to him. Millie, girl, you was a regular wildcat when the doctor told you what was coming. You didn't want no ...
— The Mother • Norman Duncan
... her. The capricious and incomprehensible early frosts of the forest region had spared her precious garden patch; cut-worm and caterpillar had gone by the other way; the pip had overlooked her early chickens; and as for the customary onslaughts of wildcat, weasel, fox, and skunk, she had met them all with such triumphant success that she began to mistake her mere good luck for the quintessence of woodcraft. In fact, nothing had happened to challenge her infallibility, ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... quietly neglecting their duties while taking a few chances, sit unmoved. Mr. Snivel thinks the woman better be removed. "Our half-starved mechanics," he says, "are a depraved set; and these wives they bring with them from the North are a sort of cross between a lean stage-driver and a wildcat. She seems a poor, destitute creature-just what they all come to, out here." Mr. Snivel shrugs his shoulders, bids George good night, and takes his departure. "Take care of yourself, George," he says admonitiously, as the destitute man watches him take his leave. The woman, frantic at ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... is an unhappy land," said Jack. "We are like a wildcat in captivity—a growling, ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... ride five hundred miles among the mountains, in a country where these beasts of prey abound, and yet see never a hair of a living Wildcat. But how many do you suppose see you? Peeping from a thicket, near the trail, glimpsing you across some open valley in the mountains, or inspecting you from various points as you recline by the campfire, they ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton
... and hard blows. For my own lot I had old Simon to deal with, as I knew at once by the cold, greasy feel of his leathern jerkin, he being enraged to make me his prisoner for the ill I had done him. Hooking his horny fingers about my throat, he clung to me like any wildcat; but stumbling, shortly, over two who were rolling on the floor, we went down both with a crack, and with such violence that he, being undermost, was stunned by the fall. Then, my blood boiling at this treatment, ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... single-handed, Turk neglected to call for help. With the blood streaming down his face, he dashed off in pursuit. There was in his heart the desire to kill the man who had struck him down. Near the foot of the hill he came up with them and he was like a wildcat. ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... what is going on in our own little community year after year. I wish you could see what I have to see. I wish you could see the thousands of hard-earned dollars that go out of our community every year into just such wildcat enterprises as you described. The saddest part of it is that the money nearly always goes out of the pockets of the people who can least afford ...
— The University of Hard Knocks • Ralph Parlette
... "No, it's a wildcat, and a mean sort of animal, once it attacks you. This one must have felt that it was cornered, for they are not usually so bold. It's a big one, though, and the pelt will make a fine rug for your room. May I have the pleasure of sending it to ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Snowbound - Or, The Proof on the Film • Laura Lee Hope
... that," he went on, grinning, "they fought with nails and teeth, or with a stick or a stone snatched from the ground." Then laughing loud, he added, "No wonder that in the old days people lived in trees, and ran if they saw a wildcat." ...
— The Cave Boy of the Age of Stone • Margaret A. McIntyre
... talked an' made dey 'bejunce, des lak critters do, An' dey walked an' p'omenaded 'roun' an' thoo an' thoo; Jealous ol' Mis' Fox, she whispah, "See Mis' Wildcat daih, Ain't hit scan'lous, huh a-comin' wid ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... Bob uttered the last words of his brief speech before he was hit twice in the face, good smashing blows that sent him staggering. The blows were followed by a savage rush. Roaring Dick was on his man with the quickness and ferocity of a wildcat. He hit, kicked, wrestled, even bit. Bob was whirled back by the very impetuosity of the attack. Before he could collect his wits he was badly punished and dazed. He tripped and Roaring Dick, with a bellow of satisfaction, began to kick at his body even ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... joyfully, and his hoofs made the cave resound, as they shouted, "Come out, Father Cheiron; come out and see our game." And one cried, "I have killed two deer," and another, "I took a wildcat among the crags"; and Heracles dragged a wild goat after him by its horns, for he was as huge as a mountain crag; and Caeneus carried a bear cub under each arm, and laughed when they scratched and bit; for neither tooth nor steel ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... the air, all known and called by name, and the food they eat, their mode of building nests, etc., were familiar to the people. They knew the customs and habits of the elephant, hippopotamus, buffalo, leopard, hyena, jackal, wildcat, monkey, mouse, and every animal which roams the great forest and plain,—from the thirty-foot boa-constrictor to a tiny tulu their names and ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... to have a look down that," he said. "It may contain a bear or wildcat, and I can get ...
— Lost on the Moon - or In Quest Of The Field of Diamonds • Roy Rockwood
... is, this business of taking directorships has never quite appealed to me. I don't know anything about the game, and I should probably run up against some wildcat company. I can't say I like the directorship wheeze much. It's the idea of knowing that one's name would be being used as a bait. Every time I saw it on a prospectus I should feel like ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... confectioner of the town may ever hope to equal? Have you lain beside some pond, a broadening of the creek above an ancient beaver-dam, at night, in mellowest midsummer, and watched the muskrats at their frays and feeding? Have you hunted the common wildcat, short-bodied demon, whose tracks upon the snow are discernible each winter morning, but who is so crafty, so gifted with some great art of slyness, that you may grow to manhood with him all about you, yet never see him in the sinewy flesh unless ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo
... much. We don't expect to do anything in the way of development. The case, briefly, is this: We've bought this busted proposition of the people who were handling it, and have assumed their debt. They didn't run it right. They had a sort of a wildcat individual in charge of the thing, and he got contracts for sinking shafts with all the turtlebacks out there, and then didn't pay for them. Now, what we want you to do is this: First of all, you're to take charge financially at that end of the line. That means paying the local debts ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... much of a road," said the driver, doubtfully. "Still, if they can make it with one car we can with another, I reckon. Goes up Wildcat Canyon after a bit; nobody living up there since that old Mexican died. Say, d'you suppose they'd take her up to that old cabin? Gosh, we'd ...
— Across the Mesa • Jarvis Hall
... from following his tracks, are taken for play or comfort, just as the bull caribou comes up to lie in the snow, with the strong sea wind in his face, to escape the flies which swarm in the thickets below. Owl and hawk, fox and weasel and wildcat,—all the prowlers of the day and night have long since discovered these good hunting-grounds and leave the prints of wing and claw over the records of the wood-mice; but still Tookhees returns, led by his love of the snow-fields, and thrives ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... said Hawk-Eye. "Nothing can harm us unless a wildcat or some such climbing creature should visit us, and I think I could make him wish he hadn't come. I shall have my spear beside me and shall ...
— The Cave Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... La Corriveau, with a sardonic smile which showed her small teeth, white, even, and cruel as those of a wildcat. "The jewel you have lost is the heart of your lover, and you thought La Corriveau had a charm to win it back; was not ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... a hand indifferently to Murguia's collar, and that second the old man's ten fingers were at his throat. They overpowered him at last, but they would have fared better with a wildcat. ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... things better than before, but still—not all. I AM Fay Larkin. I think I must have dreamed of you all my life. I was glad when you came here. I've been happy lately. I forgot—till last night. Maybe it needed that to make me see I've loved you all the time.... And I fought him like a wildcat!... Tell me the truth. I feel I'm yours. Is that true? If I'm not—I'll not live another hour. Something holds me up. I am the same.... Do you ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... shriek of rage Harvey threw himself at the big man, striking out with all his might. Taken by surprise, Fairfax fell away before the attack, which, though seemingly impotent, was as fierce as that of a wildcat. ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... business in Boonesborough 560,000 acres were sold. That was all right for the company, but what of the purchaser? What with the squabbles and disputes concerning title between Indian and settler, English and French, Boone like others soon found himself with not a leg to stand on. He had bought "wildcat" land. ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... not be offended, or look out from amang your curls then, like a wildcat out of an ivy-tod, for ye are to understand that he wishes most sincere weel to you, and has proved it. And it's partly that whilk has set the heather on fire ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... her," began Lambert, and then checked himself, as he really could not discuss so delicate a matter with this wildcat. "Why did you listen, may I ask?" he demanded, passing his tongue ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... humiliating fact was that I had not a hundred dollars with which to bless myself, having just lost my small inheritance in a wildcat mining venture. ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... glance up at the window of the sleeping room over the garage where Koku was supposed to spend the night. But Tom knew the giant was seldom there during the dark hours. He was as much of a night-prowler as a wildcat or an owl. ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Locomotive - or, Two Miles a Minute on the Rails • Victor Appleton
... in this, and an exhibition of William Henry! He ought to have saved HER from something, and not her husband. Yet he had no ill-feeling for Burroughs, only a desire to circumvent him, on behalf of the unprotected, as he would have baffled a hawk or a wildcat. He went home in dismal spirits, but later that evening constructed a boyish letter of thanks to the apocryphal Belcher and told ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... laid a pacifically detaining hand on Nahum Beals's arm as he strode past him. "Oh, Lord, stop rampagin' up and down like a wildcat," he said. "What good do you think you're doin' tearin' and shoutin' and insultin' people? He ain't talkin' like a scab, he's only talkin' ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Pussy," laughed the little rabbit. "I'm glad it wasn't a bear or a wildcat," and he laughed some more and wiggled his little pink nose just for fun, ...
— Little Jack Rabbit and the Squirrel Brothers • David Cory
... on him like a wildcat. Before his victim could make a move to defend himself, Jack had the man handcuffed ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... found on the desert are the wildcat, coyote, rabbit, deer, rat, tortoise, scorpion, centipede, tarantula, Gila monster, chuck-walla, desert rattlesnake, side-winder, humming-bird, eagle, quail, and road-runner. Wild horses and wild donkeys, or "burros," frequent these great wastes, cropping the ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... drug store would meet with encouragement in our midst, and it is a fact that five new buildings have been erected in our midst since the spring.' From a distance nothing is easier than to smile at this sort of thing, but he must have a cool head who can keep his pulse level when just such a wildcat town—ten houses, two churches, and a line of rails—gets 'on the boom,' The reader at home says, 'Yes, but it's all a lie.' It may be, but—did men lie about Denver, Leadville, Ballarat, Broken Hill, Portland, or Winnipeg twenty years ago—or Adelaide ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... apparent universality of all primitive folk-stories, in distinguishing between the myths or legends of the two races, though it sometimes happens, as in the case of the negro story of the Rabbit, the Wildcat, and the Turkeys, that the stories are built upon until they are made to fit the peculiarities of the race that borrows them. The Creek version of the Rabbit, Wildcat, and Turkey story is to the effect that the Wildcat ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... agony was her pitiful effort to take her medicine like a lady. It was terrific how hard it was for one of a wildcat heritage and habit to keep the caterwaul back and the claws muffled. The self-duel nearly wrecked Zada, but she won it. She was not thoroughbred, but she had tried to be thoroughgoing. She was evidently not a success as a self-made lady. ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... just starting for the forest with his axe on his shoulder, when his ears were smitten by the frantic shrieks of Zeb, and, thinking it must be a wildcat on the edge of the clearing, he started back to the house for his gun. Before he reached it, Penitence, with the two boys on her back, came thundering toward him at full gallop, and stopped at ...
— The Puritan Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... extremely complicated, and have in every case to be made with extreme rapidity, a good deal of preliminary practice on the part of the intending players would be necessary. Would this little group of players be, as he hoped, forthcoming? I still regarded the project as something of the wildcat kind; but I was struck by the undoubted success of Beckett's own experiments, actual and theoretical, so far; and, as the four players would at all events lose nothing, even if they gained nothing, by renewing them, I and ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... we could have brought Roger along," he continued, savagely, to Bradley. "But you were right, of course—it'd be altogether too much like a rabbit capturing a wildcat. My Lewiston's about done right now, and there can't be much left of yours—what he'd do to us would be a sin ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... no witch, my child,' said my father. 'The sound you describe was probably the cry of a wildcat. I thank Heaven that you are safe. A wildcat is not a very pleasant creature to meet ...
— Bertha • Mary Hazelton Wade
... red fox that had a limp on account of the broken leg set by Toby after he had found the little animal apparently dying from hunger in the bitter wintry storm; and last but not least a small edition of a wildcat that never would make up with the hand that fed it, but continued to snarl and spit and look ferocious week after week, until even patient Toby was beginning to despair of ever calling it ...
— Chums of the Camp Fire • Lawrence J. Leslie
... economic conditions must lead to such rational and recommendable behaviour. A psychological problem appears only when such a course of wisdom is abandoned, and either the savings are hidden away instead of being made productive, or are thrown away in wildcat schemes. Yet of the two extremes the first again is easily understood. A hysteric fear of possible loss, an unreasonable distrust of banks and bankers, keeps the overcautious away from the market. But while such a state of mind is said to be frequent in countries in which the economic life ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... sharpened the land about them. Boyd would have enjoyed this game of tweaking a wildcat's tail. Drew chewed his lower lip, tasting the salt of sweat, the grit of road dust. Just now was no time to think of Boyd; he must concentrate on the ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... thought it was a gold strike I'd follow 'em," announced Sol Blugg. "Tom Dillon allers was a good one at strikes, an' so was Abe Blower. They know enough to keep away from anything thet looks like a wildcat. I'm a-goin' to look into this," he concluded. And after that the Blugg crowd kept close watch on Dave ...
— Dave Porter in the Gold Fields - The Search for the Landslide Mine • Edward Stratemeyer
... was in Cliff Street in the printing establishment of John A. Gray & Green, who agreed to pay him four dollars a week, and did pay that amount in wildcat money, which saved them about twenty-five per cent. of the sum. He lodged at a mechanics' boarding-house in Duane Street, and when he had paid his board and washing he sometimes had as much as fifty cents ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... of this house!" shrieked Mr. Whedell, rising from his chair, and glaring like a wildcat ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... an unholy lot of weapons," he soliloquized on his way back to Johnny. "An' they're all second-hand. Cannons, too—an' machetes!" he exclaimed, suddenly understanding. "Jumping Jerusalem!—a filibustering expedition bound for Cuba, or one of them wildcat republics down south! Oh, ho, my friends; I see where you have bit off more'n you can chew." In his haste to impart the joyous news to his companion, ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... grouse kept rising from the brown grass with a great whirring of wings, and, alighting on the lower branches of the pines and poplars, allowed a near approach, as if curious to see me. Farther on, a broad-shouldered wildcat showed himself, coming out of a grove, and crossing the river on a flood-jamb of logs, halting for a moment to look back. The bird-like tamias frisked about my feet everywhere among the pine-needles and seedy grass-tufts; cranes waded ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... see me, an' she turned on me like a wildcat, an' I was 'most scairt to death. She said, 'What you doin' here, you imp o' Satan? Who's done this? Tell me! Tell me an' I'll lay for 'em! I'll shoot 'em down like vermin.' I knew she wasn't really talkin' to me, so then I wasn't ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum |
