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More "Marksman" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in Baden-Powell's score as a schoolboy-marksman, how much greater interest should there be in Baden-Powell's hit as orator? It is not always the ready actor who makes the best polemical speech, but Baden-Powell had a reputation at Charterhouse as a debater as well as fame as a mimic. That the boy was more than ordinarily ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... beheld his enemy the spider once more descending from the roof, and to his surprise and joy it carried with it the pin, still sticking through its body. This time our naturalist made no vainglorious display of his power as a marksman, but beating down the spider with the nearest object at hand, he again possessed himself of the lost treasure, now doubly valuable on account of its extraordinary adventure, and his mother, for whom he ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... a show," said he. He spread his massive legs apart, drew a deep breath, and raised his weapon. It lay in his grasp steady as a log, and I saw that Percy Darrow's fate was in the hands of that dangerous class of natural marksman that possesses no nerves. But for the second time my teeth saved his life. The trigger guard slipped against Thrackles's lacerated hand almost at the instant of discharge. He missed; and the bullet ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... General D'Hubert saw him pass without special haste from one tree to another in the straight line of approach. With great firmness of mind General D'Hubert stayed his hand. Too far yet. He knew he was no marksman. His must be a ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... now with joy his heart strings swell, And blest he deems his lot; For the foil'd tyger as he fell, A latent marksman shot. ...
— Ballads - Founded On Anecdotes Relating To Animals • William Hayley
... provoked Herod to discover by the torture of great numbers what attempts were still concealed. Now there was a certain person among the many that were tortured, who said that he knew that the young man had often said, that when he was commended as a tall man in his body, and a skillful marksman, and that in his other commendable exercises he exceeded all men, these qualifications given him by nature, though good in themselves, were not advantageous to him, because his father was grieved at them, ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... is honest, competent, sound criticism. This is not likely to be attained by sporadic efforts, especially in a democracy of letters where the critics are not always superior to the criticised, where the man in front of the book is not always a better marksman than the man behind the book. It may not be attained even by an organization of men united upon certain standards of excellence. I do not like to use the word authority, but it is not unreasonable to suppose that the public will be influenced by a body devoted to the advancement ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... been heard on any subject, the great mass of intelligent, "progressive" New-England thinkers waited to hear the thing summed up by Theodore Parker. This popular interest went far beyond the circle of his avowed sympathizers; he might be a heretic, but nobody could deny that he was a marksman. No matter how well others seemed to have hit the target, his shot was the triumphant one, at last. Thinkers might find no new thought in the new discourse, leaders of action no new plan, yet, after all that had been said and done, his was the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... I made it. So soon as the Smoak of my own Cannon would permit it, we could see Clouds of Dust issuing from out of the Window, which, together with the People's crouding out of Doors, convinc'd the Officers, whom I had desir'd to take Notice of it, that I had been no bad Marksman. ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe
... you've made, Mister Charlie Clancy! A sorry marksman—to miss a man scarce six feet from the muzzle of your gun! I shan't miss you. Turn about's fair play. I've had the first, and I'll have the last. Dog! take ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... would be to push too far a point of etiquette. I cannot afford to lose my life in such a business," he continued, unlocking the case of swords; "and as a pistol-bullet travels so often on the wings of chance, and skill and courage may fall by the most trembling marksman, I have decided, and I feel sure you will approve my determination, to put this question to the touch ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... before renewing his harangue. The man in the cloth cap raised his hand. There was a swirl in the crowd, and the first thing that Psmith saw as he turned was Mike seizing the would-be marksman round the neck and hurling him to the ground, after the manner of a forward at football tackling an opponent ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... critical point, Colonel Morgan, who, with his riflemen was immediately opposite to General Fraser's corps, perceiving that the fate of the day rested upon that officer, called a few of his sharpshooters aside, among whom was the famous marksman, Timothy Murphy, men on whose precision of aim he could rely, and said to them, "That gallant officer yonder is General Fraser; I admire and respect him, but it is necessary for our good that he should die. Take you station ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... whistle and he still swung his shotgun somewhat carelessly for a hunter and marksman. He passed by one of the geysers just as it was sending up its high column of hot water and its high column of steam. "That's the way I feel, old fellow," he said. "I could erupt with just as ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... Wyatt in the face was the thrown-away match. But for the unerring aim of the town marksman great events would never have happened. A tomato is a trivial thing (though it is possible that the man whom it hits may not think so), but in the present case, it was the direct ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... His eccentricities were numerous, but did no one any harm, while his fondness for hunting, his love for his dogs (of which I can clearly recall by name eight or ten), his almost incredible skill as a marksman, and his unvarying success as a hunter, made him the hero of our childish admiration, and won for him the reputation of a veritable Nimrod. I remember very clearly his habit of asking my mother what and how much game she would like for the table, ...
— 'Three Score Years and Ten' - Life-Long Memories of Fort Snelling, Minnesota, and Other - Parts of the West • Charlotte Ouisconsin Van Cleve
... time behind and around about him. Having reached the summit of a rock, he saw, a thousand feet beneath him, his companions, whom Jacopo had rejoined, and who were all busy preparing the repast which Edmond's skill as a marksman had ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... thirty Springfields and one hundred and twenty Winchesters, 22-calibre muskets—toys fit for shooting squirrels, and only a small supply of cartridges. The rifles available were issued to such of the boys as had won their badges of sharpshooter and marksman, two boys being assigned to each gun, so that if one was shot the other ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett
... wandered round the field, listening to the cheap Jacks, and the proprietors of various exhibitions, which were all "just a-goin' to begin." They patronized a shooting-gallery, where they fired down long tubes with little rifles, which made the marksman's hands very black, and seemed to carry round the corner. Jack, however, succeeded in hitting the bull's-eye, and ringing the bell, and was rewarded ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... shot the first robber through the body. Our two companions now drew together, and took refuge behind some large rocks, preparing to receive the charge of a band of half dozen who now appeared. The situation looked desperate. Don Gaspar fired and missed. He was never anything of a marksman, and his first shot must have been a great piece of luck. Barry held his fire. The robbers each discharged his rifle, but harmlessly. Then just as they seemed about to charge in, they whirled their horses and made off ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... of these, and ambushed him. I waited till he had climbed the stairs and was near the landing and couldn't escape. Then I bombarded him with clods, which he warded off with his tin bucket the best he could, but without much success, for I was a good marksman. The clods smashing against the weather-boarding fetched my mother out to see what was the matter, and I tried to explain that I was amusing Henry. Both of them were after me in a minute, but I knew the way over that high board fence ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... reappeared at the Lodge half an hour later, could explain his share in this with only a mixed satisfaction. For though his need of his rifle—whether real or not—had justified its readiness for use, he had failed as a marksman; the stray dog he fired at, after vanishing in a copse for a few minutes, having scoured away in a long detour; as he ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... had meanwhile been constructed for the use of the commissioners, the lumber for them being sawed by hand on the ground. Boards had been nailed to frames as rapidly as they fell from the logs, and had shrunk to such an extent that a reasonably expert marksman might almost have thrown a cat by the tail through any one of the houses. At night they looked like the old-fashioned perforated tin lanterns, leaking light in a thousand places. These were the luxurious homes provided for the high ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... was my son. To guard against mischance, a piece of pasteboard was fastened by a handkerchief over the upper portion of Whitcomb's face, while the arrow to be used was sewed up in a strip of flannel. I was a capital marksman, and the big apple, only two yards distant, turned its russet cheek fairly ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... that succeeded, the sound of feet pounding on the deck and in the companion leaped into hearing; and a face, that of the sailor Holdorsen, appeared below the bulkheads in the cabin doorway. Carthew shattered it with a second shot, for he was a marksman. ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... answer to Mr. Adister's courteous regrets that he would have to be a prisoner in the house until his legal adviser thought proper to appear, 'I'll be perfectly happy if Miss Caroline will give me as much of her company as she can spare. It 's amusing to be shot at too, by a lady who 's a good marksman! And birds and hares are always willing to wait for us; they keep better alive. I forgot to say that ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... slow. 'We must burn them,' exclaimed the fanatic chieftain of the Puritans; and he cast the first firebrand to windward among their wigwams. In an instant the encampment was in a blaze. Not a soul escaped. Six hundred Indians, men, women, and children, perished by the steady hand of the marksman, by the unresisted broadsword, and by ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... Pelissier urged the public to look on the bright side. There was a sun still shining in the sky. Besides, who knew that some foreign marksman ...
— The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England - A Tale of the Great Invasion • P. G. Wodehouse
... that, if a man uses an instrument with perfect skill, he then succeeds merely in getting out of that instrument all that there is in it. A soldier's musket, for instance, is a very perfect tool—very accurate, very powerful, very rapid; and no marksman in the world is so skilful that he can shoot the musket with all the accuracy and speed of which the gun itself ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... become awakened to the fact, that, however important and desirable it may be to secure the best possible implements for the soldier's use, it is infinitely more so that he should know how to use them. In the hands of a marksman the rifle is an efficient weapon at half a mile's distance; but to expect on that account that it will do any more execution in the hands of one who is not familiar with it than a smooth-bored musket is as idle as it would be to hope that a person unacquainted ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... carelessly glanced over him with no sign of recognition. Her rifle was an old flint-lock of light build, but nearly six feet in length, with a shade of rusty tin two feet long fastened to the barrel to prevent the sunlight from affecting the marksman's aim. She wore a man's hat, which, with unintentional coquetry, was perched on one side of her head. Her hair was short, and fell as it pleased about her neck. She was bare-footed, and apparently clad in a single garment, a blue homespun ...
— A Mountain Europa • John Fox Jr.
... know a lot about bigness!" Sheridan began to walk to and fro again, and the doctor returned gloomily to his chair. He had shot his bolt the moment he judged its chance to strike center was best, but the target seemed unaware of the marksman. ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... established practice, which he was not obliged to follow. But his skill was not so perfect, or his horse was not so well trained. The animal swerved at the moment his master fired, and the ball missed the popinjay. Those who had been surprised by the address of the green marksman were now equally pleased by his courtesy. He disclaimed all merit from the last shot, and proposed to his antagonist that it should not be counted as a hit, and that they should renew the contest ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... an archery meeting for the ladies, and Lady Diana Sweepstakes is to be one of them. And after the ladies have done shooting—now, Ben, comes the best part of it! we boys are to have our turn, and Lady Di. is to give a prize to the best marksman amongst us, of a very handsome bow and arrow! Do you know I've been practising already, and I'll show you tomorrow, as soon as it comes home, the famous bow and arrow that Lady Diana has given me: but, perhaps," added he, with a ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... a moment later the bullet ploughed up the grass a little beyond him. Had he remained fairly in his seat, it would have taken him out of it; but he did just as he had seen the Cheyennes do—he threw himself on the side of his horse opposite the marksman, and so he had nothing to shoot at save the swiftly running steed. Another musket popped, and still another, but Elam did not hear the whistle of their bullets. That was all the guards on that side of the stockade, ...
— Elam Storm, The Wolfer - The Lost Nugget • Harry Castlemon
... thrummed as his lifted toes released it. The arrow whirred aloft. Then a snarl of chagrin from the marksman blended with the grunts of his mates. The arrow had failed to ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... motions, and to hear their discourse, if they had any. In the meantime I fitted myself up for a battle as before, though with more caution, knowing I had to do with another kind of enemy than I had at first. I ordered Friday also, whom I had made an excellent marksman with his gun, to load himself with arms. I took myself two fowling-pieces, and I gave him three muskets. My figure, indeed, was very fierce; I had my formidable goat-skin coat on, with the great cap I have mentioned, a naked sword by my side, two pistols ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... During this brief respite the sergeant in command of the Scots surveyed the building they had entered. It was a small grocer's shop, and on an upper shelf he found a few packets of chocolate. "Here, lads," he shouted, "whoever kills his man gets a bit o' this." The firing began again, and as each marksman succeeded, the imperturbable Scot shouted "Got him," and handed over the prize amid roars of laughter. "Alas," comments the narrator, "there were few prize-winners who ...
— Tommy Atkins at War - As Told in His Own Letters • James Alexander Kilpatrick
... we shall die." (Charles Partridge, "Cross River Natives" (London, 1905), pages 225 sq.) On another occasion, in the same region, an Englishman shot a hippopotamus near a native village. The same night a woman died in the village, and her friends demanded and obtained from the marksman five pounds as compensation for the murder of the woman, whose soul or second self had been in that hippopotamus. (C.H. Robinson, "Hausaland" (London, 1896), pages 36 sq.) Similarly at Ndolo, in the Congo region, we hear of a chief whose life was bound ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... youths are all hunters, and excellent marksmen; they hold it a great honour to bring game to their tents, in proof of their being hardy mountain runners, and good shots; and the epithet Bowardy yknos es-szeyd [Arabic], "a marksman who hunts the game," is one of the most flattering that can be bestowed upon them. It appears, from an ancient picture preserved in the convent, which represents the arrival of an archbishop from Egypt, as well as from one of the written documents in the archives, ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... from him—from his uppermost mood, at least, when he wrote about the rings. Deep in him was sadness of course, as well as joy. For he had known Steve, and he had covered Shorty with earth. He had looked upon life with a marksman's eyes, very close; and no one, if he have a heart, can pass through this and not carry sadness in his spirit with him forever. But he seldom shows it openly; it bides within him, enriching his cheerfulness and rendering him of better service to ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... they can afford it, with a gun; one Rajput beats the bushes and the other carries the hawk ready to be sprung after any quarry that rises to the view. At the close of the day if they have been successful they exchange the game for a little meal and thus prolong existence over another span. The marksman armed with a gun will sit up for wild pig returning from the fields, and in the same manner barter their flesh for other necessaries of life. However, the prospect of starvation has already driven many to take the plough, and the number of seceders daily increases. Our administration, ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... buck sprang from the snow to a great height in the air, and directly a second discharge, similar in sound to the first, followed, when the animal came to the earth, failing head long and rolling over on the crust with its own velocity. A loud shout was given by the unseen marksman, and a couple of men instantly appeared from behind the trunks of two of the pines, where they had evidently placed them selves in expectation of the passage of ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... the land and tending the cattle. There was of course no school here, and the boy grew up in entire ignorance of all book learning. But in these early years he often went into the woods with his gun in pursuit of game, and, young as he was, acquired considerable reputation as a marksman. ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... creatures that were sitting up on a fragment of rock right opposite the three sportsmen, apparently combing their whiskers and eyeing them curiously the while. So near were they, indeed, that the most unskilful marksman in the world ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... the Germans was across a wheat field, driving at Hill 165 and advancing in smooth columns. The United States marines, trained to keen observation upon the rifle range, nearly every one of them wearing a marksman's medal or better, that of the sharpshooter or expert rifleman, did not wait for those gray-clad hordes to ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... out the pocket pistol, uncork the muzzle by removing his thumb from the orifice, and present it at the victim; the fatal discharge follows in an instant and the man drops to the ground. The ghost in the pistol has done his work. Sometimes, however, an accident happens. The marksman misses his victim and hits somebody else. This occurred, for example, not very many years ago in the island of Mota. A man named Isvitag was waiting with his ghost-shooter to pop at his enemy, but in his nervous excitement he let fly too soon, just as a woman with a child on her hip stepped across ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... had been fired. Surely they would discover some sign there, or lower down upon the plain, where the melting snows had softened the earth. Mukoki led in the search, and foot by foot they examined the spot where the mysterious marksman must have stood when he sent his golden bullet so ...
— The Gold Hunters - A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds • James Oliver Curwood
... path through the left shoulder, and lodged in the spine. The evidence seems to make it clear that it was a chance shot that wrought the fatal mischief. Hardy had twice the bulk of Nelson's insignificant figure, and wore a more striking uniform, and would certainly have attracted the aim of a marksman in preference to Nelson. ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... one, till all were gone, the marksman sowed the seed of conflagration. And all the while, from the rifles along the parapet, death went spitting ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... woods: it distressed him to have his wife water some of the flowers in the garden without watering them all; and though an excellent shot, he never brought down game without a pang—it used to be said at Peterboro that for this reason he only "pretended to hunt," despite his expertness as a marksman. ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman
... air. Meanwhile Wharton was watching. A wrath, cold but consuming, had taken hold of him. The fact that he was high above the earth, perched in a swaying unstable seat was forgotten. He had eyes and thought only for the murderous machine gun and the man who worked it. An instinctive marksman, he and his rifle were now as one, and of all the birds of prey in the air at that moment Wharton was ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... pioneer called "Dick Dead-eye" by his fellows, was made chairman of the meeting. This name was given him because he was a good marksman, having an eye which seldom failed him in taking aim with a gun. He was seconded by a stranger, who, having a keen, quick glance and well knit figure dressed appropriately in leathern trousers and leggings, sat at the chairman's right and evidently "meant business", ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... those who failed in those first efforts, unable to profit by their own originality. And it is natural enough that a good many sighting shots should be wasted on a new target before even an accomplished marksman could plump his bullet in the bull's-eye. The historical novel as we know it now must be credited to Scott, who preluded by the rather feeble 'Waverley,' before attaining the more boldly planned 'Rob Roy' and 'Guy Mannering.' The sea-tale is to be ascribed ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... always sinewy frontiersman. His constant companion was his home-made flint-lock rifle—a clumsy, heavy weapon, so long that it reached to the chin of the tallest man, but unerring in the hands of an expert marksman, such as was each of ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... handsome panther stretched out on the roof of the pen, her head lying across her paws, like a cat asleep. By this they knew that others were confined inside, for whose escape this one was waiting. It was but a brief task for Jacob, who was a good marksman, to point his rifle through the window and give her its contents. Without a struggle the splendid animal straightened her powerful limbs and died. Reloading his gun, Jacob walked cautiously toward the pen, watching in every direction, lest there might be another one outside ready to spring upon ...
— Connor Magan's Luck and Other Stories • M. T. W.
... Marksman, one of Fortunio's seven attendants. He saw so clearly and to such a distance, that he generally bandaged his eyes in order to temper the great keenness of his sight.—Comtesse ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... had purchased in Hardin County, about fourteen miles away. There was so little carpentering or cabinet making to do that he could make a better living by farming or hunting. Thomas was very fond of shooting and as he was a fine marksman he could provide game for the table, and other things which are considered luxuries to-day, such as furs and skins needed for the primitive wearing apparel of the pioneers. A daughter was born to the young couple at Elizabethtown, whom ...
— The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln • Wayne Whipple
... in good stead; he hung on, and the more he failed, the harder he tried. Often he would slip out of the cave after Wetzel had gone, and try to find which way he had taken. In brief, the lad became a fine marksman, a good hunter, and a close, persevering student of the wilderness. He loved the woods, and all they contained. He learned the habits of the wild creatures. Each deer, each squirrel, each grouse that he killed, ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... minded to see a specimen of your skill as an archer," replied Gessler. "I am told that you are the best marksman in all Uri; and, therefore, your life being forfeited by your presumptuous act of disobedience, I am inclined, out of the clemency of my nature, to allow you a chance of saving it. This you may do, if you can shoot an arrow so truly aimed as to cleave the apple upon thy boy's head. But if ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... most eagerly sought game birds of the east. Their flight is very rapid and erratic, and accompanied by a peculiar whistling sound made by the rapid motion of the wings; it requires a skillful marksman to bring them down. They frequent boggy places especially "runs" lined with alders, where they bore in the soft ground for worms and grubs. Their eggs are laid upon the bare ground among the leaves and sticks; they are of about the color of dead leaves, as is ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... projectile, ball, discus, quoit, brickbat, shot; [weapons which propel] arrow, gun, ballista &c (arms) 727 [Obs.]. [preparation for propulsion] countdown, windup. shooter; shot; archer, toxophilite^; bowman, rifleman, marksman; good shot, crack shot; sharpshooter &c (combatant) 726. V. propel, project, throw, fling, cast, pitch, chuck, toss, jerk, heave, shy, hurl; flirt, fillip. dart, lance, tilt; ejaculate, jaculate^; fulminate, bolt, drive, sling, pitchfork. send; send off, let off, fire off; discharge, shoot; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... with a yell, so did one of the others. The rest yelled in chorus, and stood a moment stupified. Quick as thought I pulled my strings right and left, and completed their consternation by a flank fire, which, had it been aimed by a marksman, could not have been more decisive. For one other of the party fell without even a cry, and at the same moment the rest rushed gasping and stumbling over one another down ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... qualities of individual men in the company which was his command—how this man was quick, and that man stupid, and that other inclined to swank, and a fourth had a gift for reading maps, and a fifth would make a real marksman; and so he woke up to find himself before the bookstall in the station at Waterloo. Then he remembered the visit he had promised, but there was no longer any time. He took the train to the New Forest, and three days later went ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... smiling at the successful marksman. "That is the way to do it. You are a match for half a dozen of them as long as you ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... their hostility than robbing travelers of their horses and mules, though, indeed, a Pawnee's forebearance is not always to be trusted; but in certain regions farther to the west, the guard must beware how he exposes his person to the light of the fire, lest perchance some keen-eyed skulking marksman should let fly a bullet or an arrow from ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... a brilliant exterior; excelled in all martial exercises; rode well, fenced well, managed his lance to perfection, was a first-rate marksman with the arquebuse, and added the accomplishment of being an excellent draughtsman. He was bold and chivalrous, even to temerity; courted adventure, and was always in the front of danger. He was a knight- errant, in short, in the most extravagant ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... Without a sting, it would have stood no chance of defending its tempting sweets against a host of greedy depredators; but if it could sting a number of times, it would be much more difficult to bring it into a state of thorough domestication. A quiver full of arrows in the hand of a skilful marksman, is far more to be dreaded than ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... with a broad smile, that everything was in order. A child by nature, Bela Moshi had developed into a smart and efficient soldier without losing the simple characteristics of the African native. He was a first-class marksman, although it had required long and patient training to get him to understand the use of sights and verniers and to eradicate the belief, everywhere prevalent amongst savage races, that to raise the backsight to its highest ...
— Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force • Percy F. Westerman
... at the shot; but, to the great disappointment of the marksman, turned in his tracks, and fled along with the rest of the herd, all of which had bounded off on hearing ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... later he reached over and felt along the floor of the cave for the final hold. Finding it, he drew himself up over the edge and crawled, weak and half fainting, out of range of the devilish marksman. ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... Each marksman tried his luck, and the cabbage was soon riddled, but it was reserved for Bert, with Dorcas' arrow, to knock one rabbit over backward. Thereupon Bert and Dorcas were immediately swathed in great aprons and installed behind the chafing-dishes to show their ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
... or, Sportsman's Complete Guide: Being a Treatise on the Use of the Gun, with Rudimentary and Finishing Lessons in the Art of shooting Game of all Kinds, Pigeon-Shooting, Dog-Breaking, etc. By Marksman. New York. W. A. Townsend. 16mo. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... as steady under fire as on parade. Every movement in the tactics it could execute on the jump, and its fire was something to keep away from. The result was that, pushed everywhere to the front because of its splendid work, it lost comparatively few men. Every man was a marksman and understood how to take all possible advantage of the situation to make his work most effective and at the same time take care of himself. This regiment, whose record was one unbroken succession of splendid achievements ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... this transaction, till he had arrived at the end of his march, when, in wheeling slowly round, he could no longer affect ignorance, or avoid seeing that the boat was several times its length from the ship. He immediately fired; but, whether he exercised his best skill as a marksman, or whether it was on account of the boat's going ahead its whole length at every pull of the rowers, I could never exactly ascertain, but the ball fell harmlessly into the water. The report of the gun brought the whole guard out, who blazed away ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... hurt by the small-shot which we were obliged to fire at them, when they attacked us at our coming out of the boat; but they had probably seen the effects of them, from their lurking-places, upon the birds that we had shot. Tupia, who was now become a good marksman, frequently strayed from us to shoot parrots; and he had told us, that while he was thus employed, he had once met with nine Indians, who, as soon as they perceived he saw them, ran from him, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... Arizona, not of pain, but of rage. They saw his gun glistening in his hand, and, swerving his horse to disturb the aim of the marksman, his weapon's first report blended with the second shot from the bushes, a tongue of darting flame. Straight at the flash of a target Arizona had fired, and there was an answering yell. Out of the dark of the shrubbery ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... illimitable forest. He seemed, by instinct, possessed of the skill of the most experienced hunter, so that he never became bewildered, or in danger of being lost. There were panthers, bears and wolves in those forests, but of them he seemed not to have the slightest fear. His skill as a marksman became quite unerring. Not only raccoons, squirrels, partridges and other such small game were the result of his hunting expeditions, but occasionally even the fierce panther fell before his rifle ball. From such frequent expeditions he would return ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... one side, terrified, and declaring that there is a dead body on the ground. Yes, indeed, someone is lying there. We cautiously examine the place by the light of our red balloons, carefully held out at arm's length for fear of this dead man; it is only the marksman, he who on the 14th of July chose such magnificent arrows for Chrysantheme; and he sleeps, good man, with his chignon somewhat dishevelled, a sound sleep, which it would be ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... of rage and pain most decidedly un-Indian-like, the conjurer began dancing about, much to the amusement of the boys, who a moment before were pale with pent-up excitement; for it is rather trying to look on and see in the hands of a skillful marksman a gun loaded with ball and pointed at this boastful man, who was willing to put his magic against the skill of the finest shot ...
— Three Boys in the Wild North Land • Egerton Ryerson Young
... nephew Roland, a man of about thirty, pock-marked, fair, thin, cold, and reserved; he was not tall, but very strong, and of inflexible courage. The other, Henri Castanet of Massevaques, was a keeper from the mountain of Laygoal, whose skill as a marksman was so well known that it was said he never missed a shot. Each of these lieutenants had fifty ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... from his friends. Horsemen wheeled into the course behind the flying marksman. With five potatoes still to negotiate they were afraid to cheer. But as one hat after another along the shooting line—the second, the third and the fourth—were tossed up from the target behind the speeding horseman, the Sleepy Cat men bellowed with joyful confidence. The fifth target was ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... the gate, and, indeed, rejoiced that such a barrier was interposed between them and the hounds, whose furious onslaughts they witnessed. A bolt was launched against these four-footed guardians of the premises by the bearer of the crossbow, but the man proved but an indifferent marksman, for, instead of hitting the hound, he disabled one of his companions who was battling with him. Finding things in this state, and that neither Nowell nor Potts returned to their charge, while their followers were withdrawn from before ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... the trenches was a Rebel soldier with a rifle-shot through his head. He was an excellent marksman, and had killed or wounded several Union officers. One of Colonel Birges's sharpshooters, an old hunter, who had killed many bears and wolves, crept up towards the breastworks to try his hand upon the Rebel. They fired at each ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... cartridges into the magazine of his rifle, and his hand was so sure and steady that he did not drop a single cartridge. With the eye of a rider and the judgment of a marksman he once more measured the distance between him and Jerry Card. Wrangle had gained, bringing him into rifle range. Venters was hard put to it now not to shoot, but thought it better to withhold his fire. Jerry, who, in anticipation of a running fusillade, had huddled himself into ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... Ranchman to kill Three Points—so named because he had a nail torn off and left but three points to his track with his right paw. I took two of the best marksman I had and we rode over into his territory—after we had cooked our meat partly because we were hungry, and partly to draw the old fellow on by the scent—and before we had time to eat our meal the ...
— Black Beaver - The Trapper • James Campbell Lewis
... from me when I shot, and I was a fair marksman, for a boy, at fifty paces. However, the arrow skimmed just over its back, and it crouched for a second as it heard the whistle of the feathers, and then leapt aside and on again in the same way. But now it crossed ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... nature of the ground makes it a most advantageous position for the Turkish soldier, who when sheltered by these inequalities, rapid steeps and a few intrenchments, displays all the address of the most skilful marksman. Like some orators, who cannot express themselves unless when partly concealed by a table or tribunal, the Turk cannot use his musket unless he can rest it on a stone or against the trunk of a tree, but then ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 390, September 19, 1829 • Various
... as he covered the chagrined marksman, "you should have aimed lower and to the right—but that's all past now. This boat is practically captured, and I'm not going to kill you; for, even though it would not be murder, there is no excuse in my conscience for it. Whether the boat sinks or not, we will be taken ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... the gun in the air and retires at the double, feeling that his country's safety is secure for the present. JOHNNY BAKER, the young American Marksman, appears and exhibits his skill in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 9, 1892 • Various
... house. This house was built in what is now Howard County, Missouri, north of the Missouri river. Christopher Carson at fifteen years of age had never been to school a day, but he was "one of the Four Hundred" equal to any man in his district. He was a fine marksman, excellent horseman, of strong character and sound judgment. His disposition was quiet, amiable and gentle. One of those boys who did things without boasting and did ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... throw light on this. If a javelin thrower or a marksman should aim at a target, from which a line was drawn straight back for a mile and should err in aim by only a finger's breadth, the missile or the bullet at the end of the mile would have deviated very far from the line. So would it be if the Lord did not, at every moment and even the least fraction ...
— Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence • Emanuel Swedenborg
... quite a hero among the people on this account. There is an expressed regret that Mr. Smith the elder interfered to prevent the young marksman from shooting them all; very few would blame him if he did, as the men, though too nervous to do harm, lay in wait for the purpose of murder. Still it is revolting to hear people in cold blood regret so heartily that there was ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... aforesaid were iron-tipped instead of being simply fire-hardened, and in the feathering of each a single plume of the scarlet tanager had been carefully inserted. Presumably, the vermilion feather was the owner's private sign of his work as a marksman. So far the lad's dress and accoutrements were in entire conformity to the primeval rusticity of his surroundings. Judge, then, of the reasonable surprise which the observer might feel at discovering that the object in the boy's hand was nothing less incongruous ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... poorest marksman that ever I saw, or you'd 'ave killed that red rascal," said Sneak, coming up to Joe, and finding where the bush ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... strenuous sports and recreations attract him far more that does the swinging of the golf stick. He is an expert marksman and has astonished military men on the rifle range by what he can do with a gun. His ancestors were squirrel-hunters, and his sure eye was an inheritance from them. The Governor likes to rough it ...
— The Progressive Democracy of James M. Cox • Charles E. Morris
... duties. He soon showed the company that he knew his business, and could perform it with an ease and certainty which failed not to elicit universal esteem and commendation. When the time arrived for him to resign the office in the Spring, he left behind him golden opinions of his skill as a marksman. ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... fellow drives the express-wagon—I love him, though I do not know him, The half-breed straps on his light boots to compete in the race, The western turkey-shooting draws old and young—some lean on their rifles, some sit on logs, Out from the crowd steps the marksman, takes his position, levels his piece; The groups of newly-come emigrants cover the wharf or levee, As the woolly-pates hoe in the sugar-field, the overseer views them from his saddle, The bugle calls in the ball-room, the gentlemen run for their partners, the dancers bow to ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... the tingling of a bullet whizzing past my ear. You nearly made me into a real ghost, friend Beppo; for I assure you, you are a capital shot. Ever since that memorable aim, I have entertained the deepest respect for you as a marksman; it was not your fault that I am here now to make this confession. I ducked my head below the wall in case a volley was to follow the signal gun. When I peeped again, there remained one solitary figure before the tower, immovable as a stone pillar. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... creature all the way to the cabin, to show the boys," announced the successful marksman. "Now don't say anything against it, Paul. You see I'll hold my gun under my arm ready, and at the first sign of trouble I'll let go of the game and be ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren
... adders whose backs he broke with his stick; something dangerous like the chained dog at Shapton Farm; or the big bull at Vannacombe. When the war first broke out, and they had called the younger blacksmith (a reservist and noted village marksman) back to his regiment, the little cowman had smiled and said: "Wait till regiment gets to front, Fred'll ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... holster, where hung a pair of silver-mounted pistols marked with his initial, he drew out one and took flying aim at a bird on a twig, pleasing himself with the foolish fancy that 'twas Ignatius Loyola. But though a sure marksman, he had not the heart to hurt any living thing, and changing with the swiftness of a flash he shot at the twig instead, snapping ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... speaking to me; the little time that I examined it, I could see, its eyes were so fixed on the fire, that all our motions could not take them off. I ran to my cabin to look for my gun, as I am a pretty good marksman: but what was my surprize, when I came out, and saw the girl with a great stick in her hand attacking the monster! Seeing me arrive, she began to smile, and said many things, which I did not comprehend. But she made me understand, by signs, that there was no occasion for ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... Slade was a matchless marksman with a navy revolver. The legends say that one morning at Rocky Ridge, when he was feeling comfortable, he saw a man approaching who had offended him some days before—observe the fine memory he had for matters like that—and, "Gentlemen," said Slade, drawing, "it is a good twenty-yard ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... was the best School in England for rifle-shooting. In the Public Schools contest at Wimbledon we carried off the Ashburton Challenge Shield five times in succession, and in 1865 and 1866 we added to it Lord Spencer's Cup for the best marksman in the school-teams. All this, and a good deal more to the same effect, I told Mr. Aulif with becoming spirit, and proudly led the way to our "Armoury." This grandly named apartment was in truth a dingy cellar under the Old Schools, and held only a scanty store of rifles (for the corps, though ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... kinds of daring and desperate things in the exuberance of his growing strength, and, though kind to his feeble uncle, under no authority, and a thorough young barbarian of the woods; the foremost of all the young men in every kind of exploit, as marksman, rider, hunter, and what-not, and wanting also to be foremost in the good graces of Meg Cree, the handsome daughter of the keeper of the wayside store on the road to Sydney, where young stock-farmers were wont to meet, with the price of ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... fishing-post if Mattingley did not produce Ranulph—well, "here was Ranulph duly produced and insultingly setting up a tent on this sheer rock, with some snippet of the devil," said Richambeau, and defying a great French war-ship. He would set his gunners to work. If he only had as good a marksman as Ranulph himself, the deserter should drop at the first shot "death and the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... them, their different employments; forests falling before the axe; the cheerful population, with the first mild; day of spring, engaged in the sugar orchards; the chase of the deer through the deep woods, and into the lake; turkey-shooting, during the Christmas holidays, in which the Indian marksman vied for the prize of skill with the white man; swift sleigh rides under the bright winter sun, and, perilous encounters with wild animals in the forests; these, and other scenes of rural life, drawn, as Cooper knew how to draw them, in the bright and healthful coloring of which he was ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... "I am going out to expiate a great wrong, Paul. A very necessary feature of the expiation is the marksmanship of my opponent. Wherefore, then, should I be dissatisfied? Have you not yourself told me that Count de Coude is a splendid marksman?" ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... splendid examples of their type and seeming to be a part of their mounts. Then two shots rang out in quick succession and a cloud of pungent smoke arose lazily from the edge of the arroyo as the warriors fell from their mounts not sixty yards from the hidden marksman. ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... creaked in his victim's ears, whose flesh crept and shrank, and involuntary convulsions agitated his hands and feet. Then happened what all these millenniums had never witnessed. No thunderbolt had blazed forth from that dome of cloudless blue; no marksman had approached the inaccessible spot; yet, without vestige of hurt, the eagle dropped lifeless, falling sheer down into the unfathomable abyss below. At the same moment the bonds of the captive snapped asunder, and, projected by an impetus which kept him clear of the ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... was a sickly child, unable to speak till his fifth year, and so weak in the ankles that till his seventh he had to crawl upon his hands and knees. Except for a stammer, he outgrew both defects, and became a skilled tilter and marksman, as well as an accomplished scholar and a diligent student of theology. He was created Duke of Albany at his baptism, Duke of York in 1605, and Prince of Wales in 1616, four years after the death of his dear brother, Prince Henry, had left him ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... revolvers. A man, for some good reason of his own, wants a revolver in the house. He hopes he shall never have to shoot with it, but for fear he may need one he buys it. The chances are ninety-nine in one hundred that he has never been a marksman, or if he was he is so much out of practice that he could not hit a door off hand, and with his nerves steady. I show him a good revolver at $2.50, or a double action bull-dog at $3. But he asks, 'Have you Smith & Wesson's?' Of course I have; single ...
— A Man of Samples • Wm. H. Maher
... bunch of twisted roots at the end. This he learned to throw so skilfully that he could readily kill birds, rabbits, and small game with it. A little later, however, his father gave him a rifle, and he became an expert marksman, able to provide his mother with plenty ...
— Historic Boyhoods • Rupert Sargent Holland
... sight, the boy remained quiet until the brutes began sniffing and turning in his direction; then he stood erect, and giving vent to a scream which rang through the forest, hurled the two stones with all his strength straight at the nearest. He was a good marksman. Agonized yelps followed the impact of stone and hide; two dogs rolled over and over, then, gaining their feet, sped after their fleeing companions, while the boy sat down, trembling in every limb—completely unnerved. ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... on Canandaigua lake, to the old Seneca Castle, near the foot of Seneca lake. On their way they encountered a large grizzly bear. Little Billy and the others in the company, were frightened and began to run. Red Jacket who was distinguished as a hunter, and an excellent marksman, drew up his rifle, and brought the monster to ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard
... proved in need of Colonel Ashley's invocation. Solomon Gleason had fallen dead at the first volley from his friends. It was generally supposed that his death was the result of a chance shot, but Peleg Bidwell was never heard to express any opinion on the subject, and Peleg was a very good marksman. ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... need an expert marksman to find a target in that pack. There must have been at least fifty wolves in it, and their hunger had made them exceedingly daring. They leaped against the sleds, and tried with their keen teeth to bite through the lashings to get at the frozen fish and seal blubber which ...
— The Young Treasure Hunter - or, Fred Stanley's Trip to Alaska • Frank V. Webster
... steep crags, and over treacherous morasses, he moved as easily as the French household troops paced along the great road from Versailles to Marli. He was accustomed to the use of weapons and to the sight of blood: he was a fencer; he was a marksman; and, before he had ever stood in the ranks, he was already more than ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... of another war between the two nations I anticipate a frightful mortality among pants—especially if the French forces should be retreating. The German soldier is not a particularly good marksman as marksmen go, but he would have to be the worst shot in the world to miss a pair of French pants that were going away from him ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... Tom used to give the piece a character, though he wasn't the man to particularize the ra'al natur' of any sort of fire arms, in practise," returned March, passing the deer's thongs through the moccasin with the coolness of a cobbler. "He was no marksman, that we must all allow; but he had his good p'ints, as well as his bad ones. I have had hopes that Judith might consait the idee of giving Killdeer ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... with the Mixed Pickles, 'cause 'e thinks 'isself a bloomin' marksman," said Ortheris, ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... places that are inconvenient to the rest. Many arrange to fight in a sitting posture. They wish to be at ease to kill, and to die comfortably. In the sad war of June, 1848, an insurgent who was a formidable marksman, and who was firing from the top of a terrace upon a roof, had a reclining-chair brought there for his use; a charge of grape-shot found ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... horse at a walk, ride slowly out of the wood at his right. Claiborne jumped up and waved his hat and a rifle-ball flicked his coat collar as lightly as though an unseen hand had tried to brush a bit of dust from it. As he turned toward the marksman behind the cedars three shots, fired in a volley, hummed about him. Then it was very still, with the Sabbath stillness of early morning in the hills, and he heard faintly the mechanical click and snap of the rifles of Chauvenet's party as they expelled their exploded ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... was silent and reserved. Doubt and distrust were exhibited in his countenance. His confidence in Mr. Winkle had been shaken—greatly shaken—by the proceedings of the morning. 'Are you a cricketer?' inquired Mr. Wardle of the marksman. ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... on horseback, and will exchange three pistol-shots each. You are a first-rate marksman. I have seen you bring down swallows with single balls, and at full gallop. Do not deny it, for I have ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... some ten feet above the wall. A guard is on duty in each of these towers during the day. He carries a double-barreled shotgun loaded with buckshot. In case a prisoner tries to escape he is liable to get a dose of lead, provided the officer on duty is a good marksman. The western wall is almost entirely made of a large stone building with its two long wings. The main building is four stories. The wings stretching to the north and south, each two hundred and fifty feet, contain the cells. On the first floor ...
— The Twin Hells • John N. Reynolds
... returning-hunting party. Upon the ever-memorable twenty-sixth of November the Duchess had been persuaded by Don Giovanni to go with them, for there was to be a deer-drive in the forest between the castle and Livorno, and he expected to have a chance of exhibiting his skill as a marksman ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... decoy so, eh, Frank? I'll tell you, though you'll never enjoy the story as much as I did the actual thing. I had a cousin up here last winter. He was from New York City, and had never shot at real game, though he was a deadly marksman when it came to the trap, and could break bats and clay ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... aside, terrified, declaring that there is a dead body on the ground. Yes, indeed, some one is lying there. We cautiously examine the place by the light of our red balloons, carefully held out at arm's length for fear of this dead man. It is only the marksman, he who on the 4th of July chose such magnificent arrows for Chrysantheme; and he sleeps, good man! with his chignon somewhat dishevelled, a sound sleep, which it would be cruel ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... is hardly a people in Asia who would make better soldiers than the Persians if they were properly trained. The Persian is a careless, easy-going devil, who can live on next to nothing; he is a good marksman, a splendid walker and horseman. He is fond of killing, and cares little if he is killed—and he is a master at taking cover. These are all good qualities in a soldier, and if they were brought out and cultivated; if the soldiers were punctually paid and fed ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... the wagon. With daily practising at a mark, before the winter was over, we were all three able to use our new weapons to some purpose; and Harry, to his mother's great delight, could bring down a squirrel from the top of the highest tree in the valley. As a marksman, both with the bow and rifle, he was quite superior to Frank, who, instead of feeling jealous, seemed rather to be proud of the skill of his brother. Harry, during all the winter, kept our table loaded with partridges, squirrels—of which there were several species—hares, ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... to shoot again!" called Elwood, as he and Howard dropped on their faces. "Get down, Tim, or he'll hit you. He's a better marksman than ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis
... boys will have to do the shooting," said Maurice De Vere, as he came out on the small forward deck with his rifle. "I'm a pretty good marksman, but I can't do anything when I ...
— The Motor Boys on the Pacific • Clarence Young
... the shot may go far below the mark; in truth, it has not been reached since that "thunder storm of 1828" and there is little chance that it will be reached by anyone living today, but that matters not, the shot will never rebound and destroy the marksman. But, in the latter case, the shot may often hit the mark, but as often rebound and harden, if not destroy, the shooter's heart—even his soul. What matters it, men say, he will then find rest, commodity, and reputation—what ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... Indian was seen to walk leisurely, as if unhurt, towards them, there was a hubbub in the camp, while men, women, and boys ran towards the spot whence the shot seemed to have been fired, but no one was to be found there. Only a very faint puff of smoke overhead told where the marksman had stood. It had been a well-chosen spot, where a low bush or two mingled with several carts that had been rather carelessly drawn up, and several horses had been picketed together. These had afforded concealment enough for ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... their force is spent at half distance, and they drop to earth. Or if they reach the mark, they do but graze its surface; there can be no deep wound, where the archer lacks strength. But a good marksman, a Nigrinus, begins with a careful examination of the mark, in case it should be particularly soft,—or again too hard; for there are marks which will take no impression from an arrow. Satisfied on this point, he dips his shaft, not in the poisons of Scythia or Crete, ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... negroes looked as if they had been all going to be killed, notwithstanding what their prince said to them, and stood staring to expect the issue, when on a sudden the gunner fired; and as he was a very good marksman, he shot the creature with two slugs, just in the head. As soon as the leopard felt herself struck, she reared up on her two hind-legs, bolt upright, and throwing her forepaws about in the air, fell backward, growling and ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... probably already told you what he thinks of your methods" (this was a random shot, but the marksman observed with satisfaction that the captain winced), "it would be superfluous for me ...
— Little Miss Grouch - A Narrative Based on the Log of Alexander Forsyth Smith's - Maiden Transatlantic Voyage • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... Frank by far, although the latter was by no means a weakling. On the other hand again, Frank was a crack shot with either rifle or revolver; in fact, he was such an excellent marksman as to cause his chum no little degree of envy. Then, too, both lads were proficient in the art of self defense and both had learned to hold ...
— The Boy Allies with the Victorious Fleets - The Fall of the German Navy • Robert L. Drake
... calculation. Just so an astronomer, in dealing with the tidal movements of the ocean, takes no account of the waves made by the wind, or by the pressure of all the steamers which day and night are moving their thousands of tons upon its surface. Just so the marksman, in sighting his rifle, allows for the motion of the wind, but not for the equally real motion of the earth and solar system. Just so a business man's punctuality may overlook an error of five minutes, while a physicist, measuring ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... Though its flintlock and single muzzle-loading barrel would have made a sorry show in the presence of our improved modern weapons, yet it was capable of splendid execution. Jack Carleton was a fine marksman, but in a friendly contest in which the three engaged, the Sauk beat him almost every time. That this was due to the superiority of his gun was proven by the fact that when they exchanged rifles, the young Kentuckian never failed to beat the other, ...
— Footprints in the Forest • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... great marksman, Prince," Roger said. "I am perhaps somewhat better than an average shot, but I have seen marksmen who could do feats that I would ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... the cause of the racket. He was tall, massive, clad in snowy white, and with a golden beard that shone in the lamplight. Milo Standish, as he stood thus, under the glow of the veranda lights, was splendid target for any skulking marksman. Claire seemed to divine this. For, before her astonished brother could speak, ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... on duty in each of these towers during the day. He carries a double-barreled shotgun loaded with buckshot. In case a prisoner tries to escape he is liable to get a dose of lead, provided the officer on duty is a good marksman. The western wall is almost entirely made of a large stone building with its two long wings. The main building is four stories. The wings stretching to the north and south, each two hundred and fifty feet, contain the ...
— The Twin Hells • John N. Reynolds
... "We could shoot into the dark more surely than this clumsy marksman out of it. Let us shoot among the trees and give him his deserts. And after that let nothing hold us from the dogs, for their voices turn the ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... where hung a pair of silver-mounted pistols marked with his initial, he drew out one and took flying aim at a bird on a twig, pleasing himself with the foolish fancy that 'twas Ignatius Loyola. But though a sure marksman, he had not the heart to hurt any living thing, and changing with the swiftness of a flash he shot at the twig instead, snapping ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... Sharpshooting at Short Range. The Struggle for the Howitzer. Assaulted by Thirty Mounted Indians, Four Soldiers Stand by it until All Shot Down. The Two Survivors, Though Sorely Wounded, Throw the Gun from the Trunnion and Crawl Away into the Brush. How Gibbon's Sharpshooters Drove an Indian Marksman from a Pine Tree. The Redskins Fire the Grass, but a Lucky Turn of the Wind Saves the Soldiers from the Intended Holocaust. A Supper on Raw Horse. Heroic Conduct of Captain Browning and Lieutenant Woodbridge in Rescuing the Supply ...
— The Battle of the Big Hole • G. O. Shields
... spishil trustability av a marksman. Train him to hit a fly wid a stiddy rest at seven hunder, an' he loose on anythin' he sees or hears up to th' mile. You're well out av that fancy-firin' gang, ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... outposts along the road, and for a few miles between Lippeloo and Baesrode they begged us to travel as fast as possible, as at this point we came within a mile of the railway. We did travel, and it would have taken a smart marksman to hit us at fifty miles an hour; but we felt much happier when we passed under the railway bridge of a loop line at Briel and placed it between ourselves and the enemy. The entrance to Termonde was blocked by a rough barricade of bricks and branches guarded by a squad of soldiers. They told ...
— A Surgeon in Belgium • Henry Sessions Souttar
... nodding and smiling at the successful marksman. "That is the way to do it. You are a match for half a dozen of them as long as you will ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... transaction, till he had arrived at the end of his march, when, in wheeling slowly round, he could no longer affect ignorance, or avoid seeing that the boat was several times its length from the ship. He immediately fired; but, whether he exercised his best skill as a marksman, or whether it was on account of the boat's going ahead its whole length at every pull of the rowers, I could never exactly ascertain, but the ball fell harmlessly into the water. The report of the gun brought the whole guard out, who blazed away at the ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... If we could outstrip that marksman, if we could even hold our distance until night had fallen, all might yet be well. A little longer, and even an Indian must fire at random; moreover, we might reach some stream and manage to break our trail. The ground was smooth before us,—too smooth, and slippery with pine needles; ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... could hit a flock of barns with this gun," I replied, gazing doubtfully at the old, shiny, wire-wrapped, worn-out Winchester Copple had lent me. I had been told that he was a fine marksman and could drive a nail with it. Upon my return to camp I tried out the rifle, carefully, with a rest, to find that it was not accurate. Moreover it did not throw the bullets consistently. It shot ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... entitled "The Siller Gun," descriptive of a sort of walkingshaw, or an ancient practice which obtained in his native town, of shooting, on the king's birth-day, for a silver tube or gun, which had been presented by James VI. to the incorporated trades, as a prize to the best marksman, was printed at Dumfries in 1777, on a small quarto page. The original edition consisted of twelve stanzas; in two years it increased to two cantos; in 1780, it was printed in three cantos; in 1808, it was published in London with a fourth; and in 1836, just before his death, the author ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... to the prejudice, etc.," said the marksman severely, "in that you did spread alarm and despondency amongst the troops by disguising yourself as a disease and making noises indicative ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... possess, and that, if a man uses an instrument with perfect skill, he then succeeds merely in getting out of that instrument all that there is in it. A soldier's musket, for instance, is a very perfect tool—very accurate, very powerful, very rapid; and no marksman in the world is so skilful that he can shoot the musket with all the accuracy and speed of which ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... interest, was very different from yours. He learned, like his elders, to imitate bird calls, to set traps, to shoot a rifle, and at twelve the little lad became a foot soldier. He knew from just which loophole he was to shoot if the Indians attacked the fort, and he took pride in becoming a good marksman. He was carefully trained, too, to follow an Indian trail and to conceal his own when on the war-path—for such knowledge would be very useful to him as a hunter ...
— Stories of Later American History • Wilbur F. Gordy
... insensible husband, and taking his head into her bosom dragged his limp body out of the cold water of the brook, whilst I took down from the beech-tree Fatia Negra's double-barrelled musket and raised it to my cheek. Before me on the white rock, in the full light of the moon, a good mark for a marksman was that panting black object struggling upwards. I pointed the barrel straight at him. I took a long and careful aim. I am certain I should have hit him. And then I bethought me how much I had loved him once upon a time, and the weapon sank down. I flung ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... upturned brim had been pierced by a bullet. He stopped at this evident hint, and, taking his dispatch bag from his shoulder, placed it significantly upon a boulder, and looked around as if to await the appearance of the unseen marksman. The rifle shot rang out again, the bag quivered, and turned over with ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... habeant." And St. Charles: "Considerandum, ad Dei omnipotentis gloriam, ad animarumque salutem, referri omnem concionandi vim ac rationem." Moreover, "Praedicatorem esse ministrum Dei, per quem verbum Dei a spiritus fonte ducitur ad fidelium animas irrigandas." As a marksman aims at the target and its bull's-eye, and at nothing else, so the preacher must have a definite point before him, which he has to hit. So much is contained for his direction in this simple maxim, that duly to enter into it and use it is half the battle; ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... observed perhaps in De Tassy's Summary that he notices an Eastern Form of William Tell's Apple? A Sultan doats on a beautiful Slave, who yet is seen daily to pine away under all the Shah's Favour, and being askt why, replies, 'Because every day the Shah, who is a famous Marksman with the Bow, shoots at an Apple laid on my Head, and always hits it; and when all the Court cries "Lo! the Fortune of the King!" He also asks me why I turn pale under the Trial, he being such a Marksman, and his Mark an Apple set on the Head he most doats upon?' I am ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... so, with your finger along this rod. You point your finger at a man and pull this trigger. The pistol will buzz—briefly. You let the trigger loose and point at another man and pull the trigger again. Understand? Don't try to use it over ten yards. You're no marksman!" ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... a marksman,—plumped through and through under the wing. You are improving, young man," exclaimed the hunter, who now, rapidly coming down, had reached the foot of the tree, as Claud came forward from the bushes, with his prize. "It is a ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... grass to their knees, and many fences to cross, their task was the worse. But they advanced with great composure, and apparently forgetting the 19th of April they were deployed in open order, as if to present each marksman with a separate target. Howe led those who marched at the rail fence, and General Pigot led the assault upon the redoubt. Both bodies of the regulars advanced with ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French
... a servant-girl. Doctor Frederick von Kammacher performs miracles of bravery." Frederick started, reflected, but could not recall anything of the sort. "Child dies in life-boat. Captain Butor of the Hamburg sights castaways. Report of survivors. Arthur Stoss, champion armless marksman, helped into life-boat by faithful valet," and so on. It was an invaluable supply of fresh, sensational, gratuitously obtained material, to be served for a week in generous portions to readers in both the old and ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... assumed the expense of manufacturing and presenting these badges, which consisted of a Maltese cross having crossed rifles, the seal of the league, which is the "Winged Victory," in the center, the whole being suspended from a bar with the word "Marksman" on it, ...
— A report on the feasibility and advisability of some policy to inaugurate a system of rifle practice throughout the public schools of the country • George W. Wingate
... they worked to bring Harve Tatum back to his senses, the men marveled at two amazing things. The first wonder was that Jess Tatum, finished marksman as he was, and the main instigator and central figure of sundry violent encounters in the past, should have failed to hit the mark at which he fired with his first shot or with his second or with his third; and the second, a ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... making a bag consisting of one singed "cheeper," the "shooting" is likely to prove more attractive to the amateur unfamiliar with the rifle, but accustomed to the tropical heat of a Central African Summer, than satisfactory to a professional marksman counting on dispatching from a breezy moorland fifty brace or so to his relatives and friends.—For terms, &c., apply to THE MAC SALAMANDER, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 93, August 13, 1887 • Various
... up Felix could see the top of his head, and he decided to use his revolver first. He fired; and, as the reptile was not ten feet from him, so skilful a marksman could hardly help hitting him. He did hit him, and the ball passed through his head. He wriggled a moment, and then stretched himself ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... a weak link in the chain. Ruiz Gregorio's child-like plot turned upon one pivot of hazard—hazard most likely to be ignored by so good a marksman as the "man-killer." One shot he might permit himself, with little danger of drawing a crowd from the mess tent and the sleeping shanties in the Horse Creek camp. Two would bring the men to their doors. Any ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... Governments of Europe seem to have become awakened to the fact, that, however important and desirable it may be to secure the best possible implements for the soldier's use, it is infinitely more so that he should know how to use them. In the hands of a marksman the rifle is an efficient weapon at half a mile's distance; but to expect on that account that it will do any more execution in the hands of one who is not familiar with it than a smooth-bored musket is as idle as it would ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... of the most eagerly sought game birds of the east. Their flight is very rapid and erratic, and accompanied by a peculiar whistling sound made by the rapid motion of the wings; it requires a skillful marksman to bring them down. They frequent boggy places especially "runs" lined with alders, where they bore in the soft ground for worms and grubs. Their eggs are laid upon the bare ground among the leaves and sticks; they are of about the ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... the expedient, which he well knew proceeded from distrust of himself, as a compliment, and made a gesture of acquiescence, well content that his veracity should be supported by so skillful a marksman as the scout. The weapons were instantly placed in the hands of the friendly opponents, and they were bid to fire, over the heads of the seated multitude, at an earthen vessel, which lay, by accident, on a stump, some fifty yards from the ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... for some good reason of his own, wants a revolver in the house. He hopes he shall never have to shoot with it, but for fear he may need one he buys it. The chances are ninety-nine in one hundred that he has never been a marksman, or if he was he is so much out of practice that he could not hit a door off hand, and with his nerves steady. I show him a good revolver at $2.50, or a double action bull-dog at $3. But he asks, 'Have you Smith & Wesson's?' Of course I have; single action $9.35; double-action, ...
— A Man of Samples • Wm. H. Maher
... shivering of the glass which covered the likeness. The morocco was torn and indented, but the ball was turned aside harmless, and now, as he touched the spring, the fragments of glass fell at his feet. It was evident that his towering form had rendered him a conspicuous target; some accurate marksman had aimed at his heart, and the ambrotype-case had preserved his life. With a countenance pale from physical suffering, but beaming with triumphant joy for the Nation's first great victory, he went out among the dead and dying, striving ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... promptly applied the loggerhead; there was a ringing report; and as the smoke cleared off the shot was seen to strike the water close alongside the schooner, and the next instant a white scar in her bulwarks attested Ritson's skill as a marksman and showed that the shot had taken effect. A hearty cheer from the Aurora's crew manifested their elation at this lucky hit; and George, who was watching the schooner through ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... that the fight had not been carried on at close quarters. They had heard a good deal of noise and yelling, the starboard squad had experienced the thrill of having a man fall dead in their midst, but, with the exception of Tollemache and the Chilean marksman, the main body of the defenders took no part in the fray and saw but little of it. And it is one of human nature's queer proclivities that it seeks rather than shirks a combat when the loins ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... to drag the creature all the way to the cabin, to show the boys," announced the successful marksman. "Now don't say anything against it, Paul. You see I'll hold my gun under my arm ready, and at the first sign of trouble I'll let go of the game and ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren
... extinguished a grenade with his hat, crept undiscovered into the fortress and spoiled the fire-engines, cut loose the ships moored beneath the walls, etc. Joseph Speckbacher of the Innthal was an open-hearted, fine-spirited fellow, endowed with a giant's strength, and the best marksman in the country. His clear bright eye could, at the distance of half a mile, distinguish the bells on the necks of the cattle. In his youth, he was addicted to poaching, and being, on one occasion, ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... worthy peer," said the tall friar whom we have already mentioned in the chapel scene, "and the best marksman in England." ...
— Maid Marian • Thomas Love Peacock
... up his right hand, thumb and forefinger forming a circle. "You're one point eight seven inches high, and off center point five three inches to the north northeast by east. I hereby award each of you the bronze medal of Marksman First. Shall I take her down now or do you want to check in ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... that it was impossible to see ten paces ahead, and the three associates in peril had to crawl along, one after another, making their way by putting the branches and vines aside, but doing it with great caution, lest they should attract the eye of some lurking marksman. They took the lead by turns, each advancing some twenty yards at a time, and now and then hallooing to their men to come on. Some of the latter gradually entered the swamp, and followed a little distance ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... continue our fatiguing journey. A little above us was also discovered a large quantity of drift timber, left dry upon the sand, and in a short time every one of us were actively employed in preparing for a jovial meal. Gabriel, being the best marksman, started for game, and I continued fishing, to the great delight of the doctor and the parson, the first one taking under his care the cooking department, and the last scouring the prairie to catch grasshoppers and horse-flies. In less than three hours I had twenty large trout, and ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... the arrows aforesaid were iron-tipped instead of being simply fire-hardened, and in the feathering of each a single plume of the scarlet tanager had been carefully inserted. Presumably, the vermilion feather was the owner's private sign of his work as a marksman. So far the lad's dress and accoutrements were in entire conformity to the primeval rusticity of his surroundings. Judge, then, of the reasonable surprise which the observer might feel at discovering that the object in the boy's hand was nothing less incongruous than a pair of binocular ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... adventurers went toward the rocks from which the shot had been fired. Surely they would discover some sign there, or lower down upon the plain, where the melting snows had softened the earth. Mukoki led in the search, and foot by foot they examined the spot where the mysterious marksman must have stood when he sent his golden bullet so close ...
— The Gold Hunters - A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds • James Oliver Curwood
... not rest particularly well. But he became determined upon one thing: no actual harm should befall Kathlyn. He would have a marksman hidden near by in both ordeals. What a woman! She was a queen, and he knew that he would go through all the hells of Hind to call her his. Long ere this he would have looted the treasure chests and swept her up on his racing elephant ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... knees, bending over him. But a second of the vermin lurched against her, and he too lay still. A pistol report from the cliff was simultaneous with each man's fall. Both were dead. A third sank in the trail with a shattered hip, and another behind knew the agony of a broken leg. The marksman's mercy was evidently tempered according to distance. For, having the matter now under control, he nonchalantly cracked only shin bones. Fra Diavolo from his shelter roared commands and curses, ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... a perfect unity? Evidently not in the strict, mathematical sense. In a relative sense it is met with, rarely and incidentally. In a clever marksman in the act of taking aim, or in a skilled surgeon performing a difficult operation all is found to converge, both physically and mentally. Still, let us take note of the result: in these conditions the awareness of real personality disappears; ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... was reached. The Federals were in retreat. A little apart from the others, a fine target for the deadly marksman, the figure of General Johnston on "Fire-eater" ...
— How the Flag Became Old Glory • Emma Look Scott
... same ter the left, too," commented the marksman judiciously. "But et thet she air a moghty fine rifle-gun, an' I shor' would be pleased ter own her, only I reckon ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... flies out there, Monsieur," he answered, "and with a marksman or two among them. Not ten minutes since Bowain got a ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... protection, they take shelter behind it. Left-handed men are precious; they take the places that are inconvenient to the rest. Many arrange to fight in a sitting posture. They wish to be at ease to kill, and to die comfortably. In the sad war of June, 1848, an insurgent who was a formidable marksman, and who was firing from the top of a terrace upon a roof, had a reclining-chair brought there for his use; a charge of grape-shot found ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... breathe the blow-hole is first seen; then, after respiration, the head goes down, and the back as far as the dorsal fin is seen, but rarely the tail flippers. They rise to breathe every 70 to 150 seconds, and the respiratory act is so rapid that it requires a very expert marksman to take aim and fire before the ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... hearing the crack of a gun, and feeling the tingling of a bullet whizzing past my ear. You nearly made me into a real ghost, friend Beppo; for I assure you, you are a capital shot. Ever since that memorable aim, I have entertained the deepest respect for you as a marksman; it was not your fault that I am here now to make this confession. I ducked my head below the wall in case a volley was to follow the signal gun. When I peeped again, there remained one solitary figure before the tower, immovable as a stone pillar. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... declaring that there is a dead body on the ground. Yes, indeed, some one is lying there. We cautiously examine the place by the light of our red balloons, carefully held out at arm's length for fear of this dead man. It is only the marksman, he who on the 4th of July chose such magnificent arrows for Chrysantheme; and he sleeps, good man! with his chignon somewhat dishevelled, a sound sleep, which it would ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... at fifty yards but I was too greedy and ran around some rocks to get nearer and he heard me and dived. I shot a macaw, one of those overgrown parrots with tail feathers three feet from tip to tip. I got him with a rifle and as Griscom had got his with a shotgun I came out all right as a marksman although I was very sore at missing the wild cat. We sleep in hats and we sleep precious little for the dogs and pigs and insects all help to keep us awake and I cannot get used to a hammock. The native ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... spine. The evidence seems to make it clear that it was a chance shot that wrought the fatal mischief. Hardy had twice the bulk of Nelson's insignificant figure, and wore a more striking uniform, and would certainly have attracted the aim of a marksman in ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... was his nephew Roland, a man of about thirty, pock-marked, fair, thin, cold, and reserved; he was not tall, but very strong, and of inflexible courage. The other, Henri Castanet of Massevaques, was a keeper from the mountain of Laygoal, whose skill as a marksman was so well known that it was said he never missed a shot. Each of these lieutenants had fifty men ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... have to be a prisoner in the house until his legal adviser thought proper to appear, 'I'll be perfectly happy if Miss Caroline will give me as much of her company as she can spare. It 's amusing to be shot at too, by a lady who 's a good marksman! And birds and hares are always willing to wait for us; they keep better alive. I forgot to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... his heart strings swell, And blest he deems his lot; For the foil'd tyger as he fell, A latent marksman shot. ...
— Ballads - Founded On Anecdotes Relating To Animals • William Hayley
... hunting and carpentering, than the lonely farm he had purchased in Hardin County, about fourteen miles away. There was so little carpentering or cabinet making to do that he could make a better living by farming or hunting. Thomas was very fond of shooting and as he was a fine marksman he could provide game for the table, and other things which are considered luxuries to-day, such as furs and skins needed for the primitive wearing apparel of the pioneers. A daughter was born to the young couple at Elizabethtown, whom they ...
— The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln • Wayne Whipple
... though I didn't stay to finish my Junior year, I'd keep my place and get my dip, no matter how long the war lasted. Then he looked over his spectacles at me, and said it was a good thing I was so tall and slim—it would be a crack marksman who could get me, or even tell me from a sapling at five hundred yards; and we grinned at each other and shook hands. Good old Hamerton—I hope he'll be there when I get back. Then I wired Mother and took the train for home.... I don't know why I always write and wire Mother instead of Father, ...
— The Whistling Mother • Grace S. Richmond
... laughed Tom, displaying four bullet holes through his shirtsleeves, and two more that pierced his hat. "Ashby got as much of me as I'd want any marksman to get." ...
— The Young Engineers in Arizona - Laying Tracks on the Man-killer Quicksand • H. Irving Hancock
... leaving Quentin to meditate on what he had seen and heard. The youth was in one of those situations from which it is pleasanter to look forward than to look back; for the reflection that he had been planted like a marksman in a thicket who watches for a stag, to take the life of the noble Count of Crevecoeur, had in it nothing ennobling. It was very true that the King's measures seemed on this occasion merely cautionary and defensive; but how did the youth know but he might be ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... window. Those leaden blasts that had swept the room from the first floors of the opposite houses had ceased, and not one potvaliant marksman of them all was to be seen; but the street was full of hussars, and directly beneath, mounted on an excited horse, Stampoff was giving furious orders which evidently demanded an energetic storming of ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... the left the passage ended in a wall, so that Mr Kay was bound to take the right direction in the search. Fenn wondered if he had a pistol. Not that he cared very much. If the house-master was going to find him, it would be very little extra discomfort to be shot at. And Mr Kay's talents as a marksman were in all probability limited to picking off sitting haystacks. The important point was that he had a candle. A faint yellow glow preceded him down the stairs. Playing hide-and-seek with him in the dark, Fenn might have slipped past in safety; but ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... into which they were riding they wouldn't ride so hard," he said. "But the Sioux are not yet acquainted with the full merits of a long range repeating rifle, nor do they understand how well I can shoot. I'm as good a marksman as there is in the West, if I do say it myself, and lest you may think me a boaster, Will, I'll ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler
... did not come. The marksman, doubtless thinking that another shot was too dangerous a hazard, had retreated into the plain. General Jackson walked on calmly, inspecting the whole Northern advance, and then returning took up his station on Prospect Hill, where ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... forest of Lebanon had its inward glory lying more in great pillars and thick beams than in other ornaments. And indeed, here had need be pillars and pillars and beams and beams too, since it was designed for assaults to be made upon it, since it was set for a butt for the marksman, and to be an object for furious heathens to spend their ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... additional skill from the teaching of Jean Bouvard, who was a famous swordsman. The latter was surprised at finding that the page was able to draw the English bows as well as the archers, and that, although inferior to Long Tom and three or four of the best shots, he was quite as good a marksman as the majority. Moreover, though of gentle blood he would join with the men in their bouts of quarter-staff, and took no more heed of a broken ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty
... spots which separated the field from the wood, there was always a stimulating uncertainty what sort of game was to be found, and the marksman, with his bow ready bent, or his javelin poised, and his good and well-bitted horse thrown upon its haunches, ready for a sudden start, observed watchfully what should rush from the covert, so that, were it deer, boar, wolf, wild cattle, or any ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... command to remain on duty inside of the encampment, while another third was engaged in strengthening the defenses. A detachment of two hundred Louisiana volunteers under command of Captain Thistle, an expert marksman, was detailed for the erection of a blockhouse near the river, while others were engaged in preparing canoes and rafts. Everything was quiet until ten o'clock, when a fire was opened by the Indians on ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... till the deer, by some magic dream, had been drawn to the muzzle of the gun before I made an attempt to fire at the game that dared my boldness in the wild forest. The great mystery in hunting seems to be—a good marksman, a resolute mind, a fixed determination, and my world for it, you will never return home without sounding your horn with the breath of a new victory. And so with every other undertaking. Be confident that your ammunition is of the right kind—always pull ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... own Cannon would permit it, we could see Clouds of Dust issuing from out of the Window, which, together with the People's crouding out of Doors, convinc'd the Officers, whom I had desir'd to take Notice of it, that I had been no bad Marksman. ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe
... his example. At a critical point, Colonel Morgan, who, with his riflemen was immediately opposite to General Fraser's corps, perceiving that the fate of the day rested upon that officer, called a few of his sharpshooters aside, among whom was the famous marksman, Timothy Murphy, men on whose precision of aim he could rely, and said to them, "That gallant officer yonder is General Fraser; I admire and respect him, but it is necessary for our good that he should die. Take you ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... taken hold of him. The fact that he was high above the earth, perched in a swaying unstable seat was forgotten. He had eyes and thought only for the murderous machine gun and the man who worked it. An instinctive marksman, he and his rifle were now as one, and of all the birds of prey in the air at that moment Wharton ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... fur-traders from Virginia whose heavy pack-trains with their tinkling bells constantly traversed the course of the Great Trading Path. The superlative skill of one of these hunters, both as woodsman and marksman, was proverbial along the border. The name of Daniel Boone became synonymous with expert huntsmanship and almost uncanny wisdom in forest lore. The bottoms of the creek near the Boone home, three miles west of present Mocksville, contained ...
— The Conquest of the Old Southwest • Archibald Henderson
... but their inhabitants. I know them; I have the key, or the pick-lock to their minds. An Irishman is as different an animal on his guard and off his guard, as a miss in school from a miss out of school. A fine country for game, I'll show you; and if you are a good marksman, you may have plenty of shots 'at folly ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... ordinarily, is a physical impossibility, as any experienced rifleman knows. These were chance shots, or so nearly so that they could not be repeated in a hundred shots. The impossibility lies in the marksman ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... down the precipitous hill, tumbling over each other, and rolling among the rocks. The adventurous band eagerly pursued them, and shot at them as they would at deer flying through the forest. Many more thus fell. One keen marksman struck down an Indian at the distance of eighty rods, breaking his thigh bone. In this short encounter twenty-four of the Indians were slain. The remainder escaped into the depths of the forest. The heroes ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... Miss Percival away. Ingram was loquacious, though rather caustic; Chevenix a good foil, easy-tempered, always at a run, a very fair marksman for all his random shooting. His was that happy disposition which finds Nature at large, including men, as precisely there for his amusement. He relished, never failed to relish, the works of God. But then he had perfect health. Mrs. Devereux was something of a grandee, though not quite so much ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... and was dearly beloved by us all. His eccentricities were numerous, but did no one any harm, while his fondness for hunting, his love for his dogs (of which I can clearly recall by name eight or ten), his almost incredible skill as a marksman, and his unvarying success as a hunter, made him the hero of our childish admiration, and won for him the reputation of a veritable Nimrod. I remember very clearly his habit of asking my mother what and how much game she would ...
— 'Three Score Years and Ten' - Life-Long Memories of Fort Snelling, Minnesota, and Other - Parts of the West • Charlotte Ouisconsin Van Cleve
... some distance down the street from the Americans opened, and a man thrust a rifle out, taking aim. That rifle never barked, for Dave, with a single shot from his revolver, sent the would-be marksman ...
— Dave Darrin at Vera Cruz • H. Irving Hancock
... Africans are not now enlisted. Still, although on account of this failing, African troops could never, in these days of long-range firing, meet Europeans in the field, a battalion of Africans would be quite good enough for bush fighting against an enemy like the Ashanti, a still worse marksman, and worse armed; or against tribes armed with the spear ...
— The History of the First West India Regiment • A. B. Ellis
... steadily. Nobody making his first space-flight could possibly hit such targets as Joe and the Chief made of themselves. The man in the enemy rocket was making his first flight. Also, Joe and the Chief had an initial velocity of 200 miles a minute toward him. The marksman in the rising rocket hadn't a chance. He fired four more missiles and tried desperately ...
— Space Tug • Murray Leinster
... a heap. Tom evidently was a fair marksman, for it had been moving swiftly over their heads at the time he fired. Jack ran forward and picked the game up. As he did so he gave utterance to exclamations that naturally excited the curiosity of his chum. So Tom, after reloading ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach
... justice, Lieutenant, even if you get the best in the potato trial. I say you've passed a good human life, for a soldier, in places where the rifle is daily used, and I know you are a creditable and ingenious marksman; but then you are not a true rifle-shooter. As for boasting, I hope I'm not a vain talker about my own exploits; but a man's gifts are his gifts, and it's flying in the face of Providence to deny them. The Sergeant's daughter, here, shall judge between us, ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... and to shoot with the bow, that they may acquire such talents as will necessarily raise them into some degree of esteem among the Indian lads of their own age; the rest of us must hunt with the hunters. I have been for several years an expert marksman; but I dread lest the imperceptible charm of Indian education, may seize my younger children, and give them such a propensity to that mode of life, as may preclude their returning to the manners and customs of their parents. I have but one ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... on our left. They were covered by some mountain guns, from which their first shell fell short, and made such a breach in their own leading column, that we could not resist giving three cheers to their marksman. Leaving a strong covering party to keep our division in check at the bridge of Bera, their main body followed the Spaniards, who, offering little opposition, continued retiring ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid
... was built in what is now Howard County, Missouri, north of the Missouri river. Christopher Carson at fifteen years of age had never been to school a day, but he was "one of the Four Hundred" equal to any man in his district. He was a fine marksman, excellent horseman, of strong character and sound judgment. His disposition was quiet, amiable and gentle. One of those boys who did things without boasting and did everything the best ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... tail dangling behind, crowned the often tall and always sinewy frontiersman. His constant companion was his home-made flint-lock rifle—a clumsy, heavy weapon, so long that it reached to the chin of the tallest man, but unerring in the hands of an expert marksman, such as ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... with Mr. Bultitude as he approaches the crisis of his misfortunes? I protest, for my own part, that as I am compelled to describe him springing from step to step in wild terror, like a highly respectable chamois before some Alpine marksman, my own heart bleeds for him, and I hasten to end my distressing tale, and make the rest of it as little painful as I may ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... concealed. Now there was a certain person among the many that were tortured, who said that he knew that the young man had often said, that when he was commended as a tall man in his body, and a skillful marksman, and that in his other commendable exercises he exceeded all men, these qualifications given him by nature, though good in themselves, were not advantageous to him, because his father was grieved ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... peg which supported the target; which a clever marksman might split. There is no satisfactory explanation of ...
— The Rowley Poems • Thomas Chatterton
... unsuspecting enemy, whip out the pocket pistol, uncork the muzzle by removing his thumb from the orifice, and present it at the victim; the fatal discharge follows in an instant and the man drops to the ground. The ghost in the pistol has done his work. Sometimes, however, an accident happens. The marksman misses his victim and hits somebody else. This occurred, for example, not very many years ago in the island of Mota. A man named Isvitag was waiting with his ghost-shooter to pop at his enemy, but in his nervous excitement he let fly too soon, just as a woman with a child on her ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... precedent things at sixes-and-sevens. At any rate, be the cause what it may, there is seldom anything worth seeing—within the scope of a railway traveller's eye; and if there were, it requires an alert marksman to take a flying shot at ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... When it has spent itself in vain struggles, it is tied up to a stake, gagged and strangled, its neck being placed between two poles, which are then violently compressed, all the people eagerly helping to squeeze the animal to death. An arrow is also discharged into the beast's heart by a good marksman, but so as not to shed blood, for they think that it would be very unlucky if any of the blood were to drip on the ground. However, the men sometimes drink the warm blood of the bear "that the courage and other virtues it possesses ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... the purpose of encouraging their troops. One circumstance, however, seemed to renew their courage; a gunner opposite, as he was mounting the ramparts to see the success of his shot, was slain by a marksman from one of the towers. The next day one of their cannoneers was slain through the porthole by a skilful hand, which made the enemy more cautious than formerly. Yet did they not slacken their endeavours, but fired almost incessantly. On the Saturday afternoon they ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... over and felt along the floor of the cave for the final hold. Finding it, he drew himself up over the edge and crawled, weak and half fainting, out of range of the devilish marksman. ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... part of each boy's lesson, but when it comes to the handling of tools, practice becomes the only available means of making a workman. Fifty years of observation would never make an observer an archer or a marksman, nor would it enable him to shoe a horse or to ...
— Carpentry for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... and pioneer called "Dick Dead-eye" by his fellows, was made chairman of the meeting. This name was given him because he was a good marksman, having an eye which seldom failed him in taking aim with a gun. He was seconded by a stranger, who, having a keen, quick glance and well knit figure dressed appropriately in leathern trousers and leggings, sat at the chairman's right and evidently "meant business", ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... some persons connected with the service of the hunt, came a master of the horse, the first huntsman, and some persons admitted to the hunt. The King, who used a flintlock gun, was a very good marksman. About five or six in the evening he returned to the Chateau. The people of the court were gathered on the steps, awaiting him. He usually addressed some affable words to them, and then went to dress in order to be in the salon ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... the shooting, trudged away to the foot of the tree, where he found a dead woodpecker lying on the ground. He picked up the bird, still warm and bleeding, and brought it to Blennerhassett, who expressed enthusiastic admiration for the marksman's skill. Plutarch received the praise without showing the pleased vanity he inwardly felt, and having reloaded the gun with neat celerity, he passed it to the owner, saying in his unceremonious way, "Now, boss, it's ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... circumstances, for, as I learned afterwards, the ball struck just where I hoped that it might, in the centre of the breast, piercing the heart. Indeed, taking everything into consideration, I think that those four shots which I fired in Pongo-land are the real record of my career as a marksman. The first at night broke the arm of the gorilla god and would have killed him had not the charge hung fire and given him time to protect his head. The second did kill him in the midst of a great scrimmage when ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... Springfields and one hundred and twenty Winchesters, 22-calibre muskets—toys fit for shooting squirrels, and only a small supply of cartridges. The rifles available were issued to such of the boys as had won their badges of sharpshooter and marksman, two boys being assigned to each gun, so that if one was shot the other could ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett
... arsenal of hunting weapons, among which were two double-barrelled breech-loading fowling-pieces, and a rifle that had withstood every test, of the make of Purdey, Moore & Dickson, at Edinburgh. With such a weapon a marksman would find no difficulty in lodging a bullet in the eye of a chamois at the distance of two thousand paces. Along with these implements, he had two of Colt's six-shooters, for unforeseen emergencies. His powder-case, his cartridge-pouch, his lead, and ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... Lambra was an interested spectator, and when at last Alvaro Sanchez, one of her favorite cousins, struck the target full in the centre, she was more than pleased, and declared that he was the best marksman of them all. The Seven Lords of Lara had taken no part in this contest as yet, for six of the brothers had been busily engaged in playing chess, and the youngest of them all, Gonzalo Gonzales, had been standing idly by. Piqued, however, ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... slipping his hand into his breast-pocket and producing therefrom a neat little pistol, toy-like, but deadly enough in the hand of a good marksman. 'Is this yours?' he asked, holding it out for Captain ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... satisfied—the man undoubtedly meant business. He settled back into the saddle and looked down at his shirt sleeve. The bullet had passed very close to the arm. If the man had meant the bullet for that particular spot he was a deadly marksman. In the face of such marvelous shooting Hollis did not care to experiment further. But his ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer
... have been a hard student, Nick Carter, of many things. I have had good instructors in the science of mixing and using poisons; there is no person living to-day, man or woman—yourself included—who is a better marksman than I am with firearms; there is no person, man or woman, who is more adept to-day in the use of all weapons than I am. This is ...
— A Woman at Bay - A Fiend in Skirts • Nicholas Carter
... snow to a great height in the air, and directly a second discharge, similar in sound to the first, followed, when the animal came to the earth, failing head long and rolling over on the crust with its own velocity. A loud shout was given by the unseen marksman, and a couple of men instantly appeared from behind the trunks of two of the pines, where they had evidently placed them selves in expectation of the passage ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... Chupin the target which the viscount practised at with pistols for an hour every morning; for Monsieur le Vicomte was a capital marksman, and could lodge eight balls out of ten in the neck of a bottle at a distance of twenty paces. He also displayed his master's swords; for Monsieur le Vicomte handled side arms as adroitly as pistols. He took a lesson ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... THE KEEN MARKSMAN does not poison his nerves and brain with alcohol. Angus Cameron, a Highlander, at the age of twenty, took the Queen's prize for the best marksmanship, and when he was twenty-two (in 1869), he won in the same way a cup worth $1000. He made the best shot each time that ever had been made in the ...
— Object Lessons on the Human Body - A Transcript of Lessons Given in the Primary Department of School No. 49, New York City • Sarah F. Buckelew and Margaret W. Lewis
... Mattingley did not produce Ranulph—well, "here was Ranulph duly produced and insultingly setting up a tent on this sheer rock, with some snippet of the devil," said Richambeau, and defying a great French war-ship. He would set his gunners to work. If he only had as good a marksman as Ranulph himself, the deserter should drop at the first shot "death and the devil take ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... have a right to dictate the preliminaries, as it is I who have received the provocation)—in my opinion the time ought not to be yet. I know you to be well skilled in the management of the sword, while I am only moderately so; I know, too, that you are a good marksman—there we are about equal. I know that a duel between us two would be a serious affair, because you are brave, and I am brave also. I do not therefore wish either to kill you, or to be killed myself without a cause. Now, ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... when there was no cause for longer delay. The shoulders were in sight, and the skilful marksman was certain of bringing the warrior down ...
— The Great Cattle Trail • Edward S. Ellis
... hubbub in the camp, while men, women, and boys ran towards the spot whence the shot seemed to have been fired, but no one was to be found there. Only a very faint puff of smoke overhead told where the marksman had stood. It had been a well-chosen spot, where a low bush or two mingled with several carts that had been rather carelessly drawn up, and several horses had been picketed together. These had afforded concealment enough for at ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... they little relish. Those fierce Highlanders suffer the most from this sort of warfare, for they always throw away their muskets before they charge, and so they have no weapon that is of any service against a hidden marksman in the bushes. But all this, though it may harass the English, does not affect the issue of the day. We have suffered a crushing defeat, although the number of the slain is not excessive. It remains ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... sir. But 'tain't my fault that I'm a good marksman, as you call it. It come quite easy like. I suppose it's good for us, but it's very bad for these 'ere Malay chaps, and it does make me feel a bit squirmy when one of them gives me a chance, and then it's oracle, phit, and down ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... said he, "that upon further reflection I have also eliminated Ah Tsong from the case. I forgot to mention that he lacks the first and second fingers of his right hand; and I have yet to meet the marksman who can shoot a man squarely between the eyes, by moonlight, at a hundred yards, employing his third finger as trigger- finger. There are other points, but these will be sufficient to show you that this case is more complicated than you ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... speed, and upon my arrival she shewed me the crocodile, without speaking to me; the little time that I examined it, I could see, its eyes were so fixed on the fire, that all our motions could not take them off. I ran to my cabin to look for my gun, as I am a pretty good marksman: but what was my surprize, when I came out, and saw the girl with a great stick in her hand attacking the monster! Seeing me arrive, she began to smile, and said many things, which I did not comprehend. But she made ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... Pepper Whitcomb, who played all the juvenile and women parts, was my son. To guard against mischance, a piece of pasteboard was fastened by a handkerchief over the upper portion of Whitcomb's face, while the arrow to be used was sewed up in a strip of flannel. I was a capital marksman, and the big apple, only two yards distant, turned its ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... hands back in his trouser-pockets, tried to whistle out of his dry lips. Belmont folded his arms and leaned against a rock, with a sulky frown upon his lowering face. So strangely do our minds act that his three successive misses, and the tarnish to his reputation as a marksman, was troubling him more than his impending fate. Cecil Brown stood erect, and plucked nervously at the up-turned points of his little prim moustache. Monsieur Fardet groaned over his wounded wrist. Mr. Stephens, in sombre impotence, shook his head ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the honors were easily his. He had put three horses out of commission and disabled one of the outlaws so badly that he would prove negligible in the attack. Peering down, he could see Healy, with superb contempt for the marksman above, slowly and carefully carry his wounded comrade to shelter. The other men were already driven back to cover. The cattle, excited by the firing, were ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... light upon the target the same inventor has devised a small electric lamp and projector, which is placed on the barrel near the muzzle by rubber bands, the battery being held at the belt of the marksman, with such connections that the act of pressing the butt of the musket against the shoulder completes the circuit, and causes the bright cylinder of light to fall on the target, thus enabling him to get as good a shot as in the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 520, December 19, 1885 • Various
... his gun, loading both barrels at once and takes a shot at his enemy before the white man can turn around, and when the Indian is running to escape, he jumps first to this side and then to that, never in a straight line, and it is an expert marksman, indeed, who ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... number of half-grown cats that were around the house. I wished to make them familiar to each other, so there would be less danger of their killing him. So I would take them both on my knee, when the bird would soon notice the kitten's eyes, and, leveling his bill as carefully as a marksman levels his rifle, he would remain so a minute, when he would dart his tongue into the cat's eye. This was held by the cats to be very mysterious: being struck in the eye by something invisible to them. They soon acquired ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... Elder Jordan, perhaps, throw one of those spit-balls that stuck so hard and fast to the ceiling? And did some of the grandmothers he had met giggle and hide their faces at Nathaniel's cunning evasion of the teacher's quick effort to locate the successful marksman? Had those staid pillars of the church ever been swayed and bent by passions of young manhood and womanhood? Had their minds ever been stirred by the questions and doubts of youth? Had their ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright
... suddenly start on one side, terrified, and declaring that there is a dead body on the ground. Yes, indeed, someone is lying there. We cautiously examine the place by the light of our red balloons, carefully held out at arm's length for fear of this dead man; it is only the marksman, he who on the 14th of July chose such magnificent arrows for Chrysantheme; and he sleeps, good man, with his chignon somewhat dishevelled, a sound sleep, which it would be cruel ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... says a friend who was sometimes present at their practising, "was the best marksman. Shelley, and Williams, and Trelawney, often made as good shots as he—but they were not so certain; and he, though his hand trembled violently, never missed, for he calculated on this vibration, and depended entirely on his eye. Once after demolishing his mark, he set up a slender cane, whose colour, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... marksman in injured tones. "You bet I've got sense. But what's a fellow to do when his ma says, 'Now, Leonard, take little brother along and see that those big, rough boys don't hurt him.'" Tone and mannerisms were in perfect imitation of ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... of the Germans was across a wheat field, driving at Hill 165 and advancing in smooth columns. The United States marines, trained to keen observation upon the rifle range, nearly every one of them wearing a marksman's medal or better, that of the sharpshooter or expert rifleman, did not wait for those gray-clad hordes ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... Siller gun of Dumfries is a small silver tube, like the barrel of a pistol, but derives great importance from its being the gift of James VI., that monarch having ordained it as a prize to the best marksman among the corporations of Dumfries. The contest was, by royal authority, licensed to take place every year; but in consequence of the trouble and expense attending it, the custom has not been so frequently observed. Whenever the festival was appointed, the 4th of June, ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 209, October 29 1853 • Various
... Then Eindridi is to shoot, but at the prayers of his mother and sister, refuses the shot, and has to yield and be converted [Fornm. Sog., 2, 272]. So, also, King Harold Sigurdarson, who died 1066, backed himself against a famous marksman, Hemingr, and ordered him to shoot a hazel nut off the head of his brother Bjoern, and Hemingr performed the feat [Mueller's Saga Bibl., 3, 359]. In the middle of the fourteenth century, the Malleus Maleficarum refers it to Puncher, a magician of the Upper Rhine. Here in England, we have ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... going to shoot again!" called Elwood, as he and Howard dropped on their faces. "Get down, Tim, or he'll hit you. He's a better marksman than you are." ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis
... fell at the first trial, and a hit was any strike above the turkey's knee. But the long-distance turkey-shoots were the opening events, and the marksman had his gun to warm up, his eye to test and his shooting nerve to be brought to calmness. So frequently it would happen that the entrance money ran into a sum that gave a prize value to the turkey, as prices ran for turkeys in those days. There was ...
— Sergeant York And His People • Sam Cowan
... to give the piece a character, though he wasn't the man to particularize the ra'al natur' of any sort of fire arms, in practise," returned March, passing the deer's thongs through the moccasin with the coolness of a cobbler. "He was no marksman, that we must all allow; but he had his good p'ints, as well as his bad ones. I have had hopes that Judith might consait the idee of giving ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... sir, there might be a certain advantage that way; for a good marksman will be sure to hit his man at twenty yards distance; and a man whose hand shakes (which is common to men that debauch in pleasures, or have not used pistols out of their holsters) won't venture to fire, unless he touches the person he shoots at. ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... if the nephew had not carried off with his own personality his uncle's book-keeper and postmaster's clerk. And so—alas, for Leander! As he meditated on the untoward manner in which he had overshot his target, this marksman of fate forgot the caution which had distinguished his approach, for hitherto it had been as heedful as if he fully believed the lion still in his den. He slowly patrolled the bank below the broad, thin, crystal sheet, ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... who were retained to perform feats of valor, skill, and strength for Jupiter. The forge of Vulcan was to be visited, and many of the mysteries of the centre of the earth were to be revealed, and, best of all, Jupiter himself had promised to give me an exhibition of his own skill as a marksman in the hurling of thunder-bolts, and I was to select the objects to be hit! Think of it! What a chance lay here for a man to be rid of certain things on earth that he did not like! What a vast amount of ugly ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs
... to be sprung after any quarry that rises to the view. At the close of the day if they have been successful they exchange the game for a little meal and thus prolong existence over another span. The marksman armed with a gun will sit up for wild pig returning from the fields, and in the same manner barter their flesh for other necessaries of life. However, the prospect of starvation has already driven many to take the plough, and the number of seceders daily increases. Our ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... when he beheld his enemy the spider once more descending from the roof, and to his surprise and joy it carried with it the pin, still sticking through its body. This time our naturalist made no vainglorious display of his power as a marksman, but beating down the spider with the nearest object at hand, he again possessed himself of the lost treasure, now doubly valuable on account of its extraordinary adventure, and his mother, for whom he was preserving the beautiful stone, afterwards ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... was no doubt penetrable by silver or steel; but that, from the specimens she had of his personal prowess and strength, it were vain for mere man to attempt to combat him. Confiding, however, in his expertness as an archer—for he was allowed to be the best marksman of the age—James Gray told Clashnichd he did not fear him with all his might,—that he was a man; and desired her, moreover, next time the ghost chose to repeat his incivilities to her, to apply to ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... his virtues. When I promised to leave with him a pair of pistols, which they prefer to muskets, he told me that Iddeah would fight with one and Oedidee with the other. Iddeah has learnt to load and fire a musket with great dexterity and Oedidee is an excellent marksman. It is not common for women in this country to go to war, but Iddeah is a very resolute woman, of a large make, and ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh
... took a long time to work out. Meanwhile Babs and Cochrane had swung down to the ground and went hiking. Cochrane was armed as before, though he had no experience as a marksman. In television shows he had directed the firing of weapons shooting blank charges—cut to a minimum so they wouldn't blast the mikes. He knew what motions to go through, but ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... that missed fire,' he says, 'but me, the unworthy marksman. And for that I shall be smitten like the men who, with unanointed eyes, looked on the ark of God that time it went up the valley from Ekron to Bethshemish, with the cows looking back and lowing for their calves all the way. I were always main sorry ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... all hunters, and excellent marksmen; they hold it a great honour to bring game to their tents, in proof of their being hardy mountain runners, and good shots; and the epithet Bowardy yknos es-szeyd [Arabic], "a marksman who hunts the game," is one of the most flattering that can be bestowed upon them. It appears, from an ancient picture preserved in the convent, which represents the arrival of an archbishop from Egypt, as well as from one of the written documents in the archives, that in the ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... key, or the picklock to their minds. An Irishman is as different an animal on his guard, and off his guard, as a miss in school from a miss out of school. A fine country for game, I'll show you; and, if you are a good marksman, you may have plenty of shots "at folly ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... direction, making the hither end of the valley like a vast pocket or amphitheatre. As they have studied the ground in other places, they may have done so in this, and have come hither as to a known refuge. Let one man, a marksman, stay here." ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... been accomplished. No detail of the training of a soldier has been neglected, and on the transfer of these new men to the concentration camp at Quantico, Va., the majority has worn the insignia of expert rifleman, sharpshooter, or marksman. Here at Quantico the men have completed their course of intensive training in the new organizations formed at that post for service overseas. Five regiments of infantry, with their attendant replacement units, ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry
... said, a man may know a thing perfectly, and yet not be able to teach it. Of course, a man cannot teach what he does not know. He must first have the knowledge. But the mere possession of knowledge does not make one a teacher, any more than the possession of powder and shot makes him a marksman, or the possession of a rod and line makes him an angler. The most learned men are often unfortunately the very men who have least capacity for communicating what they know. Nor is this incapacity confined to those versed in book knowledge. ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... warily peering over the edge like a cautious marksman, fired golden volleys unerringly at him. At once Gissing was aware and watchful. Brief truce was over: the hopeless war with Time ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
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