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More "Underbrush" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... That's dead,—dried boughs, and underbrush that's been A long time on the ground, ...
— The Lamp and the Bell • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... practical arrangement. It is a kind of natural magic that enables these favored ones to bring out the hidden capabilities of things around them; and particularly to give a look of comfort and habitableness to any place which, for however brief a period, may happen to be their home. A wild hut of underbrush, tossed together by wayfarers through the primitive forest, would acquire the home aspect by one night's lodging of such a woman, and would retain it long after her quiet figure had disappeared into the surrounding shade. No less a portion of such homely ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Never in doubt the hunter kept on his course; like a shadow he passed from tree to tree and from bush to bush; silently, cautiously, but rapidly he followed the tracks of the Indians. When he had penetrated the dark backwoods of the Black Forest tangled underbrush, windfalls and gullies crossed his path and rendered fast trailing impossible. Before these almost impassible barriers he stopped and peered on all sides, studying the lay of the land, the deadfalls, the gorges, and all the time keeping in mind ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... up by the spectators. Kathlyn felt herself dragged from the elephant, bound and finally laid beside the swathed figure. There could be no horror in the wide world like it. Smoke began to curl up from the underbrush. It choked and stifled her. Sparks rose and dropped upon her arms and face. And through the smoke and flame came Rajah. He lifted her with his powerful trunk and carried her off, for hours and hours, back into the trackless jungle. . ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... day of the Emperor's coronation stealthy forms crept among the trees near by the castle, and concealed themselves in the thick foliage of the underbrush. The garrison, gaily dressed, quitted the keep, the drawbridge was lowered, and the men were soon quaffing the choice wine which the ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... the valley until the road turned toward the range and an opening which he followed into a steeper and narrower rift beyond. Here there were no clearings in the rocky underbrush until he reached Richmond Braley's land. A long upturning sweep ended at the house, directly against the base of the mountain; and without decreasing his gait he passed over the faintly traced way, by the triangular sheep washing and shearing ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... direction; in the other an advanced file of Bradley's woods had suffered from some long-forgotten fire, and still raised its blackened masts and broken stumps over the scorched and arid soil, swept of older underbrush and verdure. On the other side of the road a dark ravine, tangled with briers and haunted at night by owls and wild cats, struggled wearily on, until blundering at last upon the edge of the Great Canyon, it slipped and lost itself forever in a single furrow of those mighty flanks. When Bradley ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte
... of the lantern and charged straight at the robber, who fired once more, and then, when Keith was within ten feet of him, turned and sprang over the edge of the road into the thick bushes below. Keith sprang straight after him, and the two went crashing through the underbrush, down the ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... amiable women which old England ever sent to our climes, accompany the Countess of Dalhousie on a botanizing tour through Sillery woods; you have her note book, if not herself, to go by. For May, see what an ample store of bright flowers scattered around you; fear not to lose yourself in thickets and underbrush; far from the beaten track a noble lady has ransacked the environs over and over again, sometimes alone, sometimes with an equally enthusiastic and intelligent friend, who hailed from Woodfield; [243] sweet flowers and ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... very much like a hermitage, with its low, slanting, wigwam roof, and dark stone walls, planted in the midst of underbrush, through which no visible path was seen. There was no gate, but a stile, made of massy logs, piled in the form of steps, which were beautifully carpeted with moss. A well, whose long sweep was also wreathed with moss, was just visible above ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... scarcity and an inferiority of large timber in Loudoun (then Prince William) and contiguous counties. The responsibility for this condition has been traced to the hunters who frequented this region prior to its settlement and wantonly set fire to the forests in order to destroy underbrush, the better to secure their quarries. A comparatively dense and vigorous new growth followed the discontinuance of ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head
... chaplain's look at that. He had unslung long Tom; holding it up in his right hand, he fairly yelled out, 'Fight, by G—d! Boys, follow me.' And we did follow him. Skirting around through underbrush to our left, concealed from the Rebs, we came to an open again of about thirty yards. The Rebs had retired about eighty yards in the wood to where it ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... mildly though surely compelling in Tom's manner. Alf Drew went along, though he didn't wish to. The two were just at the fringe of the thick underbrush when there came a warning sound just ahead ...
— The Young Engineers in Nevada • H. Irving Hancock
... riding; and only the devil's own luck, or some marvellous instinct of our horses, spared us many a stumble over roots, stones, twigs, and underbrush. What faint light the night retained for well-accustomed eyes, had its source in the cloud-curtained moon, and that being South of us, we were hidden in the shadow of the woods. But 'tis a thousand wonders the noise of our passage was not sooner heard, though De Lancey's ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... of the river is much higher than the right, which is flooded, therefore the utan on that side presents a very different appearance, with large, fine-looking trees and no dense underbrush. All was fresh and calm after the rain which prevails at this season (February). There were showers during the afternoon, at times heavy, and the Malays were much opposed to getting wet, wanting to stop paddling, notwithstanding the fact that the entire prahu was covered with an atap. As we approached ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... lived in the country, and I suppose it is a sort of country, but not the kind that I live in. Here everything is pruned and raked until it looks as if it had just had its hair parted smoothly in the middle, and its shoe-strings tied. At home there is so much underbrush, and such a tangle of weeds and high grass and briers, that the yards look as if they'd forgotten to comb their hair when they got up, and had gone around all day with it hanging down ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... leaves with their rakes, while others who followed them tore at the earth with picks and hoes. It was impossible to believe that such ant-labors could avail, but already, near the road, the fire had burnt itself out, baffled by its microscopic assailants. As far as the girls could see into the charred underbrush, a narrow, clean line of freshly upturned earth marked where the fiercest of all the elements had been vanquished by the humblest of all the tools of men. Bewildered, Sylvia's eyes shifted from the toiling men to the distance, across the blackened desolation near them, to where the fire still ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... almost startling. He is a skillful ventriloquist, also, and I remember one in particular who outwitted me completely. He was rehearsing a well-known strain, but at the end there came up from the bushes underneath a querulous call. At first I took it for granted that some other bird was in the underbrush; but the note was repeated too many times, and came in too exactly on ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... trailed their elders with the experience of youth, aided by the absorption and anxiety of their fathers. Their view of the final object of the search was somewhat obscured by the underbrush behind which ...
— Youth • Isaac Asimov
... Missouri river, the bluffs rise abruptly from the banks. The railroad, winding around the curves, was literally hewn from the solid rock. Deep gullies and ravines, starting from the water, Intersected all portions of the country, and the thick underbrush made this place a safe and secure hiding-place for fugitives from ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... tinted skin glowing with healthful exercise; she appeared—to the artist—more as some mythical spirit of the mountains, than as a maiden of flesh and blood. The manner of her coming, too, heightened the impression. He had heard no sound of her approach—no step, no rustle of the underbrush. He had seen no movement among the bushes—no parting of the willows in the wall of green. There had been no hint of her nearness. He could not even guess the direction from which she ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... towered and frowned the rocks; there was not so much as a crevice opening between them; there was not a spot that Joy could climb. Across, the great tongues of flame tossed themselves into the air, and glared awfully against the sky, which was dark with hurrying clouds. The underbrush was all on fire; two huge pine trees were ablaze, their branches shooting off hotly now ...
— Gypsy's Cousin Joy • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... from me. I had nothin' to shoot him with, and knew that the only way to save my life wuz to run for it. I jest bent over and threw the partridges on the ground, thinkin' as I did so that perhaps the b'ar would stop to eat them, and I could git away. I started to run, but caught my toe in some underbrush and went down ker-slap. I said all the prayers I knew in 'bout eight seconds, then got up, and started to run ag'in. Like Lot's wife, I couldn't help lookin' back, and there wuz the b'ar flat on his back. I went up to him kinder cautious, for I didn't know but he might be shammin', them black b'ars ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... down the dark stream fringed with gloomy evergreens and tangled underbrush, until they came to an island upon which there was a small cluster of cabins. Here was the residence of the chief. His wigwam was large, though but a single room, and was crowded with his wives and children. Father Hennepin was immediately presented with ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott
... weariness as he strode along the highway, for in the crisp air a tonic was borne, but loss of sleep had made his senses dreamy, and all things about him were touched with the spirit of unreality—the dead leaves fluttering on the underbrush, the purple mist rising from the fields, the water-mirrors flashing in the road; and so surrendered was he to a listless brooding, forgetful even that he moved along, that he did not notice, up the road, a man leap aside into the ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... to be found reproduced elsewhere with any degree of exactness. Looking into the depth of the forest as it slopes away on either side, the impression is of a magnificent park, undefaced by what are called improvements. This effect is produced by the scarcity, or entire absence of underbrush, and a beautiful surface covering of grasses or flowering plants of all kinds and colors, varied here and there with masses of ferns of unusual size and delicate beauty. The most unexpected and lavish feature of the rich display is ...
— Cave Regions of the Ozarks and Black Hills • Luella Agnes Owen
... sneaked about in the underbrush, watching the dragon, and daily he became more anxious ...
— Opera Stories from Wagner • Florence Akin
... to have vanished from the earth, and every mammal be deeply buried in its long sleep, no winter's walk need be barren of interest. A suggestion worth trying would be to choose a certain area of saplings and underbrush and proceed systematically to fathom every cause which has prevented the few stray leaves still upon their stalks from falling with their many brethren ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... they came upon several groups of the famed seventy-fives spread about through the woods, hidden by piles of underbrush, like snapping dogs, howling and sticking up their gray muzzles. The great cannon were roaring only at intervals, while the steel pack of hounds were yelping incessantly without the slightest break in their noisy wrath—like ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... beyond doubt that its primal cause is the removal of the forest cover, such as underbrush, weeds, and grasses, along the streams, which allows the rainfall to run off rapidly. The grazing over these areas by sheep and goats not only exhausts this forest cover, but from the cutting up of the soil and the loosening effect of ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... the three arose and crept silently into the dense underbrush, where they crouched, ...
— The Shadow of the North - A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign • Joseph A. Altsheler
... it must be an hour while he was making his way over the hill, through the underbrush, around the cliff. Again and again the fish ran out my line almost to the last turn. A dozen times he leaped from the water, shaking his silvery sides. Twice he tried to cut the leader across a sunken ledge. But at last he was played out, and came in ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... gone far, we heard loud screams, mingled with oaths and the heavy blows of a whip. Quickening our pace, we soon reached the bank of the little stream, which there was lined with thick underbrush. We could see no one, and the sounds had subsided. In a moment, however, a rough voice called ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... streaked with the white dashes of the dogwood, and hung with the tassels of the maple. The foliage was still unfolding, patterned with fresh creases, the prey of a continuous, frail unrest. Little streams chuckled through the underbrush, and from the fusion of woodland whisperings bird notes detached themselves, soft flutings and liquid runs, that gave another expression to the morning's ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... around his waist as a support and they reached cover just as the leg failed for a third time. Yeager crawled forward a few yards on his knees into the underbrush. ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... what he sought, and nicking his whip over the horses' ears, he condescended to reply, "Je fais le detour! Bad, voila!" Then, urging his horses on, he charged into the bushes, and drove along what had been once a cart trail (one could hardly call it a road), overgrown with underbrush. Long branches met overhead, and we were kept busy, alternately warding them, off our faces and holding on to our seats—for the track was a succession of uneven hills, hollows, and short turns, with which our driver seemed ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon
... cold and somewhat cheerless dawn was breaking over the temporary camp when, as Buck Tooth toddled over to replenish the fire for breakfast, there came sharp cracks of rifles from the surrounding rocks and scrub underbrush, and the old ...
— The Boy Ranchers Among the Indians - or, Trailing the Yaquis • Willard F. Baker
... less to climate than to the more mechanical circumstances of life, are made with the same consummate skill that characterizes all the love work of Nature. Land, water, and air, jagged rocks, muddy ground, sand beds, forests, underbrush, grassy plains, etc., are considered in all their possible combinations while the clothing of her beautiful wildlings is preparing. No matter what the circumstances of their lives may be, she never allows them ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... glade—a chance arena open to the sky, the scene of my most audacious endeavours, for here I was trying to paint foliage luminous under those long shafts of sunshine which grow thinner but ruddier toward sunset. A path closely bordered by underbrush wound its way to the glade, crossed it, then wandered away into shady dingles again; and with my easel pitched in the mouth of this path, I sat at work, one late afternoon, wonderful ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... sky through the tree-tops, and the golden sunbeams shimmered and danced over the branches, trunks and ground, as if they had been prisoned in the woods and could never find their way out. The shadows of the tall trunks lay in transparent bars on the underbrush, luxuriant moss, and ferns, and the dew clung to the weeds ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... a new geographical discovery as odd as the second trail. I had ridden over the trail a dozen times, and seen no communication between the ledge and trail. Nevertheless, I went on a hundred yards or so, when there was a sharp crackling in the underbrush, a shower of stones on the trail, and my friend plunged through the bushes to my side, down a grade that I should scarcely have dared to lead my horse. There was no doubt he was an accomplished ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... horn that through the ground Rang thin and high, unearthly-shrill and clear, That thrilled the shivering woodland far and near, And shuddering to silence, left behind A whisper as of leaves in stealthy wind. A rustling 'mid the underbrush they heard Where, in the gloom about them, dim things stirred— Vague, stealing shapes that softly nearer drew, Till from the tree-gloom crept a ragged crew, Wild men and fierce, a threatening, grimly herd, Who stood like shadows, ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... principalities. It should be named Titans' Palace, or Cyclops' Grotto. It lies among the Knobs, a range of hills, which border an extent of country, like highland prairies, called the Barrens. The surrounding scenery is lovely. Fine woods of oak, hickory, and chestnut, clear of underbrush, with smooth, verdant openings, like the parks of ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... first half hour, was along an obscure wood-road which had been used for drawing ash logs off the mountain in winter. There was some hemlock, but more maple and birch. The woods were dense and free from underbrush, the ascent gradual. Most of the way we kept the voice of the creek in our ear on the right. I approached it once, and found it swarming with trout. The water was as cold as one ever need wish. After a while the ascent grew steeper, ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... be done here, and I may throw open the farm up there to purchasers. The only difficulty is, that our people here might object. But it is quite clear to me—quite clear—that a little daylight wouldn't do any of us harm if it could be had, you know, by merely cutting away the dead underbrush ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... length into the ground without encountering them. To complete the miseries of the scene, the wretched squatters had, in the process of time, ruthlessly denuded it of all its vegetation except a miserable tangled underbrush." ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... gentle slope where the water tumbled down in little falls. He must be approaching very near to the source, he thought, for the stream was becoming a mere trickle, picking its way around rocky obstacles in a very jungle of thick underbrush. ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... time, and after that one of the mules was hitched to a wagon and brought before the door. The traps, a basket containing the "figure fours," with which they were to be set, a bag of corn for bait, an axe, with which to clear away the underbrush, and a spade to dig the trenches, having been packed away in the vehicle, the boys got in and drove off. They directed their course along the fence, which ran around the plantation, and wherever they found a clump of bushes or a little thicket of briers and cane, there they stopped ...
— The Boy Trapper • Harry Castlemon
... dark one, but now that the moon had risen, long vistas of light shone down the forest avenues, generally at that time so free from underbrush. Nautauquas, looking up through the branches at the moon, thought how it was the squaw of the sun and remembered the queer tales the old women were fond ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... the island, however, was a small, densely-wooded peninsula, with a thicket of underbrush so closely matted as nearly to prevent the possibility of seeing across it, so long as the leaves remained on the branches. Near the narrow neck that connected this acre with the rest of the island, ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... when at the last Tarrano brought the platform to rest. A thick, luxuriant forest. Huge trees with rope-like roots and heavy vines. Others with leaves like the ears of an elephant. And the ground hidden by almost impenetrable underbrush. ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... had in his composition the material of a poet, if not the finish, the melodious intonations of the widow had seemed like the incongruous orchestration of birds in the treetops to some minor tragedy among the denizens of the underbrush. ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... descent. Soon once more we were in underbrush and presently came square against a staked-and-ridered worm fence around a "deadening" dense with tall corn. Charmer and Dandy had climbed directly over it, scampered through the corn, and were waking ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable
... way past dense underbrush into the forest proper. Here he walked through shaded groves of giant oaks. All around him was the chirp and bustle of unseen bird and animal life. Far in front of him was a large white sign nailed to a tree. Barrent reached it, and read: ...
— The Status Civilization • Robert Sheckley
... Hurry knew the direction, as soon as he had found the open spot and the spring, and he now led on with the confident step of a man assured of his object. The forest was dark, as a matter of course, but it was no longer obstructed by underbrush, and the footing was firm and dry. After proceeding near a mile, March stopped, and began to cast about him with an inquiring look, examining the different objects with care, and occasionally turning his eyes on the trunks of the fallen trees, with which the ground was well sprinkled, as ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... half aloud, were suddenly interrupted by a crash in the underbrush. Somebody was approaching. At first Tom thought it was Andy and his cronies coming back, but a voice that called a moment later proved that ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Runabout - or, The Speediest Car on the Road • Victor Appleton
... the left of the regiment, and, in the midst of the storms of huzzas pealing on every side, I could not catch a single word. Then I heard the commands, 'Fix bayonets! trail arms! forward!' and at the double-quick we swept on, up through the stumps and underbrush which abounded in this part of the wood, to the support of the Thirty-sixth Indiana. A few score rods were gained, and we halted to recover breath and perfect another allignment. The firing in our front materially slackened, and presently ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... their fort or prison, until the General gives the command for the search to begin. The object of the robbers is to hide so that the soldiers may not find them, and when found, to resist capture if possible. They may hide by climbing trees or dodging behind them, conceal themselves in underbrush, under dead leaves, etc. If played aright, the game should be a very strenuous one, the resistance offered by the robbers requiring several soldiers to overcome. A robber may resist all of the way to ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... pointing to the green balsam top. I gripped my rifle and started to creep toward them. A little twig, about as thick as the tip of a fishing rod, cracked under my knee. There was a terrible crash behind the balsam, a plunging through the underbrush and a rattling among the branches, a lumbering gallop up the hill through the forest, and Silverhorns ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... the woods were tumbledown houses, heaps of rubbish, crockery, old iron and dirt, trees chopped down and left to rot, burnt underbrush, annoying signs of the proximity of a heedless, careless, prodigal human world. And close by, between long rows of signboards, monstrously drawn and painted in glaring colors, rushed the trains, besmirching ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... mansions, with wide-spreading wings and half a dozen chimneys, but some were small and homelike, etched with the stretching fingers of new vines, and surrounded by park-like gardens. Even about the empty plots hedges had been planted, and underbrush raked away, and the effect was indescribably trim and orderly, "like England," said Nancy, who ...
— Undertow • Kathleen Norris
... with an exquisite gesture, pressed her outstretched hand against my lips, then, gathering bridle, launched her horse straight through the underbrush, out into a pasture where, across a naked hill, a few log-houses ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... its stately trees have been destroyed, its streamlet set to turning wheels, and Nature forced to express herself on those many acres, in corn and potatoes, instead of her own graceful and varied selection of greenery; or, mayhap, its underbrush cut out, its slopes sodded, its springs buried in pipes and put to use, and the whole "improved" into dull insipidity,—all this, but for the will of one man who held the title to the grounds, and rated it so highly, that, though willing ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... excitement, and start a dozen times to come down; but always he ran back for another look, as if fascinated. Again he would come down on a burned point near the deep hole where I was fishing, and, hiding his body in the underbrush, would push his horns up into the bare branches of a withered shrub, so as to make them inconspicuous, and stand watching me. As long as he was quiet, it was impossible to see him there; but I could always make him start nervously by flashing a looking-glass, ...
— Wilderness Ways • William J Long
... was very thrilling work, "courting destruction with taunts, with invitations" as Whitman would say. I have never been in a sector like this, where patrols could be made in daylight. Here the deep forest permits it. It also greatly facilitates ambushes, for one must keep to the paths, owing to the underbrush. I and a few others are going to try to get permission to go out on 'patrouilles d'embuscade' and bring in some live prisoners. It would be quite an extraordinary feat if we could pull it off. In our present existence ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... of us—we never could wait for the great gates yonder to be opened. So Monsieur de H—— built us this one." The little door opened directly on the road, and on the cure's house. There was a tangle of underbrush barring the way; but the cure pushed the briars apart with his strong hands, beating ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... fired, sending the ball into the body just back of a fore leg. The cervus species rarely or never fall, even when stricken through the heart, knowing which, Deerfoot dashed up the slope, knife in hand, and made after the wounded buck, which could be heard threshing among the stones and underbrush. He was still floundering and running when overtaken by the youth, who ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... growths of impeding bushes and crackling underbrush, their feet sinking into a thick carpet of soggy, fallen leaves, the two at last reached the top of a steep, rocky elevation. From there, in the fast fading light, they could look down into a narrow valley, formed by the ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... loved me, but I was neither. At first I did not think or care about my lack of beauty; then one day I was alone in the beech wood; I was trying to disentangle my skirt which had caught on some thorny underbrush. A young man came around the curve of the path and, seeing my predicament, bent with murmured apology to help me. He had to kneel to do it, and I saw a ray of sunshine falling through the beeches above us strike like a lance of light athwart the ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... had halted, amazed; then prepared to defend the positions they had won with all the stubbornness possible. In the black recesses of Belleau Wood the Germans had established nest after nest of machine guns. There in the jungle of matted underbrush, of vines, of heavy foliage, they had placed themselves in positions they believed impregnable. And this meant that unless they could be routed, unless they could be thrown back, the breaking of the attack of June 2 would mean ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... with his massive arms like gray pillars beneath it. And flung it. The box catapulted, dropped; and then, passing the Planetara's gravity area, it sailed in a long flat arc over the forest glade and crashed into the purple underbrush. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various
... strength having come with sudden abhorrence. She looked after him in alarm, her eyes wide with the fear that he was bereft of reason. Down the rocks and up the beach he fled, disappearing among the strangely shaped trees and underbrush that marked the outskirts of the jungle. Again she leaned back against the rock and looked at the unfriendly billows beyond, a feeling that she sat deserted forever on that barren shore plunging her soul into the ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... trees most commonly grow along the ridges and it is the ridges which the trails ordinarily follow. Here the traveler may journey day after day, over needle-carpeted or grassy ground, mostly free of underbrush, amidst great clean shafts 40 to 150 feet high, of really massive proportions but giving a sense of lightness by reason of their color, symmetry, and great height. No two trunks in detail of bark are modeled exactly alike, for ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... Into the forest, naturally. But how far? You may believe me when I tell you, not a hundred yards. It's a true wilderness, scrub-oak and cedar and second growth choked with underbrush, almost trackless. In five minutes you would be helplessly lost, in this blackness, with no stars to steer by. We need only wait till daylight to find you ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... Farmer Ellison rush suddenly from cover upon the very place where she had sat, fishing. She saw him run, furiously, hither and thither, beating the underbrush with his cane, shaking the stick wrathfully. His face showed the keenest ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... dinner, out of some provisions stowed away in the old wagon; after which Mitty's father and eldest brother pulled off their coats, stripped up their shirt-sleeves, and went to work to make a "clearing," as they called it, for a log house—felling the trees, and cutting and burning the underbrush. ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... spear, Robinson began to creep very, very cautiously through the underbrush. But he did not go far before he saw a lot of rabbits feeding peacefully on the soft leaves and grass. He drew back and threw his spear with all his might. But the spear did not reach the rabbits. It fell far short and the rabbits sprang up ...
— An American Robinson Crusoe • Samuel B. Allison
... turned off at Fort Hall, where the Oregon emigration went north'ard, and swung south for Californy," was his way of concluding the narrative of that arduous journey. "And Bill Ping and me used to rope grizzlies out of the underbrush of Cache Slough in ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... rough part of the country. Steep hills were everywhere, the valleys were narrow, the roads were more like ditches. Thick underbrush, prickly bushes and tall grasses grew in many places. A number of men were set to work making roads, so that the wagons with the army supplies could push on. It was the wet season, and rain fell every day. Sometimes the streams would rise quickly and flood the new roads. When ...
— Young Peoples' History of the War with Spain • Prescott Holmes
... test. 'There Martha, is our home,' said my husband, pointing to the rude pile of logs, which stood in a cleared space, barely large enough to secure its safety from falling trees, and beyond all was a dense forest of tall trees and thick underbrush and a fast falling shower of snow (at the time) added to the gloominess of the scene. I gazed around me with sadness, almost with dismay and terror. At length I found voice to say 'can we live here.' 'I have no doubt that we can ...
— Walter Harland - Or, Memories of the Past • Harriet S. Caswell
... that Major Anthony gave him permission to raise a crop east of the stockade, where the small-pox hospital was located. That he cleared and fenced about six acres; that there was no clearing on the land—only some of the underbrush was cut out; that there was not a rail on the place; that he cut and split all the rails and made a good fence, and raised a crop of corn; that about the first of August Mr. Crawford came to him and said the land was his, and demanded thirty-five bushels of corn for rent, and required ...
— A Letter to Hon. Charles Sumner, with 'Statements' of Outrages upon Freedmen in Georgia • Hamilton Wilcox Pierson
... Then, of a sudden, the girl's eyes filled; and Trooper Stormont caught her free hand and kissed it; — kissed it again and again, — dropped it and went striding away through the underbrush which was now all rosy with the rays ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... earnestness, and her action in catching hold of Tom's arm to enjoin silence was so pronounced that, though he had at first regarded the matter in the light of a joke, he soon thought otherwise. He glanced from the girl's face to the dense underbrush on either side of ...
— Tom Swift and his Aerial Warship - or, The Naval Terror of the Seas • Victor Appleton
... I'll do it. Lord knows I wish I could shirk it as some people do, but I can't. I must do my duty when the Lord is good enough to point it out, or my conscience will smite me. There's many a person with my heart would sit by and let her child just grow up in the wilderness like underbrush; but I must do my duty, Mr. Little, in the humble sphere in which Providence has placed me. Give every man his just dues, and do my duty. That's all I know, Mr. Little. 'Justice to all and punishment for sinners;' that's my motto and my husband ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... a narrow part of the road, where the woods were all about them, the Frenchmen and Indians who were waiting for them behind the great trees and underbrush opened fire upon the British troops, and there came just such a dreadful time as Washington had feared. But even now Braddock would not give in. His soldiers must fight as they had been drilled to fight in Europe; and when the Virginians ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... an American summer pervaded this secluded spot, harmonizing with the unceasing roar of the Great Falls. Ever and anon, tall, dark forms might be seen suddenly appearing from the thick foliage of the underbrush, through which their paths with difficulty wound, and silently their painted faces and gayly plumed heads dropped round the big wigwam. Important questions waited the decision of their wisest Sachems, and runners ...
— Birch Bark Legends of Niagara • Owahyah
... may call it a gigantic lake which away from its shores has been filled in with sand to a small extent and to a larger extent has turned into swamps. It is densely covered with rushes, and out of its waters, which are far from clear, a multitude of stony islets rise up covered with dense underbrush. Its center is surrounded by an even more dense seam of pine forests. Its rivers and brooks are so slow that they can hardly be distinguished from stagnant waters. The only town of any importance within its limits ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... in a slinking, rolling, rock-shouldered motion, taking shorter steps now, and with every muscle in his great body ready for action. Within two minutes he reached the edge of the balsams, and there he paused again. The crackling of underbrush came distinctly. The caribou were up, but they were not alarmed. They were going forth to drink ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood
... a noise outside, as if a person were moving through the underbrush. It was fearsome in its suddenness. Was it human or wraith? Kennedy darted to the door in time to see a shadow glide silently away, lost in the darkness of the fine old willows. Some one had approached the mausoleum for a second time, not ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... a rustling sound in the underbrush. "P'raps it's savages," thought Archie, and, half pleased, half frightened at the idea, he gave a loud whoop. Out flew a fat motherly hen, cackling and screaming. What she was doing there in the woods I cannot imagine. Perhaps she had lost her way. Perhaps she had private business there which ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... licking her cheek, the path widened, the trees turned into bushes, the underbrush melted away, and the brook, a little river now, bent in upon them in a broad curve, spanned only by stepping-stones. It ran full between its grassy banks, gurgling and chuckling as it lapped the stones, a mirror ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... she went around the tors to another point, but she could catch no glimpse of any living being, and in that great waste of rocks and furze and underbrush it was not surprising. Kitty, though, was surprised and a little bit alarmed, and she ran from point to point, calling and calling again; but for a long time the only answer was the long sighs the wind gave as it rushed over the level land, and lost itself with a little ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... know; wish I did. All I know is that it was an Indian, and that he was watching us. I noticed his tracks some distance back, and also noticed that just before we reached this point they turned abruptly into the underbrush. As we stood looking down that hole, I heard a twig snap, and knew he was close at hand. I thought I might surprise him, but, as I said, he was too quick for me, and I only caught a flying glimpse of him ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... to stills near by, where it was prepared for market. The stills were as rude as the mills we had seen in Eastern Tennessee and Kentucky, and were as liable to fiery destruction as a powder-house. Every few miles a wide space of ground, burned clean of trees and underbrush, and yet marked by a portion of the stones which had formed the furnace, showed where a turpentine still, managed by careless and ignorant blacks, had been licked up by the breath of flame. They never seemed to ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... a moment later, under the touch of his own hunting knife which she drew, the rope parted and freed his arms. At the same instant she heard the hoofs of Hervey's horse crashing through the underbrush down the mountain side. And not till that final signal of success reached her did Marianne give way to the hysteria which had been flooding higher and higher in her throat ever since those words of Hervey had arrested her in the clearing. But once released it came in a rush, blinding ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... getting along toward noon, and I'm feeling hungry. But I don't want to have no more trouble with Hank, and I jest lays there. I hearn two men coming through the underbrush. I riz up on my elbow to look, and one of them was Doctor Kirby and the other was Looey, only Looey wasn't an ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... which flow in deep canyons, may be changed in a day from tiny streams to rushing torrents in which no craft could keep afloat. Left to his own devices, he pays little attention to trails, but cuts his way through the underbrush directly to his destination. The government has forced him to clear and maintain several fairly good roads between the larger settlements and the coast, and these are now the highways over which he transports his hemp and other trade articles. Quite ...
— The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao - The R. F. Cummings Philippine Expedition • Fay-Cooper Cole
... hugest kitchen Heidi had ever seen. With a great deal of trouble the grandfather had fitted up this place. Many boards were nailed across the walls and the door had been fastened with heavy wires, for beyond, the building lay in ruins. Thick underbrush was growing there, sheltering thousands of insects and lizards. Heidi was delighted with her new home, and when Peter arrived next day, she did not rest till he had seen every nook and ...
— Heidi - (Gift Edition) • Johanna Spyri
... a silly little hole covered with underbrush. But—oh, Billy, what's the use? I did it, and I can't ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... to the left, although the woods were thicker there. They pushed forward, as if passing through a jungle. Branches whipped them in the face, and beneath their feet the underbrush crackled. ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish
... as it sounded. The stream had worn a deep channel among the rocks. Trees had fallen across it, undermined by the swift current. Here it roared through a narrow gorge and there spread into a wide pool, then again plunged through underbrush and among rocks in its haste to reach the lake far below. The goats made slow progress and, whenever it was possible to do so, wandered away into easier paths and had ...
— The Swiss Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... magpies, none of the sneering, gibing dissonances that I had been accustomed to,—all was silent, and yet intensely living. I fancied that the noble trees took pleasure in growing, they were so energized with life in every leaf. I noticed another peculiarity,—there was little underbrush, little of the luxuriance of vines and creepers, which is so striking in an African forest. Parasitic life, luxurious idleness, seemed impossible here; the atmosphere was too sacred, too solemn, for the fantastic ribaldry of scarlet runners, of flaunting yellow streamers. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... execution. Each warrior was taught to observe carefully the motion of his right hand companion, so as to communicate any sudden movement or command from the right to the left, Thus advancing in perfect accord, they could march stealthily and abreast through the thick woods and underbrush, in scattered order, without losing the conformation of their ranks or creating disorder. These maneuvers could be executed slowly or as fast as the warriors could run. They were also disciplined to form ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... well out of sight, he flung down his hoe with a groaning sigh, and went stumbling across the soft loam of the garden-patch into a little woody thicket beside it. He penetrated deeply between the trees and underbrush, and at last flung himself down on his face among the soft young flowers and weeds. "Oh, Charlotte!" he groaned out. "Oh, Charlotte, Charlotte!" Barney began sobbing and crying like a child as he lay there; ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... old deserted nest, Half-hidden in the underbrush: A withered leaf, in phantom jest, Has nestled in it like a ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... his bare feet, and his heart was glad. The boy was sure that no man would dare to follow him, even if the fence would hold a man's weight. He had scurried up the bank before his pursuer had reached the side Jimmy had leaped from so lightly. He scooted through the underbrush. Again and again did the "champeen fence-walker" smile to himself as he slackened his pace to dodge a volley of rocks, and again and again did James Sears—an exemplary youth for the most part, who knew his Ten Commandments by heart—look exultingly at his pullet. He gloried in his ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White
... through the park, in the direction of the manor-house, a person who seemed to be walking slowly and seeking for something upon the ground. He was a long way off when Middleton first perceived him; and there were two clumps of trees and underbrush, with interspersed tracts of sunny lawn, between them. The person, whoever he was, kept on, and plunged into the first clump of shrubbery, still keeping his eyes on the ground, as if intensely searching for something. When he emerged from the concealment of the first clump of shrubbery, Middleton ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... drew a small rope ladder from a locker under the driver's seat. This she threw deftly up to the top of the wall, hooking it upon the iron spikes. Bleak politely ascended first, and they scaled the wall, dropping down into a tangle of underbrush. ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley
... its first serious check. While the right and the left were advancing, the left-center was repulsed before a strong position which the enemy held in force. They were posted upon an eminence, in front of which were thickets and underbrush. Plenty of artillery strongly supported, crowned this eminence, and Hardee's utmost efforts to carry it had been foiled. So furiously played the batteries of the enemy, that nothing could be seen of the position, ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... at once. This cruelty should not be practiced upon him, whatever might betide him at the tanyard. He set out at a brisk pace. He had no mind to be long alone in the woods since his strange adventure down the ravine, or he might have hid in the underbrush, as he had often done, until other matters usurped ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... the trees. In the thicket dogwood massed itself in clouds of dead-white stars, like an errant trail from the Milky Way, lighting the wooded twilight. Wild azalea, so deeply rose that the hue seemed of the blood, wafted its sharp, unearthly scent across the underbrush to the road. The woods were vocal with the mating songs of their winged inhabitants. The music of the thrush welled from the sheer forceful joy of living. "It is good—good—good to be a lover!" he sang ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... little town stood all but deserted in its clearing, with the encircling hills denuded of all vegetation save a tangle of underbrush and a straggling growth ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... the boy had good stuff in him was deepened on the morrow, when, banishing books, I took him for a breather over hill and dale, through wood and underbrush, three miles out and three miles in. I told him stories as we walked and showed him how the Indians trailed their game among the very hills over which we plodded. I told him that a fine strong body was the greatest thing in the world, a possession to work for and be proud of. ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... after-thought of the critic. The numerous splendid pages in "Sordello" do nothing towards making one complete impression which cannot be evaded. Naddo, the genius-haunter, would complain, that, in struggling out towards these aisles of beauty, he had seriously compromised his clothing in the underbrush. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... thought he would go crazy, he said. There were voices in the trees, and figures were always lifting themselves out of the water, or from behind boulders, to look at him and make awful signs. Jake constantly peered at him through the underbrush, and everywhere the shadows were moving, with eyes, footsteps, ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... broke upon them, and while they stood, unable to move forward, a cry reached them faintly through the roar of the deluge. It came again when George answered, and was followed by a crackling and snapping of underbrush. Then, as a blaze of lightning filled the bluff with radiance, two men appeared for a moment, leading their horses among the slender trunks. They were immediately lost to sight again, but presently they came up, and George recognized Grant ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... approaching carnage, he suddenly noticed that the hair, the smock, and the goatskin leggings of the stranger were full of thorns, scraps of leaves, and bits of trees and bushes, as though this Chouan had lately made his way for a long distance through thickets and underbrush. Hulot looked significantly at his adjutant Gerard who stood beside him, pressed his hand firmly, and said in a low voice: "We came for wool, but we shall ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... out farther, where again the way was blocked, trying to beat down a few more of the barriers, open up a little more of that untrodden territory. And only the little band itself would ever know how stony that path, how deep the ditches, how thick and thorny the underbrush. "Why this couldn't have been so bad," the crowd said, after it had flocked in—"strange it should have taken ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... in a few minutes Charley was close to the scene of the cries with the captain right at his heels. Suddenly they broke out of the underbrush into a small open space perhaps forty feet across. Near the center of this place was Walter, waving his torch frantically back and forth. He ceased his cries as their lights flashed into view. "Stop, stop!" he shouted, "don't come a step ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... selected was Lexington in Kentucky,—then a small village in the midst of beautiful groves without underbrush, where the soil was of virgin richness, and the landscape painted with almost perpetual verdure; one of the most attractive spots by nature on the face of the earth,—a great contrast to the flat prairies of Illinois, or the tangled forests of Michigan, or ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord
... morning he was picking his way through the palmlike fern and thick underbrush of the pine forest, starting the hare from its form, and awakening a querulous protest from a few dissipated crows, who had evidently been making a night of it, and so came to the wooded ridge where ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... minds that Major Bonnet and good Ben Greenway have been carried off by wicked men, for this would be sad indeed for that fair girl to believe. So remember, Dickory, that it is our duty always to think the best of everything. And now I will go through the underbrush to the house, and when you get there yourself you must tell your story as if you had not ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... manufactured out of the spikes of the Mary Carver. A marine was struck in the side by one of these missiles, which tumbled him over, but without inflicting a serious wound. A party from our ship penetrated the woods behind the town, where one of them fired at an object which he perceived moving in the underbrush. Going up to the spot, it proved to be a very aged man, apparently on the verge of a century, much emaciated, and too feeble to crawl further in company with his flying towns-people. He was unharmed by the shot, but evidently expected instant death, and held up his hand in supplication. Our party ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... upon the footprints where the path made a turn, leading into a dense growth of trees and underbrush. And as Carruthers knelt beside the path he heard a rustle as of something moving directly behind him. Wonderingly, he turned his head to trace the disturbance. But the woods seemed empty. "Strange," he murmured. "Did you hear something moving in ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... incredible. It will break the skull of an ox, or even that of a buffalo, with the greatest ease. A story is told of a buffalo belonging to a peasant in India, which, while passing through a swamp, became helplessly entangled in the mire and underbrush. The peasant left the buffalo, and went to beg his neighbors to assist him in extricating the poor beast. When the rescuing party returned, they found a tiger had arrived before them, and having killed the buffalo, had just shouldered it, and started to march home to its ...
— Harper's Young People, June 22, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... trees and the far white stars that flashed through the still leaves overhead, we leaped down the mountain side, regardless of path or landmark, straight through the tangled underbrush, across mountain streams, through fens and copses, anywhere, so only that ...
— Black Spirits and White - A Book of Ghost Stories • Ralph Adams Cram
... The underbrush is risin' an' spreadin' all around, Jest like a mist o' greenness 'at hangs above the ground; A million manzanitas 'ill soon be full o' pink; So saddle up, my sonny,—it's ...
— Songs Out of Doors • Henry Van Dyke
... indispensable work. The working season is very short on account of the length of time the frost remains on the ground. With the exception of chopping trees, very little can be done. Those that understand the proper management of uncleared land, usually underbrush (that is, cut down all the small timbers and brushwood), while the leaf is yet on them; this is piled in heaps, and the windfallen trees are chopped through in lengths, to be logged up in the spring with the winter's chopping. The latter ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... country about here presented no such appearance as it does now. The river then flowed with a fuller tide. With the exceptions I have noted, a continuous forest overspread the whole landscape. No thickets, however, choked up the ways through it, for the underbrush was swept away every year by fires built by the Indians for that purpose. Winding footways led here and there which the Indians and wild beasts followed. The roots of the smaller grasses were destroyed by this ...
— The Two Hundredth Anniversary of the Settlement of the Town of New Milford, Conn. June 17th, 1907 • Daniel Davenport
... the melody is none the less delightful. At the little village of Buenos Aires, on the Rio Grande of Terraba, I heard the song more frequently than at any other point. Close by the ranch house at which we were staying, there is a small stream bordered by low woods and underbrush, that formed a favorite resort for the birds. Just below the ranch is a convenient spot where we took our morning bath. I was always there just as the day was breaking. On the opposite bank was a small open space in the brush occupied by the limbs of a dead tree. On ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [January, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... that the little treetops were always well over us. The patch of woods was dark. A soil of black loam was under us, a thick soft underbrush reached our knees, and lacy, flexible leaves and branches were at our shoulder height. We pushed them aside, forcing our way softly forward. It was not far. The little murmuring voices of the crowd ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... escape, the Indians were cuffing his ears, and reviling him for a "Tief! A hoss steal! A rascal!" In the morning they mounted him on an unbroken colt, with his hands tied behind him and his legs tied under the horse, and drove it into the briers and underbrush, where his face and hands were torn by the brambles, until the colt quieted down of itself, and followed in line with the other horses. The third day, as they drew near the town of Old Chillicothe, where Boone had been held captive, they were met ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... me, miss," he said, and stooping he lifted the body of the Frenchman to his broad shoulder, and started up the hillside through the trackless underbrush. ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... came the sound of baying hounds, followed by a quick, springy step through the crackling underbrush, as a young man in close-fitting velvet hunting-suit and jaunty velvet cap emerged from the thicket toward the ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... the night in the woods, out of hearing of any chance passer-by along the road. Carefully hidden in the underbrush old Frank watched them. Only once did he leave them. Then he went to the car, found a big chunk of side-meat wrapped in a paper under the back seat, made his meal off his enemies, and came guardedly back, licking his chops. They were gone again before day. The rising sun found ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux
... through the woods were tumbledown houses, heaps of rubbish, crockery, old iron and dirt, trees chopped down and left to rot, burnt underbrush, annoying signs of the proximity of a heedless, careless, prodigal human world. And close by, between long rows of signboards, monstrously drawn and painted in glaring colors, rushed the trains, besmirching ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... know," said Uncle Henry indifferently. "Something in the woods, must be. Underbrush most likely. You can always tell words you don't know by the sense of the whole ...
— Understood Betsy • Dorothy Canfield
... snares for lynxes we resumed our march, and on rounding the end of a little lake, saw two fresh moose-tracks. Following them up, we finally came to a park-like region, where was very little underbrush, and where most of the trees were pine and spruce—an ideal spot for marten. So Oo-koo-hoo, forgetting all about his moose-tracks, made ready to set ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... A winding path crosses from one side to the other, and near the center is a little clearing: the stump of a felled tree, with the lichen-covered trunk itself near it, and a patch of grassy turf. The eye cannot penetrate far through the riotously growing underbrush, but as one looks upwards, to the left, a thinning of foliage, allowing a glimpse of the sky, gives evidence of the near proximity of some small body ...
— The Noble Lord - A Comedy in One Act • Percival Wilde
... where wild flowers struggled for a holding in spring, and the sharp cactus sent out ever-green points between the stones. Far down, a confusion of low, brown houses, with many dark towers standing straight up from them like charred trees above underbrush in a fire-blasted forest. Beyond all, the still loneliness of far mountains. That was the scene, and those were the surroundings, in which the Roman people reinstituted a Roman Senate, after a lapse of nearly six hundred ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... and her curiosity being aroused by the sound, she stood erect, and remained in a listening attitude. In a moment the sound was repeated, and, gauging the point from which it came, she plunged resolutely into the thick underbrush of the forest. She had gone but a few yards when she stopped short with an exclamation of surprise ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... Manuel clapped Niafer on the shoulder, the forest beside the roadway was agitated, and the underbrush crackled, and the tall beech-trees crashed and snapped and tumbled helter-skelter. The crust of the earth was thus broken through by the Serpent of the North. Only the head and throat of this design ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... Scotland, using the tops of chests to rest the paper on. The sheets were crossed and recrossed, for postage was high, fifty cents the half ounce. Allan and I walked into the bush to see what it was like. The trees were all large and well set apart with little underbrush. Fallen trees and decaying logs abounded. Whether it was jumping or going round these that caused us to lose our way I cannot say, but after a long walk we failed to sight the pond. We made a fresh start and tried ...
— The Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825 • Gordon Sellar
... his own strong hands and five or six hundred acres of wild woodland. He grubbed up the trees and underbrush near the big white oak, removed his father's hen-house to the cleared spot, fitted it up comfortably for a temporary dwelling, and dug a cellar in the declivity of a hill near by. To this humble abode he conducted his young bride, and there his two first children were born. The ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... miles of level roads, almost free of underbrush, intersected in every direction with roads and lanes, and one can drive for hours without leaving the shelter of ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... lanes of enormous trees no sunlight fell, no underbrush grew. All was still and vague and dusky as in pillared aisles. There were no birds, no animals, nothing living except the giant columns which bore a woven canopy of leaves so dense that no glimmer of blue ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... Hill, were already pressing up close in the rear of the first under Rodes, thus making a mass nine deep. The intervals between regiments were accidental, occasioned by the swaying of the line to and fro as it forced its way through the underbrush. ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... There was no underbrush, no clinging sprays or fairy brambles intertwined under the solemn arches of the trees; only the immemorial strata of dead leaves spread one above another in endless coverlets of crumbling gold; only a green and knee-deep robe of moss clothing ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... distance through the park, in the direction of the manor-house, a person who seemed to be walking slowly and seeking for something upon the ground. He was a long way off when Middleton first perceived him; and there were two clumps of trees and underbrush, with interspersed tracts of sunny lawn, between them. The person, whoever he was, kept on, and plunged into the first clump of shrubbery, still keeping his eyes on the ground, as if intensely searching for something. When he emerged from the concealment of the first clump of shrubbery, ...
— The Ancestral Footstep (fragment) - Outlines of an English Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... so simple as it sounded. The stream had worn a deep channel among the rocks. Trees had fallen across it, undermined by the swift current. Here it roared through a narrow gorge and there spread into a wide pool, then again plunged through underbrush and among rocks in its haste to reach the lake far below. The goats made slow progress and, whenever it was possible to do so, wandered away into easier paths and had to be ...
— The Swiss Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... man, whose form they had been able to distinguish from the boat, ten or a dozen more a few feet back from the shore, squatting around a small fire, the light of which was masked by a thick growth of underbrush. They were all dark-skinned men with heavy growths of black beard. They looked up without displaying any particular interest as the boys landed, but the sentinel who had challenged them came forward and held out his hand in greeting. ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... perhaps three miles in diameter. It has two clear brooks which, owing to the comparative inaccessibility of the place, still contain trout and grayling, though there are few spots where a fly can be cast on account of the dense underbrush. The woods contain partridge, or ruffed grouse, and other game in smaller quantities. I believe my client entertained some notion of establishing a ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... I started off to ascend the high hill which had been assigned me, while my Indians went off in other directions. This hill was perhaps half a mile from our camp-fire, and I was soon at its foot, ready to push my way up through the tangled underbrush that grew so densely on its sides. To my surprise I came almost suddenly upon a creek of rare crystal beauty, on the banks of which were many impressions of hoofs, large and small, as though a herd of cattle had there ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young
... creature is almost incredible. It will break the skull of an ox, or even that of a buffalo, with the greatest ease. A story is told of a buffalo belonging to a peasant in India, which, while passing through a swamp, became helplessly entangled in the mire and underbrush. The peasant left the buffalo, and went to beg his neighbors to assist him in extricating the poor beast. When the rescuing party returned, they found a tiger had arrived before them, and having killed the buffalo, had ...
— Harper's Young People, June 22, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... up so many hours of each day, was purposeful, steadily pursued, and brought her a vast pleasure. The game she hunted was the squirrel tossing his grey body through the branches of pine and cedar, the quail calling from the hillsides, the cottontail scampering through the underbrush, the yellowhammer, the woodpecker, the wide winged butterflies sailing through the orchard and across the meadow lands. The weapon with which she hunted was a camera which she carried in its ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... dark aperture was no doubt the mouth of a cave of some sort, and he determined to inspect it. When he got within about fifteen yards, he noticed what he had not seen before, that there was a well-defined track leading from the cave to the underbrush to the right, which had evidently been made by some large animal; and with somewhat of a start Frank immediately ...
— The Young Woodsman - Life in the Forests of Canada • J. McDonald Oxley
... oars. "Hi—there they are!" He turned suddenly, knocked against one of the oars, it slipped, and before he knew what it was about, there it was in the water. And to make matters worse, the sound that had filled him with delight proved to be a big, black dog, scrambling through a thicket of underbrush, and coming out to stare at him from ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... in greater quantity and more combustible in quality than is found in the more recent deposits. But stately as were those fern forests, where plants which creep low at our feet to-day, or are known to us chiefly as underbrush, or as rushes and grasses in swampy grounds, grew to the height of lofty trees, yet the vegetation ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... such mysterious doings. Hour after hour passed and nothing happened. The thief had evidently changed his mind to-night. The girls yawned and dozed and wished they were in bed. Suddenly there was a crashing in the underbrush that made the girls sit up as if an electric shock had passed through them. With a rapid snapping of dry twigs and waving of tall grass the bushes parted and a great St. Bernard puppy dashed up the path to the tents. Seizing a bath towel that hung on a ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey
... the canoes down the dark stream fringed with gloomy evergreens and tangled underbrush, until they came to an island upon which there was a small cluster of cabins. Here was the residence of the chief. His wigwam was large, though but a single room, and was crowded with his wives and children. Father ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott
... the last rise. Then a figure showed before him, a gigantic form, running and tumbling through the underbrush at one side of the road, a dog bounding beside him. It was Ba'tiste, excited, red-faced, his arms waving like windmills, his voice booming even ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... moccasined feet press the underbrush that no sound preceded her coming, until she reached the blanketed opening of a wigwam where sat an aged Algonquin chief, very grave, very dignified, very far from being immaculately clean. The young girl ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... cleared of previously ringed and dead trees and thirty more were enclosed and cleared of underbrush and useless trees. ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... many districts which I have seen as a direct result of this commercial activity. One leaves Port Swettenham on the west coast of Selangor, and for the hour's run to Kuala Lumpur sees hardly anything but vast radiating lines of spindling rubber trees, all underbrush cleared, all native growths vanished. From Kuala Lumpur to Kuala Kubu at the very foot of the mountain backbone of the Malay Peninsula, the same holds true. And where some area appears not under cultivation, the climbing fern and a coarse, useless "lalang" grass ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... curiosity, or perhaps, after the fashion of other and human adolescents, to relish the spectacle of the maternal anxiety. Ever and anon the sound of the mare's troubled call rang on the air. Then the colt would come with a burst of speed, a turbulent rush, out of the underbrush, and, with its keen head-tones of a whinny, all funnily treble and out of tune, dash on in advance. The rider of this preoccupied steed was a grizzled, lank, thin-visaged mountaineer, with a tuft of beard on his chin, but ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... fixed upon a slender brook not far away that threaded its silvery way down a gentle incline from the midst of underbrush. ...
— The Young Explorer • Horatio Alger
... days the old man would show himself at daylight in different places removed from his camp in the woods. While squadrons of avengers were scouring the ravines, the river bottoms and the tangled underbrush, he was lying quietly on his arms. Sometimes his pursuers camped within hearing and got their water ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... on her mind, she sought to find her way through the trees to the wall. This she was able to do without much difficulty, for though the trees grew thick, there was no underbrush, but she was able to walk along without any very great trouble. Penetrating in this way through the trees, she at length came to the wall. But, to her great disappointment, she found its height here quite as great as it had been near the gate, ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... seem to have vanished from the earth, and every mammal be deeply buried in its long sleep, no winter's walk need be barren of interest. A suggestion worth trying would be to choose a certain area of saplings and underbrush and proceed systematically to fathom every cause which has prevented the few stray leaves still upon their stalks from falling with their many brethren now buried beneath ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... for more than an hour, he again turned off into the woods, and, guided by the same mystic signs as before, shaped his course with unerring precision, notwithstanding the forest was so dense and overgrown with underbrush as to render it almost impervious to sight, and to an utter stranger a bewildering labyrinth, from whose mazes he might labor in vain to extricate himself, unless, indeed, he possessed the almost instinctive tact of the Indian, or the thorough knowledge of the ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison
... now the little town stood all but deserted in its clearing, with the encircling hills denuded of all vegetation save a tangle of underbrush and a straggling growth of stunted ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... they found them full of game, wild turkeys and partridges, bears and lynxes. Two deer, of unusual size, leaped from the underbrush. Cross-bow and arquebuse were brought to the level; but the Huguenot captain, "moved with the singular fairness and bigness of them," forbade his men ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... became darker, and of wilder aspect. The trees were larger and closer together. Still she made fair progress without deviating from the course she had determined upon. Before her rose a ridge, with a ravine on either side, reaching nearly to the summit of the mountain. Here the underbrush was scanty, the fallen trees had slipped down the side, and the rocks were not so numerous, all of which gave her reason to be proud, so far, ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... opportunity would allow. How much better to consider this very good world as a garden, whose beauty depends largely upon our individual exertions to make it fair. We may cultivate and enjoy the flowers, or let them become so overrun with underbrush that the blossoms are smothered and hidden under the dank growth of the ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... the United States, no lover of American nature can have failed to observe a marked difference between a native wood from which cattle are excluded and one where they are permitted to browse. A few seasons suffice for the total extirpation of the "underbrush," including the young trees on which alone the reproduction of the forest depends, and all the branches of those of larger growth which hang within reach of the cattle are stripped of their buds and leaves, and soon wither and fall off. These effects are observable at a great distance, ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... way through a tangle of trees and underbrush to the center of the little island. Here they found the cave which was only an opening behind an immense old tree that had been uprooted by a storm. A flat rock protruded over the hollow, and the sand ...
— Madge Morton, Captain of the Merry Maid • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... stopped, we were as thin as snipe at the end of it. It was our first important running, you see, and we wished to make a record. We followed the main trails which followed the watersheds. Between these, we plunged down close-leaved, sweating tunnels of underbrush, through tormenting clouds of flies. In the bottoms the slither of our moccasins in the black mud would wake clumps of water snakes, big as a man's head, that knotted themselves together in the sun. There is a certain herb which ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al
... speaking fast and looking all about, as if he were examining the underbrush in the Bois ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... lay on his back, that it was past midnight, when suddenly he became aware of a noise to the west of him, on the other side of the brook. Sitting up, and listening intently, he suspected, from the rustle of the underbrush, that some one was following the trail, and would presently ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... their captivity, they were wandering around the outskirts of the village, and approaching the precipice at the north, penetrated the thick underbrush that grew at its base, and seated themselves in its cool shade, their sentinel taking up his position a few rods from them in the path by which they had entered. Some of them sat so as to recline ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle
... they were able to keep close to the edge of the cliff, so as to look over; but after that they encountered a dense alder thicket. In order to traverse this, they had to go farther inland, where there was some sort of an opening. There they came to a wood where the underbrush was thick, and the walking difficult. This they traversed, and at length worked their way once more to the edge of the cliff. Looking down here, they found the scene very much like what it had been farther back. The waves were dashing beneath them among ...
— Lost in the Fog • James De Mille
... to create alarm. A desolate flat of sand extended from either shore back to a high ridge of clay, which was thickly wooded. Slightly higher up the river this ridge approached more closely the bank of the stream, with trees actually overhanging the water, and a rather thick growth of underbrush hiding the ground. The river was muddy, flowing with a swift current, and we could distinguish its course only so far as the first bend, a comparatively short distance away. Nowhere appeared the slightest evidence of life, either on water or land; all was forlorn ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... unstirred save by a passing breeze, the pool had remained those five years past. The spot was shunned as haunted or accursed by the superstitious country folks. Dense underbrush had grown ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... a valley, and when they stopped at noon for their usual rest Harry Kenton rode some distance up a creek, thinking that he might rouse a deer out of the underbrush. Although the country looked extremely wild and particularly suited to game, he found none, but unwilling to give up he continued the hunt, riding much farther than he ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... roar, exactly like a roebuck, except that it was deeper toned and louder. I was thrilled as though by an electric current. It seemed very far away, much farther than it really was, and as I crept to the summit of a ridge a splendid bull wapiti broke through the underbrush. He had been feeding in the bottom of the ravine and saw my head instantly as it appeared above the sky line. There was no chance to shoot because of the heavy cover; and even when he paused for a moment on the opposite hillside a screen of tree ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... winding in and out to avoid tree-roots, underbrush, and marshy tracts, till at length he came to an open glade by a small stream. It impressed him how regularly the trees grew about this glade. They seemed trimmed up just so high, like a hedge. After a moment's thought, he discovered the reason. The trimming was done by the cattle, and the ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... General gives the command for the search to begin. The object of the robbers is to hide so that the soldiers may not find them, and when found, to resist capture if possible. They may hide by climbing trees or dodging behind them, conceal themselves in underbrush, under dead leaves, etc. If played aright, the game should be a very strenuous one, the resistance offered by the robbers requiring several soldiers to overcome. A robber may resist all of the way to prison. A guard is appointed by the General for the prison, and prisoners ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... what they call run-ways or deer passes, and the deer always go the same route. They ought to have better sense, although as far as I am concerned they are perfectly safe. They put me on one of the passes, behind a lot of underbrush. Well, I sat and sat until I went to sleep, but I slept with one eye open. Deadwood Dick and all the great scouts and trappers had the one-eye-open habit. I was awakened by hearing something crack, and there standing about twenty ...
— Billy Baxter's Letters • William J. Kountz, Jr.
... all eager to get outside when they sniffed the smoke of the campfire, and, a little later, the odor of eggs "frying in the pan." Despite the saturated condition of most of the underbrush Wyn knew where to get dry wood for fuel, Dave had long ago taught her that ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... middle of a fine autumn day, and the scenting was very uncommonly good. One of our beaters flushed a bevy of quail very wide of us, and they came over our heads down a steep hillside, and all lighted in a small circular hollow, without a bit of underbrush or even grass, full of tall thrifty oak trees, of perhaps twenty-five years' growth. They were not much out of gun-shot, and we all three distinctly saw them light; and I observed them flap and fold their wings as they settled. We walked straight to the spot, and beat it five or six times ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... stop singing, it won't help matters, Betty, dear, the summer has gone," she exclaimed. "Little Brother and I have just seen quail whirring about in the underbrush. See I lay our autumn bouquet at your feet," and she tossed her flowers over to Betty. ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Sunrise Hill • Margaret Vandercook
... "I have watched your struggle to find the pathway, and I know that you will love the things that belong to it. Therefore, I will show you the trail, and this is what it will lead you to: a thousand pleasant friendships that will offer honey in little thorny cups, the twelve secrets of the underbrush, the health of sunlight, suppleness of body, the unafraidness of the night, the delight of deep water, the goodness of rain, the story of the trail, the knowledge of the swamp, the aloofness of knowing,—yea, more, a crown and a little ...
— Woodland Tales • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... he would be within reach and then with the swiftness of light two strong, brown hands would plunge into the pool and seize him, but, just at the moment that the fish was about to come within reach, there was a great crashing in the underbrush behind the ape-man. Instantly Pisah was gone and Tarzan, growling, had wheeled about to face whatever creature might be menacing him. The moment that he turned he saw that the author of the disturbance ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... infantry, was made up of North Carolina troops. Here our advance halted and the artillery was ordered to the front, and at 10.30 the artillery opened on the enemy. The rebels were found to be drawn up in line of battle, on a ground partially wooded and covered with a dense underbrush, with their artillery in the center and on either flank. They formed their line nearly in the shape of a triangle, with the base towards our forces. Our line was formed with the Ninth New Jersey on the right, Wessell's ...
— Kinston, Whitehall and Goldsboro (North Carolina) expedition, December, 1862 • W. W. Howe
... wilful, evanescent as a wood-spirit. Sometimes, when they were separated, she would lead him into a ravine by imitating a squirrel or a wild-turkey, and, as he crept noiselessly along with bated breath and eyes peering eagerly through the tree-tops or the underbrush, she would step like a dryad from behind some tree at his side, with a ringing laugh at his discomfiture. Again, she might startle him by running lightly along the fallen trunk of a tree that lay across a ...
— A Mountain Europa • John Fox Jr.
... of breaking branches. The boys flattened themselves on the carpet of needles as a man's body crashed toward them through the underbrush. ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... her cheek, the path widened, the trees turned into bushes, the underbrush melted away, and the brook, a little river now, bent in upon them in a broad curve, spanned only by stepping-stones. It ran full between its grassy banks, gurgling and chuckling as it lapped the stones, a mirror for the fat white clouds where it ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... the dense underbrush near the auto there came a loud cry, and some one fairly tumbled down a little declivity into the road—the figure of an old man with long, ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope
... off, and, hearing the firing, they came up quickly and silently through the thick forest and hid themselves in ambush, Indian fashion, near a clearing in the woods where the tall trees had been cut down and a thicket of small underbrush had grown up. The English were obliged to pass this clearing on their way home and the only path across it was a narrow one used by the Indians, who always went through the woods in single file, one behind another, ...
— Once Upon A Time In Connecticut • Caroline Clifford Newton
... "hurt her hands" by washing the dishes. When this was over, and the dusk was deepening, he went into the woods to the "lean-to" in which Lion was quartered, to see that the old horse was comfortable, but a minute later came crashing back through the underbrush, laughing, ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... the soil, crops and taxes, his family and food and how to provide for them, are the main thoughts that occupy his mind. Before he will strike mattock or spade in the soil, lay axe to a tree, collect or burn underbrush, he will select a stone, a slab of rock or a stick of wood, set it upon hill side or mud field-boundary, and to this he will bow, prostrate himself or pray. To him, this stone or stick is consecrated. It has power to placate the spirits and ward off their evil. It ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... long, retreating from the rock, then disappearing in the underbrush. Will had qualms now and then lest he should break through the bushes and appear in their little glen, but Boyd knew him better. He was content to leave alone those who left ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler
... be made in daylight. That evening we received our ration of rum, and under cover of darkness moved in open order across the Salt Lake for about a mile, then through three miles of knee-high, prickly underbrush, to where our division was intrenched. Our orders were to reinforce the Irish. The Irish sadly needed reinforcing. Some of them had been on the peninsula for months. Many of them are still there. From the beach to the firing-line ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... to a place where the underbrush at the side of the path was somewhat beaten aside. I thought I could distinguish where some person or animal had gone from this place, tramping a sort of barely traceable furrow through the tangle. I followed this course: it led me back ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... It was grilling work. The cold seemed something vital, sentient, alive, which opposed him with all its might. The wind and snow appeared cunning allies of the one great enemy; and, to make matters worse, the very underbrush and trees themselves apparently conspired against this one microscopic human who dared invade the regions ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... light as a feather, and ran to the nearest shelter under the hail of bullets, glad to be in the open, like a hound on the scent. You crawled on your hands and knees, or on your stomach, you ran all bent doubled-up, or did Swedish gymnastics through the underbrush ... that made up for not being able to walk straight; and when it grew dark you said: "What, night already?—What have we been doing with ourselves, today?" ... "In conclusion," said this little French cockerel, "the only tiresome thing ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... Israel, have been wandering in the wilderness of prejudice and ridicule for forty years feel a peculiar tenderness for the young women on whose shoulders we are about to leave our burdens. Although we have opened a pathway to the promised land and cleared up much of the underbrush of false sentiment, logic and rhetoric intertwisted with law and custom, which blocked all avenues in starting, yet there are still many obstacles to be encountered before the rough journey is ended. The younger women are starting with great advantages over us. They ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... chair] The negroes are good! [Speaking at a distance] Torches, there, you understand you are not to come until you receive the signal? [The faint reflection of the torches is seen at the back of the stage, through the underbrush. Enter the musicians.] Musicians? There— at the back. Now, a little distinction and life! Vary your poses from time to time. Stand straight, mandolin! Sit down, alto! There. [Severely to a swordsman] You, first mask, ...
— The Romancers - A Comedy in Three Acts • Edmond Rostand
... had yet far to go over an unknown trail, and it was most desirable to get in before dark. So we turned and now plunged into a forest of tall trees so thick overhead and so deeply buried in vines, and creepers and underbrush generally, that just as no light got in from above, so one could not see ten yards in any direction off the trail. This effect was no doubt partly due to the shades of evening, and to our being on the eastern slope ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox
... his course by the sound of the axe. This came and went, and by-and-by it ceased altogether, and Jeff crept forward with a real or feigned uncertainty. Suddenly he stopped. A voice called, "Heigh, there!" and the boy turned and fled, crashing through the underbrush at a tangent, with his ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... slopes of the Alleghanies, as yet hardly heard of by white men. Giant oaks, ashes and tulip trees mingled with the pine and hemlock growth. The hillsides where the sun shone through were thick with rhododendron and laurel. And all through this sylvan paradise the upper branches and the underbrush teemed with wild life. Squirrels, partridges and occasional turkeys offered frequent marks for the long muzzle-loading rifles, while a thousand little song birds flitted constantly through the leaves. Jeremy had never seen such hunting in his colder northern country. The game was bigger ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... wilder place than Kentucky. There was no road leading to Pigeon Creek; only a path through the forest. It was so narrow that sometimes Tom had to clear away some underbrush before they could go on. Or else he had to stop to cut down a tree that stood in their way. Abe, who was big and strong for his age, had his own little ax. He helped his father ...
— Abe Lincoln Gets His Chance • Frances Cavanah
... front of our works on that morning. The Rebel dead and badly wounded laid where they had fallen. The bottom and opposite side of the ravine showed how destructive our fire and that of the canister from the howitzers had been. The underbrush was cut, slashed, and torn into shreds, and the larger trees were scarred, bruised and broken by the thousands of bullets and other missiles that had been poured into them from almost every conceivable ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... bounded away and was lost in the underbrush. Steve stood looking disgustedly after him, a limp figure, one shoulder dropping until the old knit suspender fell at his side, and a sullen, discouraged look settling in ...
— The Boy from Hollow Hut - A Story of the Kentucky Mountains • Isla May Mullins
... and led the way toward a wood thick with underbrush, laughing until his heart pained. As they proceeded ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... worried on this score. He could hear the fugitive ahead of him, and marked his progress by the crackling of the underbrush. ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-cycle • Victor Appleton
... the look of it he judged it must be forty years old at least—the work of some first pioneer who had taken up the land when the days of gold had ended. The woods were very thick here, yet fairly clear of underbrush, so that, while the blue sky was screened by the arched branches, he was able to ride beneath. He now found himself in a nook of several acres, where the oak and manzanita and madrono gave way to clusters of stately redwoods. Against the foot of a steep-sloped knoll ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... through the hills, perhaps a hundred yards wide here where it opened on the river, with a little stream in its centre fringed with low trees, but narrowing gradually, and becoming blocked with underbrush as it penetrated deeper into the interior. For a mile or more the course was not entirely unknown to me, although the darkness obscured all familiar landmarks. The negro, however, apparently possessed the instinct of an animal, or else had night eyes, for ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... sweep of its invading waters before I could conjecture the force with which it came. Through the dim light, confusing to the eyes, I sought to peer ahead. The hills, huddled much closer to the shore, appeared rough in their rocky outlines, while the heavy underbrush, clinging tightly to the water-side, offered nothing in the way of a suitable camping-spot. Beyond the tumultuous sweep of this northern tributary, however, I discovered a considerable patch of grass, overshadowed by giant trees, and there I made selection of the spot which should ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... with a roof seen above the low underbrush of young pines, holly and sweet gum, was a building of some kind toward which the path turned abruptly. A hundred yards ahead the woods ceased, and Gus knew that beyond were the ever-shifting sand ...
— Radio Boys Loyalty - Bill Brown Listens In • Wayne Whipple
... locker under the driver's seat. This she threw deftly up to the top of the wall, hooking it upon the iron spikes. Bleak politely ascended first, and they scaled the wall, dropping down into a tangle of underbrush. ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley
... searched, with my eyes, each side of the road ahead, for a possible ambush. When I approached the top of a hill, it was with my ears on the alert for the sound of horsemen or of human feet, and, when I reached the crest, I found some spot where, lying on my stomach or crouching behind underbrush, I could survey the lowland ahead. And so, meeting no indication of peril, treading familiar and beloved ground, I at last reached the hill-top from which I would have my long-expected view of La Tournoire. It was just sunset; with beating heart, I hastened forward, risking something in my ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... landscape gardening, and yet Barnes was singularly impressed by the arrangement of the shrubbery that surrounded the place. There was no visible approach to the house through the thick, unbroken sea of green; everywhere was dense underbrush, standing higher than the head of the tallest of men,— clean, bright bushes, revealing the most astonishing uniformity in ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... down to a lower level and began their return walk. On the slope the buildings were not so close together. There were more open spaces, more undeveloped stretches where trees yet remained and thickets of underbrush still ...
— The Secret Wireless - or, The Spy Hunt of the Camp Brady Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... deep, with wonderful wind-worn caves low down and high above buttressed and turreted ramparts. Farther on Venters came into a region where deep indentations marked the line of canyon walls. These were huge, cove-like blind pockets extending back to a sharp corner with a dense growth of underbrush ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... form the "horse-shoe" and make each boy acquainted with the signals that were to be used for his guidance, and then the order was given to advance. The woods were pitch dark, and it was a task of no little difficulty for the boys to find their way through the thick underbrush, and over the fallen logs that obstructed every foot of the mile that lay between the road and Bud Goble's camp, but they did it without making noise enough to alarm him. What they were most afraid of was that he would hear them coming and drag his ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon
... for Bones which lightened his heart. Some one had seen such a monster, it lived in a pool or lorded some creek, generally only get-at-able in a canoe; and here Bones, with his Houssas, would wait smoking furiously, with baited lines cunningly laid from thick underbrush or some tethered goat, bleating invitingly on the banks. But never once did the hunter catch so much as a glimpse of green. There were yellow crocodiles, grey crocodiles, crocodiles the colour of the sand, or the dark brown bed of the river, ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... out into an open rolling country, and Sam pulled up his horse, dismounted, and hiding behind some underbrush, took a look at the situation. There was a Gatling-gun, worked by a young officer and five men, a few hundred yards to the right at the edge of the woods. Beyond to the front he could see a line of troops firing at the ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby
... main road turned eastward up the hills, a footpath, already familiar to the reader, shortened the distance to the farm, and the young girl quickly crossed the rude stile and disappeared among the underbrush, walking bareheaded with the swift steps of a creature whose home was in some such place as this. Often the dry twigs, fallen from the gray lower branches of the pines, crackled and snapped under her feet, or the bushes rustled ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... moment on the ground to recover his breath and to pull himself together. The detective was standing on the opposite bank and Harvey rose and stumbled forward. They crept along, climbing fences and tripping through underbrush. As they rounded the curve the ground began to slope away, and soon they could see the headlight of an engine. Behind it, at the Sawyerville platform, stretched a train ...
— The Short Line War • Merwin-Webster
... a twig in the underbrush brought his mind back with a jerk to their present plight. He wished they had brought the rifles from the plane. Some animal was lurking there in the shadows. Wolves, grizzlies, ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell
... noon when they reached the narrow fringe of trees and underbrush—deciduous and wind-tortured all—which bordered the big, muddy, low-lying Missouri; and soon they could hear the throb of the engine at the mill, and the swish of the saw through the green lumber; a sound that heard near by, inevitably ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... expectation he could have entertained, and Saxon's heart leaped up in sheer panic. On the instant the darkness erupted into terrible sound and movement. There were trashings of underbrush and lunges and plunges of heavy bodies in different directions. Fortunately for their ease of mind, all these sounds ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... hid him. As the crashing sound of the huge dog through the underbrush ceased he noticed a woman coming leisurely toward him. Her arms were full of bitter-sweet berries and flaming autumn leaves. She wore no hat and Fenneben saw that her gray hair was wound like a coronal about her head. Before he could catch sight of her face a heavy staggering step was beside ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter
... themselves about half-way up the slopes, and towards the enemy. They were to insert the poisoned arrows in their guns and draw a bead on the Peruvians as they came on cutting their way through the underbrush. The bow-and-arrow men posted themselves farther on about five yards behind the blow-gun men, with big-game arrows fitted to the bowstrings, ready to shoot when the first volley of the deadly and silent poisoned arrows had been fired. Farther back were the spear-men with spears ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange
... with farm-houses, each the centre of its own free domain; hills clothed from base to brow with every variety of forest tree; and woods, some wild, tangled, and all but impenetrable, others clear of underbrush, shady, moss-carpeted and sun-checkered; noble masses of granite rock, great slabs of marble (of which there are fine quarries in the neighborhood), clear mountain brooks and a full, free-flowing, sparkling river;—all ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... finally entered it, the young SS man saw that this was, indeed, unlike any jungle or forest he had ever seen or heard about. Tall trees whose branches writhed as though alive, yet never attacked one. Underbrush so thick it seemed impassable, yet which twisted away from their approach as though afraid of a contaminating touch, only to swish back into place as soon as ...
— Man of Many Minds • E. Everett Evans
... on the east side of the Harlem River. The several columns pushed forward nearly at the same time. Rall and Knyphausen encountered the most serious obstacles, and met with the most obstinate resistance. Their course lay through woods and underbrush and heavy abattis, felled by the Americans. As they approached Rawlings, his men received them with a destructive and determined fire, which lasted a long time. Rall's force, including the newly arrived Waldeckers, fought desperately, and, as Cornwallis afterwards ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... whom all hearts are laid open, she had heard the story of Hawkins's folly, and the existence of the "Idiot Asylum." Alone, on Hawkins Hill, she had determined to penetrate its seclusion. Skirting the underbrush at the foot of the hill, she managed to keep the heaviest timber between herself and the "Blazing Star" tunnel at its base, as well as the cabin of Hawkins, half-way up the ascent, until, by a circuitous route, at last she reached, unobserved, the summit. Before her rose, silent, darkened, and ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... pickers, she used to outgeneral him by hiding me behind the skillets, ovens, and pots, throwing some old rags over me until he was gone. Then she would slip me off to school through the back way. I can see her now with her hands upon my shoulder, shoving me along through the woods and underbrush, in a roundabout way, keeping me all the time out of sight of the great plantation until we reached the point, a mile away from home, where we came to the public road. There my mother would bid me good-bye, whereupon she would return to the plantation and try to make up to the landlord for ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... something like a yard at the back," he announced, "but the fence which shut it in is so high and so protected by means of prickly underbrush that you would ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... that midnight march through the forest, with the rain falling in a deluge through the dripping trees, the lightning flashing and the thunder rolling. We stumbled along upon each other's heels, falling over logs or underbrush, the wet branches switching our faces raw and soaking us through and through. It seemed to me that we must have covered fifteen or twenty miles, at least, when the first gray of the morning brightened ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... do exactly as I bid." He started back again through the trees, swiftly, swinging monkey-like from limb to limb, following a zigzag course that he tried to select with an eye for the difficulties of the trail beneath. Where the underbrush was heaviest, where fallen trees blocked the way, he led the footsteps of the creature below them; but all to no avail. When they reached the opposite side of the gorge the gryf was ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... if, after all, it should be Martin whose fate it was to rebuild the wall! Why, such a revenge would almost compensate for the property falling into his hands! Suppose it should become his lot to cut away the vines and underbrush; haul hither the great stones and hoist them into place! And if while he toiled at the hateful task and beads of sweat rolled from his forehead, a sympathetic and indulgent Providence would but permit her to come back to earth and, standing at his elbow, jeer ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... he little suspected it as he lay in the sound, dreamless sleep which comes only to the truly good. There was a crashing sound in the still darkness, and Bell plunged through the thick underbrush with a ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... giant, called Club-carrier, who was the terror of all the country. For oftentimes he would go down into the valleys where the shepherds fed their flocks, and would carry off not only sheep and lambs, but sometimes children and the men themselves. It was his custom to hide in the thickets of underbrush, close to a pathway, and, when a traveler passed that way, leap out upon him and beat him to death. When he saw Theseus coming through the woods, he thought that he would have a rich prize, for he knew from the youth's dress and manner that he must be a prince. ...
— Old Greek Stories • James Baldwin
... and drew out a large salmon, which he threw to the shore, and their resumed his stationary position. In twenty minutes he took three or four salmon, and then started to return to camp. Just as he climbed the bank and had gathered his fish, a large tiger darted from the underbrush near by, and sprung upon him as a cat would spring upon ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... skillful ventriloquist, also, and I remember one in particular who outwitted me completely. He was rehearsing a well-known strain, but at the end there came up from the bushes underneath a querulous call. At first I took it for granted that some other bird was in the underbrush; but the note was repeated too many times, and came in too exactly on ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... that malady—all of us—we never could wait for the great gates yonder to be opened. So Monsieur de H—— built us this one." The little door opened directly on the road, and on the cure's house. There was a tangle of underbrush barring the way; but the cure pushed the briars apart with his strong hands, beating them ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... out at something with her fist. A naked arm had reached out from the underbrush and grasped her wrist. Carr wheeled and his ray pistol spat crackling flame. The savage, an undersized red man with an enormous head, rose unsteadily from his hiding place, a look of terrible hate in his contorted features. Then, like a punctured balloon, his body collapsed ...
— Creatures of Vibration • Harl Vincent
... more mechanical circumstances of life, are made with the same consummate skill that characterizes all the love work of Nature. Land, water, and air, jagged rocks, muddy ground, sand beds, forests, underbrush, grassy plains, etc., are considered in all their possible combinations while the clothing of her beautiful wildlings is preparing. No matter what the circumstances of their lives may be, she never allows them to go dirty ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... Jackson had effected a crossing of the river, and with great secrecy made his way to the border of White Oak creek, where, concealed by trees and underbrush, he had massed his batteries, and when all was in perfect readiness had opened upon us this storm of death. Unutterable confusion prevailed for a time; riderless horses galloped madly to the rear; men rushed here and ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... gray kitten appeared out of the underbrush, and frisked trustfully across to him. He put out a hand, caressed it, picked it up. In a moment the feminine voice replied, "Hello yourself. ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... all deserted now; the tide of prospecting has turned another way. The great hills that crowd one another up against the sky are so infested and overridden by this enormous forest-growth, and the underbrush is so dense, it would be impossible for a 'tenderfoot' to gain any clear idea of his direction. I should be a lost man the moment I ventured out of call. Woodcraft must be a sixth sense which we lost with the rest of our Eden birthright when we strayed ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... a weird, fantastic look. I felt like a knight entering an enchanted wood. But nothing disturbed our silence except the sudden awakening of a great bird or the stealthy rustle of an animal in the underbrush. Near midnight we rode into a grove of manacca palms as delicate as ferns, and each as high as a three-story house, and with fronds so long that those drooping across the trail hid it completely. To push our way through these we had ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... hurt. It would leap ahead, and then stumble, half falling, and then leap again. Even in this way, the distance it covered was amazing; Thyrsis was appalled at the power of the creature, its tremendous bounds, the shock of its fall, and the crashing of the underbrush before it. It seemed like a huge boulder, leaping down a precipice; and Thyrsis stood at a safe distance and watched it. According to the poetry-books he should have been ashamed—perhaps moved to tears ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... snake crept under the fence beneath him and disappeared in the underbrush; a rabbit progressing timidly on his travels by a series of brilliant dashes and terror-smitten halts, came within a few yards of him, sat up with quivering nose and eyes alight with fearful imaginings—vanished, a flash of fluffy brown and white. Shadows grew ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... was interrupted by the crackling of the dry twigs behind them, and Yates, who had been keeping his eye nervously on the fence, turned round. Young Bartlett pushed his way through the underbrush. His face was red; ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... all sign of a path was lost. The negro warder was compelled to use his machete to cut a way through thorny underbrush and creepers in order to make a path ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... companions passed out of her mind, even as they sometimes passed out of her sight in the windings of the shadowy trail. As she rode alone, the fronds of breast-high ferns seemed to caress her with outstretched and gently-detaining hands; strange wildflowers sprang up through the parting underbrush; even the granite rocks that at times pressed closely upon the trail appeared as if cushioned to her contact with star-rayed mosses, or lightly flung after her long lassoes of delicate vines. She recalled the absolute ...
— Devil's Ford • Bret Harte
... bank adjacent to the bottom through which the river runs in a direction a little south of east for the distance of about three miles, when we entered a heavily timbered ravine, which we followed through the underbrush for some three miles, being frequently obliged to dismount and lead our horses over the projecting rocks, or plunging through bushes and fallen timber. At the end of two hours we reached a point in the ascent where we could no longer ...
— The Discovery of Yellowstone Park • Nathaniel Pitt Langford
... hand, he plunged into the underbrush that lined the side of the trail. His intention was apparent enough. Taking the sled as the centre of the circle that One Ear was making, Bill planned to tap that circle at a point in advance of the pursuit. With his rifle, in the broad daylight, it might be possible for ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... growth of black spruce, jackpine, tamarack, poplar, willow, and birch. The river was the only highway: much of the forest which lay back from its banks was entirely unexplored on account of its swamps and the closeness of its underbrush. There were places within three miles of Murder Point where a white man had never travelled, and some where not even the Indians could penetrate. Partly for this reason the district was rich in game: the caribou, moose, lynx, bear, wolf, beaver,— ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... and only the devil's own luck, or some marvellous instinct of our horses, spared us many a stumble over roots, stones, twigs, and underbrush. What faint light the night retained for well-accustomed eyes, had its source in the cloud-curtained moon, and that being South of us, we were hidden in the shadow of the woods. But 'tis a thousand wonders the noise of our passage was not sooner heard, though De Lancey's ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... deer's keen nostrils. But when she jumped away the white flag was straight up, flashing in the very face of her foolish fawn, telling him as plain as any language what sign he must follow if he would escape danger and avoid breaking his legs in the tangled underbrush. ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... hard walking as I advanced through tangled underbrush, over unlevel ground, the night so dark in those shadows I could but barely perceive the outlines of a hand held before the eyes. Fortunately the distance was even shorter than I had anticipated, but, ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... the low hum of the bumble-bee are again with us. The little striped hornet heats his nose with a spirit lamp and goes forth searching for the man with the linen pantaloons. All nature is full of life and activity. So is the man with the linen pantaloons. Anon, the thrush will sing in the underbrush, and the prima donna will do up her voice in a red-flannel rag and ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... began a steady descent. Soon once more we were in underbrush and presently came square against a staked-and-ridered worm fence around a "deadening" dense with tall corn. Charmer and Dandy had climbed directly over it, scampered through the corn, and were waking ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable
... against the tree-trunk, and are very contented. The other side of the stream is lined with endless stretches of trees,—sycamore, elm, dogwood with their starry eyes peering in innate vanity over the bank into the mirror beneath them, and underbrush of all descriptions. Where the tide has once been, and receded, is a stretch of yellow clay, now glistening from the dews of night. After a while the sun strikes this, and the wet surface glows like gold. Then your wandering ...
— The Love Story of Abner Stone • Edwin Carlile Litsey
... Everywhere communal lands are being cleared, let, enclosed; new advances, new wealth. But the poor day-laborer, whose only patrimony is the communal land and who supports a cow and several sheep in summer by letting them feed along the roads, through the underbrush, and over the stripped fields, will lose his sole and last resource. The landed proprietor, the purchaser or farmer of the communal lands, will alone thereafter sell, with his wheat and vegetables, milk and cheese. Instead of weakening an old monopoly, they create ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... of vegetation for ages by the countless passing buffalo; blackened by rain and sun; only the more desolate for a few dwarfish cedars and other timber scant and dreary to the eye. Encircling this hill in somewhat the shape of a horseshoe, a deep ravine heavily wooded and rank with grass and underbrush. The Kentuckians, disorderly foot and horse, rushing in foolhardiness to the top of this uncovered expanse of rock; the Indians, twice, thrice, their number, engirdling its base, ringing them round with hidden death. The ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... returned from paying his respects to the estate. He had followed his host, who, under the pretext of showing him several picturesque sights, promenaded him, in the morning dew, through the lettuce in the kitchen garden and the underbrush in the park. But he knew through experience that all was not roses in a lover's path; watching in the snow, climbing walls, hiding in obscure closets, imprisonment in wardrobes, were more disagreeable incidents than a quiet ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... the drifts gradually shrunk, but before they were wholly gone another storm came, so that I scarcely felt the earth under my feet once all winter. At intervals the trees lost their icy covering, and the bulrushes and underbrush were bare; but the lake lay frozen and ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... life is stilled and magically fades into its background. The tawny rabbit halts amid the dry leaves of a fallen tree. No one sees it. The sinuous weasel slips silently under a rock by the side of the trail and is unnoticed. The mother grouse crouches low amid the underbrush and her little ones follow her example, but the careless company has no time to observe and drifts quickly by. Only the irrepressible red squirrel might be seen, but isn't, when he loses his balance and drops ...
— On the Trail - An Outdoor Book for Girls • Lina Beard and Adelia Belle Beard
... they were following. Chances were even that they would be in time to intercept the fugitives. Yet what could they do even if they arrived in time? They gave no thought to that as they crashed through the underbrush. ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge
... forest formidable with possibilities of battle. Pausing a moment in one of these rifle-pits to apprise the men of his intention Searing crept stealthily forward on his hands and knees and was soon lost to view in a dense thicket of underbrush. ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... men proceeded for over a mile. They commenced an ascent where the cliffs lining the railroad cut began. The place was thick with underbrush and quite rocky in places, wild and desolate in the extreme, and the path they pursued so tortuous and winding that Ralph at ...
— Ralph on the Engine - The Young Fireman of the Limited Mail • Allen Chapman
... real hardship of the expedition confronted them in the shape of a portage. The provisions and luggage were taken out of the canoes and transported on the backs of the Indians across the country, a distance of three miles, through underbrush so thick that they could not see ten feet in advance. Five days were spent in this manner—first paddling across a little lake, and then making a long portage, until at last Lake Itasca was reached, and the party encamped on Schoolcraft Island. By ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... they did not at all understand till the reek of caribou poured into their hungry nostrils; whereupon they yelped louder than ever. But they did not begin to understand the matter till they caught glimpses of gray backs bounding hither and yon in the underbrush, while the two great wolves raced easily on either side, yapping sharply to increase the excitement, and guiding the startled, foolish deer as surely, as intelligently, as a pair of collies herd a ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... occurred during the day, until night was approaching, when, on entering a straggling forest of detached trees and thick underbrush, George, who was in the lead, and acting the part of the scout, rushed back and held up a warning hand. The team stopped while Harry and the Professor quickly moved ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... valley until the road turned toward the range and an opening which he followed into a steeper and narrower rift beyond. Here there were no clearings in the rocky underbrush until he reached Richmond Braley's land. A long upturning sweep ended at the house, directly against the base of the mountain; and without decreasing his gait he passed over the faintly traced way, by the triangular sheep washing and shearing ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... inferiority of large timber in Loudoun (then Prince William) and contiguous counties. The responsibility for this condition has been traced to the hunters who frequented this region prior to its settlement and wantonly set fire to the forests in order to destroy underbrush, the better to secure their quarries. A comparatively dense and vigorous new growth followed the discontinuance ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head
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