"Skunk" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his lie, and some of the fools believe it, and proselyte the other fools, and when there are enough of them, their faith begins to work on the liar's own unbelief, till he takes his lie for the truth. Was that the way, you miserable skunk?" ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... remember as early as the City Merchants' days how Britten and I scoffed at that pompous question-begging word "Evolution," having, so to speak, found it out. Evolution, some illuminating talker had remarked at the Britten lunch table, had led not only to man, but to the liver-fluke and skunk, obviously it might lead anywhere; order came into things only through the struggling mind of man. That lit things wonderfully for us. When I went up to Cambridge I was perfectly clear that life was a various and splendid disorder of forces that the spirit ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... That skunk! ... all right.... Don't be worried if you don't hear from me. I'm going up river with Davies and Habert.... Use your judgment, and if you get a safe chance at Campos, pot him.... Oh, a hot time over here. They're battering our doors now. Yes, by all ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... heard, he certainly is the beatenest. Why, I ain't laughed so much since me and Abram went to Barnum's circus, the year before the war. He was preachin' one day about cleanliness bein' next to godliness, which it certainly is, and he says, 'You old skunk, you!' But, la! the worse names he called 'em the better they 'peared to like it, and sinners was converted wholesale every time he preached. But there wasn't no goin' to the mourners' bench and mournin' for your sins and havin' people prayin' and cryin' over you. They jest set and laughed and ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... with the notorious skunk of America, the overwhelming odour which they emit appears to serve exclusively as a defence. With shrew-mice (Sorex) both sexes possess abdominal scent-glands, and there can be little doubt, from the rejection of their bodies by birds ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... forgot. Skinner, dear boy, haven't we got about half a million feet of skunk spruce to saw off on somebody?" Mr. Skinner nodded and Cappy continued with all the naive eagerness of one who has just made a marvelous discovery, which he is confident will revolutionize science. "Give him that stinking ...
— The Go-Getter • Peter B. Kyne
... wood-pile,' said the old man, 'with the shotgun pointed towards the hen roost, and before long there appeared not one skunk, but seven. I took aim, blazed away, killed one, and he raised such a fearful smell that I concluded it was best to let ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... Jimmy's way of thinking, was that all was not well with James Crocker, that, when all the evidence was weighed, James Crocker would appear to be a fool, a worm, a selfish waster, and a hopeless, low-down, skunk. ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... less rapidly than the buffalo. As yet his most destructive foe in this region is perhaps the hawk, although he is raided from the timber by the opossum, raccoon, and three species of cat, while on the open his nest has marked attractions for the skunk and probably the coyote. He has survived these dumb discouragers so long, and the heat at his proper season is so trying to his human foe, that he may long find a refuge here and proudly lead forth his young Texans ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... that skunk," she exclaimed, pointing a bejewelled finger at him. "He's too tough a fox for you gentlemen. I'm one of his own sort, and I'll show you what he's made of. Jasper, my fine friend, you sold me as well as Mr. Leroy there, and I'm going to cut up ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... skunk," Old Heck went on coldly, "as quick as you're able to travel you'll find Eagle Butte's a right good place to get away from! You understand what I mean. If I catch you around, well, I won't use no fists!" And without waiting for an answer he ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... sort of "droit du seigneur," and no man's wife or daughter is safe from them. Of some of their manners and morals it is impossible to write. As Macaulay has said of Wycherley's plays, "they are protected against the critics as a skunk is protected against the hunters." They are "safe, because they are too filthy to handle, and too noisome even ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... said Don contemptuously. "Let me tell you now that I'd rather be fired a dozen times than make any bargains with a common skunk like you!" ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... Christ could not have "gone up" from two places at once; common sense tells him that turning devils out of men into pigs is a fable not half as good as the poorest of AEsop's; common sense tells him that nobody but a skunk would consent to be saved from the penalty of his own misdeeds by the sufferings of an innocent man; common sense tells him that while men object to having their pockets picked and their throats cut, they want no divine command against theft and murder; common sense ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... proud Maine, Planting the trees that would march and train On, in his name to the great Pacific, Like Birnam wood to Dunsinane, Johnny Appleseed swept on, Every shackle gone, Loving every sloshy brake, Loving every skunk and snake, Loving every leathery weed, Johnny Appleseed, Johnny Appleseed, Master and ruler of the unicorn-ramping forest, The tiger-mewing forest, The rooster-trumpeting, boar-foaming, wolf-ravening forest, The spirit-haunted, fairy-enchanted forest, ...
— American Poetry, 1922 - A Miscellany • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... had the gall," he muttered. "Acting like he'd been bit by a hydrophoby skunk. Nothing meaner 'n a mad wolf. I'd 'a' give him Carmena quick enough.... Learn her not to pass up a white man agin when she had her chance. But the young gal—— Blast Cochise. ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... ounce; skullcap, one ounce; skunk cabbage, four drams. Steep 24 hours in one-half pint of water, add one-half pint of alcohol. Dose: One tablespoonful three times ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... have a chance to ask him in a minute. He's comin' up with that crowd of his rangin' erlong an' their ha'r liftin'. Thar's that ungrateful skunk I chucked the boots at. Plim don't look over an' above pleased the way things are breakin'. Looks as amiable as a timber wolf with his ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... out on the ocean," answered the old tar, and then he continued: "You know how they tried to board us—after Carey, Bossermann, that skunk o' a Wingate, an' Ulligan went to 'em. Well, fust we kept 'em off with fireworks and with a shotgun. We didn't have much steam up, but Frank Norton—bless his heart— worked like a beaver, and the boys, Fred ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht • Edward Stratemeyer
... "The skunk!" said he half aloud; "a man that'll steal rum will hook money next. Wall, it won't be many days before that city chap will buy his return ticket to Boston. Then I shan't have any further use for Abner. Let me see," he soliloquized, "what I've ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... our boat," said another; "so now, you skunk, lay still; don't open your trap, or I'll brain ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... this evening a'hangin' around these here premises and I ups and chases him twicet, but the skunk outrun me," the newcomer gurgled, as he excitedly swung a policeman's billy the size of a ...
— Back to the Woods • Hugh McHugh
... are standing," Jordan was saying, "we got to get rid of this skunk Perris. Good-looking, as I remember him, and Marianne is so darned lonely on the ranch that she might begin to take him serious and—Hervey, I'll give you a written note. That'll be authority. I'll give you a note to Marianne, telling her that I've got to go across the mountains ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... impressed us deeply and painfully was the skunk. They were fearless little beasts and in the evening would come quite boldly about the house, and if seen and attacked by a dog, they would defend themselves with the awful-smelling liquid they discharge at an adversary. When the wind brought a whiff of it ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... known as the "Three Seven," not half a mile down the river; the other was that Gregor Lang was by disposition not one who was able to learn from the experience of others. For it happened that, a few weeks after Roosevelt's departure in September, a skunk had invaded the cabin and made itself comfortable under one of the bunks. Lincoln and the Highlander were in favor of diplomacy in dealing with the invader. But Gregor Lang reached for a pitchfork. They pleaded with him, without effect. The skunk retaliated in his own fashion; and ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... ejaculated a woman. "I hope they don't forgit to lock them cages up! Folks git awful careless when they do a thing every day! I forgot to shet up the hins last week, an' that was the night the skunk got in." ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... scavengers! So our ancestors searched on other worlds, and presently they found a creature which would multiply enormously and with a fine versatility upon the wastes of our human cities. True, it smelled like an ancient Earth-animal called skunk—butyl mercaptan. It was not pretty—to most eyes it is revolting. But it was a scavenger and there was no waste product it ...
— The Hate Disease • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... in the lodge," cried McGinty. "True as steel, every man of them. And yet, by the Lord! there is that skunk Morris. What about him? If any man gives us away, it would be he. I've a mind to send a couple of the boys round before evening to give him a beating up and see what they can get ...
— The Valley of Fear • Arthur Conan Doyle
... kill yu' worse than a snake bite," said another, presently. "No, I don't mean that way," he added. For I had smiled. "There is a brown skunk down in Arkansaw. Kind of prairie-dog brown. Littler than our variety, he is. And he is mad the whole year round, same as a dog gets. Only the dog has a spell and dies but this here Arkansaw skunk is mad right along, and it don't seem to interfere with his business in other respects. Well, suppose ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... a thing—though I can't believe it—I'd ha' dropped him without a word. I'd have given him the pacificator as well as the peace-breaker. Oh, no! I can't think it—I can't—I won't! Margaret Cooper is not a girl to my liking, but, Lord help us! she's too beautiful and too smart to suffer such a skunk, in so short a time, to get the whip-hand of her. No, gran'pa, I ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... springing to his feet and throwing off the mask completely. "You damned skunk, are you accusin' me of crooking ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... if he owned the German navy and ran trains as a genteel hobby. I gave him ten marks to send the telegram. The miserable beast has sneaked the lot. I'll get at the railway company through the Embassy and have the brute sacked and put in prison. Did you ever hear of such a skunk?" ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... assured him. "I'm going to buy myself a musquash coat with a skunk collar. I've always wanted one frightfully. You'll stay and have luncheon ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... besides the stablemen hung there at all hours of the day, infesting the broad veranda, the barroom and stores, striving to barter the skin of coyote, skunk or beaver, or, when they had nothing to sell, pleading for an unearned drink. Half a dozen of these furtive, beetle-browed, swarthy sons of the prairie lounged there now, as the elder officers and the trader ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... ain' good. W'at you care you call um cat—dog—pig? Plenty t'ing good to eat w'en you fin' dat out. De owl, she good meat. De musquash, w'at you call de mushrat—dat don' hurt de meat 'cause you call um rat! De skunk mak' de fine meat, ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... ended the exercise with a big, rasping miaow. At the sound there was a sudden rustling in the bushes behind the windfall. Instantly the catamount sprang, taking the risk of catching a porcupine or a skunk. But whatever it was that made the noise, it had vanished in time; and the rash hunter returned to his perch with ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... times as much as dey is; dat are a fac, Missus. A poor white man can't work, and in course he steal. Well, his time bein' no airthly use, dey gib him six month pensiontary; and niggar, who can airn a dollar or may be 100 cents a day, only one month. I spise a poor white man as I do a skunk. Dey is a cuss to de country; and it's berry hard for you and me to pay rates to support 'em: our rates last year was bominable. Let us pass dis law, Missus, and fowl stealin' is ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... pretty close, for Dad mentioned the fact that Mr. Means has it in for you, and the two of them can make it hell for you. I'm sorry to say that, but it's God's truth. I wouldn't trust Means with a pet skunk. I never have liked the fellow. I've said too much. Good ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... gentleman who says, "Please," like a drawing-room lady; but the gentleman who says, "Come on, boys—here's a job," in a kindly, but firm manner, with that touch of authority in the words which spells the master and the man, and reveals to the skunk that if he refuses a great fist will crack right under his chin and lay him out. Sergeant-Major Jones was, therefore, the gentleman required. He represented the finest virtues of the British N.C.O.—a class which has made the British Army what it is to-day, and a class meanly paid and shockingly ...
— The Kangaroo Marines • R. W. Campbell
... deceitful skunk!" cried the boy, slamming the door behind him, and ignoring his brother's outstretched hand. "I'd like to smash every bone in your body until there wasn't a piece as big as a toothpick left of you! You made me think you ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes
... the skunk that Wardell kicked off the Shenandoah for stealing a bottle of wine?" ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... to him out here on this very barrel," said Pixley, his anathema concluded, "I raised the bid on him; yessir, you kin skin me fer a dead skunk if I didn't offer him ten dollars and a box of cigars fer the bunch; and him jest settin' there laughin' like a plumb fool and tellin' me I didn't need to worry, they'd all vote Republican fer nothin'! ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... said old Bill Jackson, drawing Banion to one side. "Do ye know what ye're a-sayin'? Whiles he was a-layin' thar I seen the bottoms o' his boots. Right fancy they was, with smallish heels! That skunk'll kill ye in the dark, Will. Ye'd orto hev put out'n both ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... Injun's enny murder, but I say 'tis; an' yeow'll all git it brung home ter yer afore yer die: ef 'tain't brung one way, 't'll be anuther; yeow jest mind what I say, 'n' don't yeow furgit it. Naow this miser'ble murderer, this Farrar, thet's lighted out er hyar, he's nothin' more'n a skunk, but he's got the Lawd arter him, naow. It's jest's well he's gawn; I never did b'leeve in hangin'. I never could. It's jest tew men dead 'stead o' one. I don't want to see no man hung, no marter what he's done, 'n' I don't want to see no man shot down, nuther, no marter what he's ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... went to look at the man in the road; he wur a greaser too. He had been shot dead. 'I wonder what they shot him for?' says I. 'Maybe it is a private quarrel; maybe he had struck it rich, and has got a lot of gold in his belt. We may as well look; it is no use leaving it for that skunk that bolted to come back for.' He had got about twenty ounces in his belt, and we shifted it into our bag, and were just going on when 'Zekel—that is one of my mates—said, 'I know this cuss, Dave; it's the chap that lived in that village ...
— The Golden Canyon - Contents: The Golden Canyon; The Stone Chest • G. A. Henty
... muttered he to himself, as he started to his feet; "the skunk is coming this way. Good! he has the advantage of me in being mounted; but I have a rifle that I dare say will make up for the difference—enfant de grace! ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... so much ready money for that skunk," added the showman. He cocked his head to one side to avoid his cigar smoke, and stared down on P.T. pecking the last scraps of ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... their nests. This is an invariable device of the Partridge, and I have no doubt that it is quite successful with the natural foes of the bird; indeed it is often so with Man. A dog, as I have often seen, is certain to be misled and duped, and there is little doubt that a mink, skunk, racoon, fox, coyote, or wolf would fare no better. Imagine the effects of the bird's tactics on a prowling fox: he has scented her as she sits; he is almost upon her, but she has been watching him, and suddenly, with a loud 'whirr,' she springs up and tumbles a few yards before him. The suddenness ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... Striped Chipmunk and started for the old stone wall to look for him. Another went in search of Danny Meadow Mouse. A third headed for the dear Old Briar-patch after Peter Rabbit. A fourth remembered Jimmy Skunk and how he had once set Blacky the Crow free from a snare. A fifth remembered what sharp teeth Happy Jack Squirrel has and hurried over to the Green Forest to look for him. A sixth started straight for the Smiling Pool to tell Jerry Muskrat. And every ...
— The Adventures of Grandfather Frog • Thornton W. Burgess
... it from Jim himself!" He laughed. "He just made a joke of it. But he is a mean skunk! I've found out since that he wanted to buy Preston out for the part Preston had taken in another affair. There's a pretty case coming on directly, with Jim for hero. You have heard ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Shaky, with profound scorn. "Guess you ain't worked around his layout, Slum. Skunk's my notion of him. I 'lows his kickin's most like a mule's, but ther' ain't nothin' more to the likeness. A mule's a hard-workin', decent cit'zen, which ain't ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... Jim grimly. "Now maybe you'll believe me when I say that I saw him to-night. That skunk thought that I had seen him, and slipped into the saloon to get out of sight. Probably he went out through a rear door and has been ...
— Baseball Joe Around the World - Pitching on a Grand Tour • Lester Chadwick
... luck, now; it's something awful and nigger-like. You've got this crowd where the hair is short; excuse me, but it's so. Talk of revivals! You could give that one-horse show in Tasajara a hundred points, and skunk them easily." Indeed, had Gideon been accessible to vanity, the spontaneous homage he met with everywhere would have touched him more sympathetically and kindly than it did; but in the utter unconsciousness of his own power and ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte
... action, Julian," he agreed. "I'm hot with shame when I think of it. But don't, for heaven's sake, think I had anything to do with the affair! We have a secret service branch which arranges for those things. It's that skunk Fenn who's responsible. ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... he's caught on," Peter Greyson drawled, "he's makin' for Jim White. White ain't more'n fifteen miles back; we can cut him off, Jed, 'fore he reaches safety—the skunk!" ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... cold when things was on the fritz. Now, yeh gotta pay. If you wasn't nothing but a wop skunk yeh'd stand in with us. The way you're fixed would help us all. But now yeh makin' money and yeh scared ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... weary hand over her glossy coiffure and say: "Oh, yes. Clever little show. Saw it two winters ago in New York. This won't be the original company, of course." The year that Hattie came back wearing a set of skunk everyone thought it was lynx until Hattie drew attention to what she called the "brown tone" in it. After that Old Lady Heinz got her old skunk furs out of the moth balls and tobacco and newspapers that had preserved ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... hands on that skunk," he had said, the malodorous epithet being his designation for Louis Laplante, "If you lay hands on that skunk, don't be a simpleton. Skin him, Sir, by the Lord, skin him! Let him play the ostrich ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... quieted down again, "afore we could git near enough tew th' murderers tew use our pistols, they held us up with their rifles, an' ordered us tew git an' git lively; an', by way of makin' plain their meaning that skunk," and he glared at Thure, "sent a bullet a-whistlin' so close tew my ears that it made this hole through th' brim of my hat," and the man held up his wide-brimmed hat and pointed with his finger to a little round hole in the brim close to the crown. "Three ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... valleys, lying at heights which vary from 6,000 to 11,000 feet. They are the favourite retreats of innumerable animals—wapiti, bighorn, oxen, mountain lions, the great grizzly, the wary beaver, the evil-smelling skunk, the craven wolf, cayote and lynx, to say nothing of lesser breeds, such as marten, wild cat, fox, mink, hare, chipmonk, and squirrel. Their features have been fully described by Lord Dunraven in his picturesque ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... outer gate when Belden came clattering up and reined his horse across the path and called out: "See here, you young skunk, you're a poor, white-livered tenderfoot, and I can't bust you as I would a full-grown man, but I reckon you better not ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland
... you a wretched knock-kneed skunk, only I don't want to be fulsome. I hate flattering ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... a dog the moment I catch sight of him; but as to that Mr. Blasted Heyst, the time isn't yet. My head's cooler just now than yours. Let's go in again. Why, we are exposed here. Suppose he took it into his head to let off a gun on us! He's an unaccountable, 'yporcritical skunk." ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... to the species, since the bird by quitting the nest reveals its existence to the prowling, nest-seeking enemy—dog, cat, fox, stoat, rat, in England; and in the country where I first observed animals, the skunk, armadillo, opossum, snake, wild cat, and animals of the weasel family. By leaving its nest a minute or half a minute too soon the bird sacrifices the eggs or young; by staying a moment too long it is in imminent ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... Tcápani (the Bat) and an animal called Çantsò (of crepuscular or nocturnal habits). Here dwelt many young men and young women who were skunks (golÃji), and they taught the Navajo wanderer how to make and how to bury the kethà wns which are sacred to the skunk. ...
— The Mountain Chant, A Navajo Ceremony • Washington Matthews
... The worse of the Tremblays encountered this creature and it filled him with dismay. When he returned his neighbors observed an odor—not of sanctity—on his garments, and their view of the matter was that he had met a skunk. The graceless man felt convinced, however, that he had received a devil's baptism from the Nain Rouge, and St. Patrick had no stancher allies than ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... little skunk up to yonder tree? or shall we set him up fur a target an' practice firing at a mark fur about five minutes? Will do whatever you say, young lady. We're a rough set; but we don't lay out to see no ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
... that he had stolen the rat trap from the oat bin, and had set it up in the wood lot, and yesterday morning was so fortunate as to catch a fine big skunk. ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... and Blacky the Crow and Butcher the Shrike and Sammy Jay in winter, and Buster Hear and Jimmy Skunk and several of the Snake family in summer," replied Whitefoot. "It seems to me sometimes as if I need eyes and ears all over me. Night and day there is always some one hunting for poor little me. And then some folks wonder why I am so timid. If I were not as timid ...
— Whitefoot the Wood Mouse • Thornton W. Burgess
... it wuz a treat to hear a little drummin', An' it did bonyfidy seem millanyum wuz a-comin'; Wen all on us gots suits (darned like them wore in the state prison), An' every feller felt ez though all Mexico was hisn. This 'ere's about the meanest place a skunk could wal diskiver (Saltillo's Mexican, I b'lieve, fer wut we call Salt river). The sort o' trash a feller gits to eat doos beat all nater, I'd give a year's pay fer a smell o' one good blue-nose tater; The country here thet Mister Bolles declared to be so charmin' Throughout is ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... "Extraordinary damned skunk!" roared the driver, contemptuously. "Come out of that, Miggles, and show yourself! Be a man, Miggles! Don't hide in the dark; I wouldn't if I were you, Miggles," continued Yuba Bill, now dancing about in ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... invention of the people. Most of them have no characteristic at all, except coarseness. We hope there is nothing peculiarly American in such examples as these:—"Evil actions, like crushed rotten eggs, stink in the nostrils of all"; and "Vice is a skunk that smells awfully rank when stirred up by the pole of misfortune." These have, beside, an artificial air, and are quite too long-skirted for working proverbs, in which language always "takes off its coat to it," if we ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... "No, it's that striped skunk that's doing the crooked playing," snapped Gowan. "Can't you savvy his game? It's all a frame-up—his sending off his guide and outfit, so's to let on to you he'd been busted up and kicked out by his dad. You take him in to keep his pretty carcass from the coyotes—which has ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... stopped to say so. It's seen him, I tell you, an' I'll git him. Ef it's an hour, or a day, or a week, it's all the same. I'm here watchin', waitin' dead on to him, the poison skunk!" ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... sworn it over an' over, an' it shell be done. 'Taint no new notion I've tuk. I'd detarmined on makin' him fight long ago: for I'd an old score to settle wi' him, afore that 'un you know o'; but I niver ked got the skunk to stan' up. He allers tuk care to keep out o' my way. Now I've made up my mind he don't dodge me any longer; an', by the Etarnal! if that black-hearted snake's to ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... called us? You foul-mouthed brute! You liar! How dare you put such a name to a decent woman? Let me get at him. You coward! Oh, he struck me: did you see that? Lynch him! Pete, will you stand by and hear me called names by a skunk like that? Burn him: burn him! Thats what I'd do ...
— The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet • George Bernard Shaw
... the most interesting developments of this peculiarity is found in the case of the common skunk. This creature has in each groin a gland capable of secreting a highly offensive fluid. Ordinarily this liquid is kept safely within its sac, and for a long time none of it may escape. When closely cornered, the skunk will turn its tail toward the enemy and with a quiver ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker
... why he hangs back." He blinked truculently into the faces gathered about him, mutely daring anybody else to state that reason. But few cared to discuss the redoubtable doctor, so he was permitted to continue. "Doc's a sight too friendly disposed toward sech a skunk as Jim Thorpe. We've clear enough proof that feller is a cattle-rustler. We've the evidence of our eyes, sure. There's the cattle; ther's his brand—and—running with his own stock, hidden away up in the foot-hills. Do we need more? Psha! No. At least no one with ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... who that is," said Burrows, with a sneer. "Well, I can tell you what the rest of the men in that place think, and it's this: that the man in that village who doesn't drink is a mean skunk, who's betraying his own flesh and blood to the capitalists! Oh! you may preach at us till you're black in the face, but drink we shall till we get the control of our own labour. For, look here! Directly ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... "That old skunk rather turned you down, I guess," remarked Ike, after a long silence; "that old Macfarren, I mean," in answer to Shock's look ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... we heard you a while back!" said Scott. "Sounded as if a grizzly had been bitten by a hydrophobia skunk." ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... the water as Paddy does, and lives in very much the same way. The truth is, he is no more closely related to Paddy than he is to the rest of you. He is a true Rat. He is called Muskrat because he carries with him a scent called musk. It is not an unpleasant scent, like that of Jimmy Skunk, and isn't used for the same purpose. Jerry uses his to tell his friends where he has been. He leaves a little of it at the places he visits. Some folks call him Musquash, but Muskrat ...
— The Burgess Animal Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... wild cougar alive but twice, and both times by chance. On one occasion one of my men, Merrifield, and I surprised one eating a skunk in a bull-berry patch; and by our own bungling frightened it away from its unsavory repast ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... that a way. They lives in the deserts so much they gets kind of wild and flighty, ma'am. Water is so scarce that they gets to regardin' it as somethin' onnatural and dangerous. More'n enough of it to give 'em a drink or two and water the Jennies acts on 'em all same like it does on a hydrophoby skunk. They foams at the mouth ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... carrying torches made of knots. He heard a whispered conversation, betraying astonishment at his appearance; but he was greeted kindly and invited to the camp. Nearing the fire through the woods, his nostrils were assailed by a horrible smell which one of the men explained by saying he had just shot a skunk. There were eighteen in the party, comfortably fixed with two good sized tents and an abundance of buffalo robes. After he had removed his suit the cook prepared an excellent meal and urged him to eat heartily ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... his watchful eye. From the crest of the Cumberland to the yellow flood of the Ohio he knew that land, and he loved every acre of it, whether blue-grass, bear-grass, peavine, or pennyroyal, and he knew its history from Daniel Boone to the little Boones who still trapped skunk, mink, and muskrat, and shot squirrels in the hills with the same old-fashioned rifle, and he loved its people—his people—whether they wore silk and slippers, homespun and brogans, patent leathers and broadcloth, or cowhide boots and jeans. And now serious troubles were threatening them. A new ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... make a long story short, she said she'd do it, though I could see she was still thinkin' me mistaken about Tex doin' anythin' out of the way. He's a rotten skunk, but you'd better believe he don't let her see it. He's got her so she believes every darn ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... Enoch. "But to punish him don't turn yourself into the same kind of a skunk he is. Kill him if you have to. Don't be a filthy scandal ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... soul, my younker, that ere Lone Wolf that they call such a great chief (and I may as well own up and say that he is), is heavy on ransoms and he ain't the only chief that's in that line. That skunk runs off with men, women and boys, and his rule is not to give 'em up ag'in till he gits a good round price. He calculated on making a good thing off you, and I rather think ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne
... flesh-eaters, as the mink, skunk, opossum, fox, and wolf, are in winter active and voracious, needing much food to supply the necessary animal heat of the body. Hence they are then much more bold than in summer, and the hen yard or sheep pen of the farmer is too ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... the truth already, you skunk! You knew what would happen before it happened—or you thought you did. I guess I disappointed ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... been bothered with red squirrels. For the white footed mice I laid down large doors over some hay or long grass and they gathered underneath and then I lifted the doors up every day and with a stick I smashed hundreds of them. I have posted a notice to leave the skunk and mink alone; I don't want anybody on ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Third Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... had been right. That young skunk had paid a hundred dollars for a watch for Anna. To Rudolph it ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... stability by the British Empire. The exact particulars of the similarity never came to light, but apparently the lady had, in a fit of high-minded inadvertence, had gone through the ceremony of marriage with, one quotes the unpublished discourse of Mr. Butteridge—"a white-livered skunk," and this zoological aberration did in some legal and vexatious manner mar her social happiness. He wanted to talk about the business, to show the splendour of her nature in the light of its complications. ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... neighed and snorted, and Bock began to bark. Even in my anxiety I almost laughed. "It sounds like an insane asylum," I thought, and reflected that probably the disturbance was only caused by some small animal. Perhaps a rabbit or a skunk which Bock had winded and wanted to chase. I patted him, and crawled into my bunk ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley
... Chipmunk saw that he could get no milk there. And he was feeling quite downcast when he chanced to meet Henry Skunk, to whom ...
— The Tale of Sandy Chipmunk • Arthur Scott Bailey
... may be bald," grated the old man with a death's-head grin, indescribably ferocious, "but it's got brains enough in it to 'skunk' any man in this crowd three games out ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various
... Skunk Nest's gang—that's this lot, and I got here—just in time! I don't believe you could have done it, Mr. Grier. No master is popular in the real sense with his men. I think they'd have turned you down. So ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... he exclaimed, angrily. "A thorn of some kind, put there so that when I jumped into my seat my weight would drive it in. And I reckon, too, it would be just like the cowardly sneak to pick out one that had a poison tip! Oh! what a skunk! and how I'd like to see some of the boys at the ranch round him up! But I wonder, now could I find it? I'd like to get Frank's ...
— The Saddle Boys of the Rockies - Lost on Thunder Mountain • James Carson
... them sennyritas hez the littlest kind o' feet. When any feller finds her tracks, he'll fire, an' then we'll rally on him. I wish them other fellers, instid of goin' off half-cocked, hed tracked Codago, the low-lived skunk. To think of him runnin' away from wife, an' young one, ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... minute, Liff Loop," broke in Anderson sternly. "Don't say anything more. All I got to say is that it wasn't you your wife insulted when she called you a skunk. ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... mug, and saw a turbid, yellow concoction, not at all attractive to the eye; he smelt of it, and was partly of opinion that Aunt Keziah had mixed a certain unfragrant vegetable, called skunk-cabbage, with the other ingredients of her witch-drink. He tasted it; not a mere sip, but a good, genuine gulp, being determined to have real proof of what the stuff was in all respects. The draught seemed at first to burn in his mouth, unaccustomed to any ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne |
