"Wildcat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... occurred to him that the animal might be a wildcat or even a bear, that had strayed down from the mountains. A close encounter of this nature was by no means to Clay's liking. He stopped, and was just about turning back, when he saw a dark object passing through a break in the ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon
... rudely improvised prison, Mizzoo defended himself. "He wasn't too old and rheumatic to fight like a wildcat—why, he had to be lifted up bodily and carried into his cell. Not a word can we get out of him, or a bite of grub into him. I believe that old codger's just too ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... badly he might have behaved, her conduct had been worse than his. He could have made himself warm and comfortable with anger, and could have assured himself that under any circumstances he must be right to escape from the clutches of a wildcat such as that. But at the last moment she had shown that she was no wild cat to him. She had melted, and become soft and womanly. In her softness she had been exquisitely beautiful; and as he returned home he was sad and dissatisfied with himself. He had destroyed her life for ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... it out spitefully and Wunpost curbed his wit for he saw where his jesting was leading to. When it came to her father this unsophisticated child would stand up and fight like a wildcat. And he began to perceive too that she was not such a child—she was a woman, with the experience of a child. In the ways of the world she was a mere babe in the woods but in intellect and character ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... after us in silence, hunting us in the dark for the last mile. For as we stood out, a black blot on the hilltop against the night sky, they broke out in chorus just behind us, for all the world like a pack of hounds who had treed a wildcat; and too close for any fool lying to occur ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... "I didn't realize the shot might startle you even more than the wildcat. It seems I'm not fit to have charge of a lady. I told you ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... slopes of the Blue Ridge. But for that and the hoofbeats of their own horses, there was no sound save once, when they heard a scuttling on the bark of a tree. They saw nothing, but Billy pronounced it a wildcat, ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Peter. "Now I'll tell you something. If you had gone away in that ambulance to an anesthetic and an operation, no wildcat that ever indulged in a hunger hunt through this canyon could have put up a howl equal to the one that I would ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... child back with him. It was four years since she had been carried off, and she was a regular little savage, when she arrived in the settlement with him. Of course she could not speak a word of English, and was as fierce as a little wildcat. I expect she got all right, after ...
— A Final Reckoning - A Tale of Bush Life in Australia • G. A. Henty
... came, he crept through the bushes to the little stream in the ravine and drank deep again. His glance caught a pair of red eyes gleaming through the dusk and he saw a wildcat treading lightly. But the cat did not snarl or arch its back. Instead it moved away without any sign of hostility and climbed a big oak, in the brown foliage of which it was lost to Henry's sight. In his mind the thought grew ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... make the ransom fifteen hundred dollars instead of two thousand. "I ain't attempting," says he, "to decry the celebrated moral aspect of parental affection, but we're dealing with humans, and it ain't human for anybody to give up two thousand dollars for that forty-pound chunk of freckled wildcat. I'm willing to take a chance at fifteen hundred dollars. You can charge the ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... and on Herminius He leaned one breathing space; Then, like a wildcat mad with wounds, Sprang right at Astur's face. Through teeth, and skull, and helmet, So fierce a thrust he sped, The good sword stood a handbreadth out ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... "The girl ain't a coward, anyhow. She stood up to me like a wildcat. Said she hated me. Said she wouldn't take Peter if I paid her to—or words to that effect. Well, I didn't exactly offer to pay her for doing that, rather the other way around. But when she had the gorgeous cheek to up and say, after all, that she liked me for defending you, why, I—well, ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... the population of the forest was in the trees. Squirrels chattering with anger at the invaders, or with curiosity about them, ran along the boughs, their bushy tails curving over their backs. A huge wildcat crouched in a fork, swelled with anger, his eyes reddening and his sharp claws thrusting forth as he looked at the two beings whom he instinctively hated much and feared more. The leaves swarmed with ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... littered with books and magazines. All the available wall space, from floor to ceiling, was occupied by filled bookshelves. It seemed to Daylight that he had never seen so many books assembled in one place. Skins of wildcat, 'coon, and deer lay about ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... violently against our canoes, that at first we took them to be large trees, which threatened to upset us. We saw also a hideous monster; his head was like that of a tiger, his nose was sharp, and somewhat resembled a wildcat; his beard was long; his ears stood upright; the color of his head was gray; and his neck black. He looked upon us for some time, but as we came near him our oars frightened him away. When we threw our nets into the water we ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Volume I. - Voyages Of Discovery And Early Explorations: 1000 A.D.-1682 • Various
... was a gold strike I'd follow 'em," announced Sol Blugg. "Tom Dillon allers was a good one at strikes, an' so was Abe Blower. They know enough to keep away from anything thet looks like a wildcat. I'm a-goin' to look into this," he concluded. And after that the Blugg crowd kept close watch on ...
— Dave Porter in the Gold Fields - The Search for the Landslide Mine • Edward Stratemeyer
... the Huns have got him," said Frank gloomily. "He isn't among the dead or wounded as far as we've been able to find. But I'll bet they thought they had hold of a wildcat ...
— Army Boys on the Firing Line - or, Holding Back the German Drive • Homer Randall
... got a scheme that'll knock all these wildcat ones just to flinders, see if it don't," remarked Tom Betts, waving ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... for another little camping trip, over on Wildcat Island, which had quite a bad name on account of the ferocious animals known to exist in its dense thickets, and also because a wild man was said to have been seen there many times. What the four chums saw and did there, and the multitude ...
— The Outdoor Chums on the Gulf • Captain Quincy Allen
... "The wildcat still is straight up Turkey Gulch and we'll have to scramble for it. It's hid like the nest of an old turkey hen," he said to me as we set out upon the mounting of a very ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess
... Deerfoot was a chief of the Shawanoes, who loved to fight; Deerfoot when a child was a wildcat in his hate of his enemies and of the pale faces; but the Great Spirit whispered in his ear, and he became another being. It was the Great Spirit who told him just now that danger threatened him. Hay-uta knows that Deerfoot could have slain him had he wished to do so; but he ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... "I've always heard that ghosts don't mind ordinary birdshot any more'n an alligator would. But then fetch it along, Owen; it'll no doubt make us feel a little better when we find ourselves up in that terribly lonely tract of country. And who knows but what there might be a stray wildcat abroad in those woods. Such things have been heard of, and I even saw the skin of a whopper shown in ...
— The Chums of Scranton High on the Cinder Path • Donald Ferguson
... too pathetic. It was a picture of what is going on in our own little community year after year. I wish you could see what I have to see. I wish you could see the thousands of hard-earned dollars that go out of our community every year into just such wildcat enterprises as you described. The saddest part of it is that the money nearly always goes out of the pockets of the people who can least ...
— The University of Hard Knocks • Ralph Parlette
... minute I see these markings I recognized 'em and remembered something, and I says right off that he's got some cat there; and he says how do I know? And I tell him that there kitten has got at least a quarter wildcat in it. Its grandmother, or mebbe its great-grandmother, was took up to the Tuttle Ranch when there wasn't another cat within forty miles, and it got to running round nights; and quite a long time after that they found it with a mess of kittens in a box out in the ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... such rational and recommendable behaviour. A psychological problem appears only when such a course of wisdom is abandoned, and either the savings are hidden away instead of being made productive, or are thrown away in wildcat schemes. Yet of the two extremes the first again is easily understood. A hysteric fear of possible loss, an unreasonable distrust of banks and bankers, keeps the overcautious away from the market. But while such a state ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... in his saddle. He swung far to one side and caught her in his arms. Vaguely he heard the yell of excitement from the outlaws. All he was vividly conscious of was the white horror of her face. She fought like a wildcat. She did not cry out. She struck him full in the face with the strength of a man, almost. He prisoned her with a stronger grip, and in so doing nearly toppled from the saddle, for ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... eyes, like an owl's; or, better, a wildcat's, as though they never winked. From the pupils, which were very small, the little light-colored lines radiated across very large blue irises. There was something baleful and compelling in their glare, so that even Hallowell, cool customer as he was, forgot ...
— The Sign at Six • Stewart Edward White
... agreed Pike amicably, "some of us more, some of us less. Dona Dolores probably spells politics, but Dona Jocasta is a wildcat of the sierras, and I can't figure out any harmonious days for a man ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... light which he knows is reflected from the horns of the cattle tied to the trek-tow. Presently, however, I saw another glint of light which I guessed came from the spear of Saduko, who was seated by the ashes of the cooking fire wrapped in his kaross of wildcat skins. Slipping from the voorkisse, or driving-box, I came behind him softly and touched him on the shoulder. He leapt up with a start which revealed his nervous nature, then recognising me through ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard
... play of life and death went on outside, the three people, the man, woman and child, in the cave slept as soundly as sleep the drunken or the just. They were full-fed and warm and safe. No beast of a size greater than that of a lank wolf or sinewy wildcat could enter the cave through the narrow entrance between the heaped-up rocks, and of these, as of any other dangerous beast, there was none which would face what barred even the narrow passage, for it was ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... anything but detest. She was the patientest creature you ever saw. She was even too patient. If I had been tied to such a cub, I think I should have cultivated the beautiful and benignant qualities of a wildcat; there would have been one good fight, and one of us would have been living, and the other would have been dead, and that would have been the end of it. But Mrs. Jedwort bore and bore untold miseries and a large number of children. She had had nine of these, and three were ...
— The Man Who Stole A Meeting-House - 1878, From "Coupon Bonds" • J. T. Trowbridge
... hit Devers' ship," said Roger. "One of them on the power deck. Must've smashed the reaction tanks and made the stuff wildcat, because it blew him ...
— Sabotage in Space • Carey Rockwell
... you; but bimeby I co't sight of her comin' swashin' along, now up on top of a big roarer, and then scootin' down into the holler, and then up agin. I crep' out on the rocks, grippin' 'em for all I was wuth, with the boat-hook under my arm. The wind screeched and clawed at me like a wildcat in a caniption fit, but I hadn't been through those cyclones for nothin'. I lay down flat and wriggled myself out to the ...
— Captain January • Laura E. Richards
... know me to show fear, de Lussan?" cried the captain bending forward and staring at the Frenchman, his eyes glittering in the darkness like those of a wildcat. ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... get the news at the barn. He gave first aid to the helpless guard, and, without dreaming he could be got to a surgeon alive, rushed him in a light wagon to the hospital at Sleepy Cat, where it was said that he must have more lives than a wildcat. Sassoon, not caring to brave de Spain's anger in town, went temporarily into hiding. A second surgeon was brought from Medicine Bend, and heroic efforts were put forth to nurse again into life the feeble spark the assassin had left ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... Lou sat on a rock. The game young fellow was still shy. Sometimes he looked as if he despaired of ever recovering his wonted nerve, for in this girl, so modest and so shrinking, he knew that there lay asleep the wildcat's fearful spirit. Bold by nature he longed at times to see this spirit blaze, but her soft eyes pleaded with him ...
— The Starbucks • Opie Percival Read
... rage Harvey threw himself at the big man, striking out with all his might. Taken by surprise, Fairfax fell away before the attack, which, though seemingly impotent, was as fierce as that of a wildcat. ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... thanked him for his generous manner of proceeding, and was discharged. On our return to our lodgings, my nephew explained the whole mystery; and I own I was exceedingly incensed — Liddy being questioned on the subject, and very severely reproached by that wildcat my sister Tabby, first swooned away, then dissolving in a flood of tears, confessed all the particulars of the correspondence, at the same time giving up three letters, which was all she had received from her admirer. The last, which Jery intercepted, I send you inclosed, ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... said Uncle Lucky, "why we are always having so many accidents. Maybe I had better get a chauffeur." "You won't need any chauffeur after I'm done with you," said a deep growly voice, and out from behind a clump of bushes jumped a wicked wildcat and bit one of the front tires, ...
— Billy Bunny and Uncle Bull Frog • David Magie Cory
... Woodman was about to reply when he heard a low growl, and turning his head (which worked beautifully on hinges) he saw a strange beast come bounding over the grass toward them. It was, indeed, a great yellow Wildcat, and the Woodman thought it must be chasing something, for its ears were lying close to its head and its mouth was wide open, showing two rows of ugly teeth, while its red eyes glowed like balls of fire. ...
— The Wonderful Wizard of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... Ever hear of a horse that could get that young wildcat out of the saddle? He clings as if he had claws. But—where did he ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... business of taking directorships has never quite appealed to me. I don't know anything about the game, and I should probably run up against some wildcat company. I can't say I like the directorship wheeze much. It's the idea of knowing that one's name would be being used as a bait. Every time I saw it on a prospectus I should feel like ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... Hall, "that'll never do in the world. Suppose Levi West should come back again, what then? I'm responsible for that money. If you wanted to borrow it now for any reasonable venture, you should have it and welcome, but for such a wildcat scheme—" ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... the fights he had always kept close to John, following every movement, and ready to dash forward when his leader was attacked by more than one enemy; springing upon them like a wildcat, and burying his knife in their throats. It was to his watchful protection and ready aid that John owed it that he had passed through so many combats, ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty
... what do you reckon she did? Why, she turned on that smirking Spanish fool like a wildcat, and out with a 'navy' and shot him ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... boar, and squeak like the monkeys cowering at his approach in the branches overhead; he can shake the earth with a vibrating, resonant purr, like the sound of faint thunder in the foot-hills; he can mew and snarl like an angry wildcat; and he can roar like a lusty lion cub. But it is when he lifts up his voice in the long-drawn moan that the jungle chiefly fears him. This cry means that he is hungry, and, moreover, that he is so sure of his kill that he cares not if all the world knows ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... not love her," began Lambert, and then checked himself, as he really could not discuss so delicate a matter with this wildcat. "Why did you listen, may I ask?" he demanded, passing his tongue ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... Denver Jim, a very little man, with nervous hands and remarkable steady eyes. He had punched cows over those ranges for ten years, and his experience had made him a wildcat in a fight. Oscar Larsen was a huge Swede, with a perpetual and foolish grin. Sour Creek had laughed at Oscar for five years, considered him dubiously for five years more, and then suddenly admitted him as a man among men. He was stronger than Buck Mason, quicker than Denver Jim, and shrewder ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... way wildcat "mining" men have robbed the unsuspecting public. For these rupture swindlers take advantage of ...
— Cluthe's Advice to the Ruptured • Chas. Cluthe & Sons
... might as well have held a wildcat, or captured with his bare hands a wild eagle, strong of talon and beak. She tore and raged ...
— Riders of the Silences • Max Brand
... lot of weapons," he soliloquized on his way back to Johnny. "An' they're all second-hand. Cannons, too—an' machetes!" he exclaimed, suddenly understanding. "Jumping Jerusalem!—a filibustering expedition bound for Cuba, or one of them wildcat republics down south! Oh, ho, my friends; I see where you have bit off more'n you can chew." In his haste to impart the joyous news to his companion, ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... affectation of the times, promoted him to be his game-keeper. Many a day did these two living magazines of wrath spend together in the dismal swamps and on the meagre intersecting ridges, making war upon deer and bear and wildcat; or on the Mississippi after wild goose and pelican; when even a word misplaced would have made either the slayer of the other. Yet the months ran smoothly round and the wedding night drew nigh[3]. A goodly company had assembled. All things were ready. The bride was dressed, ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... scurried by; references to old companies and their latest projects, and to new companies and new finds; talk about the menace of the runs pinching out, and talk about the danger of over-stocking the world's zinc markets; grumbling talk about the wildcat exploitation going on at every corner, and envious talk about a report that some wildcat promoter had just succeeded in selling a face of ore that had cut blind under the drill of the buyer in a few ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... through rows and rows, very neat and orderly, of upturned carts and antiquated coupes, and mules and horses and a courtyard full of liveried servants. Inside, it still looked barbaric, with its magnificent display of rich silks and furs. Great skins of tiger, panther, leopard, wildcat, sable, were hanging in profusion on all sides, interspersed with costly embroideries, wonderful brocades, and all the magnificence and color of the gorgeous East. It was the idea of Kwong, our pet rickshaw-boy, to bring ...
— Peking Dust • Ellen N. La Motte
... made me like a wildcat that day. I nearly killed you, twice. You remember that low parapet on the roof? I was behind that, waiting for you with a loaded pistol. You were all very near your deaths that morning. In the King's service, of course. For just a minute, I thought that you would climb ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... of books there is revealed the whole workings of a great American railroad system. There are adventures in abundance—railroad wrecks, dashes through forest fires, the pursuit of a "wildcat" locomotive, the disappearance of a pay car with a large sum of money on board—but there is much more than this—the intense rivalry among railroads and railroad men, the working out of running schedules, the getting through "on time" in spite of all obstacles, and the ...
— The Rover Boys on the Farm - or Last Days at Putnam Hall • Arthur M. Winfield (AKA Edward Stratemeyer)
... and have in every case to be made with extreme rapidity, a good deal of preliminary practice on the part of the intending players would be necessary. Would this little group of players be, as he hoped, forthcoming? I still regarded the project as something of the wildcat kind; but I was struck by the undoubted success of Beckett's own experiments, actual and theoretical, so far; and, as the four players would at all events lose nothing, even if they gained nothing, by renewing them, I and ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... Squirrels and other feeble folk were to gather food for the warriors, of whom the principal ones were the Bear, Wolf, Wildcat and Bison. The Swallow served as messenger to the birds, and the swift Trout carried the news to the finny tribes, for all were to join in ...
— Wigwam Evenings - Sioux Folk Tales Retold • Charles Alexander Eastman and Elaine Goodale Eastman
... gave us fruit, roots, and root-bread, and we purchased from them three dogs. The houses of these people are similar to those of the Indians above, and their language is the same; their dress also, consisting of robes or skins of wolves, deer, elk, and wildcat, is made nearly after the same model; their hair is worn in plaits down each shoulder, and round their neck is put a strip of some skin with the tail of the animal hanging down over the breast; like the Indians above, they are fond of otter-skins, and give a great price for them. ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... him and would have torn his flesh had it not been immortal and immovable from his bones. He crushed it at a blow, and breaking off the bough of a tree he turned it by a word into a skull ten times larger than the other that flew after the wicked people as a wildcat leaps upon a rabbit. Then the god stamped on the sands and all the springs were opened in the mountains, so that the Saco came rising through the valley with a roar that made the nations tremble. The goblins were caught in the flood ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... by people, wild animals are quite numerous. In one of these communities there once lived a boy who was in the village late one night. He had been at the village-store, and had heard the men talking about a wildcat that had been seen in that neighbourhood a short ...
— Fifty-Two Story Talks To Boys And Girls • Howard J. Chidley
... in Michigan; on the line of the old Potawatomi trail from the Wabash country to post Chicago, and in the neighborhood of the Beaver lake region in northern Indiana, and at many other points. The furs handled by them consisted of the marten (sable), mink, musk-rat, raccoon, lynx, wildcat, fox, wolverine, badger, otter, beaver, bears and deer, of which the most valuable were those of the silver-gray fox and the marten. The value of these furs mounted into the hundreds of thousands of dollars and they were originally all consigned to New ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... around here," said the senator's son. "Might be a wildcat though, or a fox. I'm going to get ...
— Dave Porter in the Far North - or, The Pluck of an American Schoolboy • Edward Stratemeyer
... to have a look down that," he said. "It may contain a bear or wildcat, and I can ...
— Lost on the Moon - or In Quest Of The Field of Diamonds • Roy Rockwood
... closer to the fringe of willows along the river she came, until, at their very edge, there broke upon her already taut nerves the hideous and uncanny scream of a wildcat. The girl stopped short in her tracks. She felt the chill of fear creep through her skin, and a twitching at the roots of her hair evidenced to her the extremity of her terror. Should she turn back? The horses might be between ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... earn a few honest dollars about the settlement and the sawmill. So the big-hearted mill hands paid him good money for doing many odd jobs, the most important of which was to keep a lantern lighted every dark night, both summer and winter, to warn them of the danger spot in the Wildcat river, that raced in its treacherous course between the mill and their shanty homes ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... in all directions to gain the earlies possible intelligence of the progress of the movement, and to make such resistance to it as might be possible. One of these outposts was stationed at Wildcat Gap, an inexpressibly wild and desolate region, sixty miles from Camp Dick Robinson, where the road entering Kentucky from Tennessee at Cumberland Gap crosses the Wildcat range ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... seemed moulded for kissing by generations of European passions, whereas about Japanese mouths there is always something sullen and pinched and colourless. The bridge of her nose and her eyes of deep olive green, the eyes of a wildcat, gave the lie to ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... must not be offended, or look out from amang your curls then, like a wildcat out of an ivy-tod, for ye are to understand that he wishes most sincere weel to you, and has proved it. And it's partly that whilk has set the heather ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... Tyope do? He belongs to his hanutsh, his daughter to hers; and the people of Tyame have no faith in those of Shyuamo, for they mistrust them. But warn the mot[a]tza; tell him to be prudent; for Tyope is cunning,—as cunning as shutzuna and as treacherous as the wildcat, and my grandson is young. But let them go together, for I am glad to see Tyame and Tanyi ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... their victims and "seizing" them with malevolent delight. The concrete comparison was ready to their hand in the attack of fierce beasts of prey; and as the tiger leaps for the head to break the neck with one stroke of his paw, the wildcat flies at the face, the wolf springs for the slack of the flank or the hamstring, so these different disease demons appear each to have its favorite point of attack: smallpox, the skin; cholera, the bowels; the ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... the wilderness with a carpet that left a tell-tale record of every foot which crossed its smooth expanse. And as the face of the wilderness changed, its inhabitants, also, changed. Some went into hiding for the cold months; others, fierce beasts such as the wolf and wildcat, simply donned warmer coats; still others, notably the hare and the ptarmigan, weaker and therefore in greater danger during the months of famine, put on coats of white which made them almost indistinguishable against the snowy background ...
— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer
... shouted. "I knew that one would come for me! This hill wildcat has fought until the ropes cut both of us; but take time, sahib! I can wait. Attend to the duty first. Only let him who comes bring water with him, for ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... granting no quarter. Intolerant, proud, sullen, yet watchful and constantly planning—purely a militarist, believing in slaughter as in a religion, and confident that art, science, poetry, and the good of the world were happily advanced thereby—Gipsy had become, though technically not a wildcat, undoubtedly the most untamed cat at large in the civilized world. Such, in brief, was the terrifying creature which now elongated its neck, and, over the top step of the porch, bent a calculating scrutiny upon the wistful and ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... open and in that room also she found nobody. There stood a bed with a bear skin for a coverlet, other bear skins spread on the floor served instead of carpets and on the walls were bright lynx, and wildcat skins. ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... breast of Jack Carleton. For a year previous, stories had reached the settlement where he had made his home, of the wonderful Shawanoe youth, who was captured when a child, and while he was as untameable in his hatred of the whites as a spitting wildcat, but who was transformed by kindness into the most devoted friend ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... fierce he took my appetite away for several hours each time I saw him," said Stubby Woodchuck, "and I am sure he looks fully as terrible as Ki-yi Coyote or Tom Wildcat. Yes, sir, we have a very mean and dangerous enemy in Mr. Brushtail, and we must keep ...
— Doctor Rabbit and Brushtail the Fox • Thomas Clark Hinkle
... of that year the meat-markets in that section of the country were remarkably bad. It was sometimes difficult for a panther or a wildcat to find enough food to keep her family at all decently, and there were cases of great destitution. In years before there had been plenty of deer, wild turkey, raccoons, and all sorts of good things, but they were very scarce now. This was not the first time that our young Jaguar ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... such a one. He might not look like a Viking, but after all it is the soul that counts and, as this afternoon's experience had taught her, Ramsden Waters had a soul that seemed to combine in equal proportions the outstanding characteristics of Nero, a wildcat, and the second mate ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... hours in his company. He told us the folk lore of his tribe. More than forty myths or animal stories of his have been recorded and preserved. They are as interesting as the stories of Uncle Remus. The escapades of wildcat, the lion, the grizzly bear, the bluejay, the lizard, and the coyote are as full of excitement and comedy ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... are the construction of ships, the mariner's compass, and astronomy. The stories of the land pioneers open up a still richer field of natural science study for the common schools. Among animals are the beaver, otter, squirrel, coon, bear, fox, wildcat, deer, buffalo, domestic animals, wild turkeys, ducks, pigeons, eagle, hawk, wild bees, cat-fish, sword-fish, turtle, alligator, and many more. Among native products and fruits are mentioned corn, pumpkins, beans, huckleberries, grapes, strawberries, ...
— The Elements of General Method - Based on the Principles of Herbart • Charles A. McMurry
... he attempted to throw her off, but, frail strength magnified by a fury of fear, she joined issue with him, clinging to his wrists with the tenacity of a wildcat, though she was lifted from her feet and dashed this way and that, brutally, mercilessly, though her heart fell sick within her for the ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... they feared not. Though now and then they heard the yell of a wildcat far back in the woods, or the tramping of an occasional bulk through the forest, and though once a cinnamon bear poked his muzzle out into the clearing, sniffed and departed with a grunt of disapproval, they could not bring themselves ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... and yet many of the joys of Arcady are here—bright, singing birds, wide adventurous rivers, innumerable streams, the squirrel in the wood and the bracken, the wildcat stealing through the undergrowth, the lizard glittering by the stone, the fish leaping in the stream, the plaint of the whippoorwill, the call of the bluebird, the golden flash of the oriole, the honk of the wild geese overhead, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... wind-harp, above referred to for illustration, is blown upon by some rude, sharp northwester. In spite of myself, I touched the vibrating cord. The message was brief and abrupt, like a sea-captain's command:—"Ship Trinidad wrecked off Wildcat's Beach,—all hands ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... possibly equal. Nights under the multiple stars in the hills, cool, invigorating mornings with the pine-filled air strong as wine in his clean blood, long days of sunshine full of action, had all contributed to make him the young Hermes that he was. Cool and wary, supple as a wildcat, light as a dancing schoolgirl on his feet, he had the qualities which go to help both the fighter and the boxer. Lennox had never seen a man with more natural aptitude for ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... since they had already served their purpose and were in process of obliteration he paid little attention to them. In his more ambitious rambles during late fall and winter, he had run across too many tracks of deer and bear and wildcat to become excited by these signs of some humbler creature ...
— Tom Slade on Mystery Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... discovered. The mysterious occurrences. The fourth voyage of discovery. Losing sight of the strange animals. The forest. Discovering orang-outans. Capturing a young orang. Christening the "Baby." Its strange and restless actions. A shot. A wild animal. The wildcat. Enemy of the orang-outan. Distances deceptive, and why. Peculiar sensations at altitudes. Tableland. The fifth day. Discovery of a broad river. ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... say a cat's a plumb fool," declared Cap'n Amazon. "They'll desert ship as soon as wink. Treacherous critters, the hull tribe. Why, when I was up country in Cuba once, I stopped at a man's hacienda and he had a tame wildcat—had had it from a kitten. Brought it up on ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... own lot I had old Simon to deal with, as I knew at once by the cold, greasy feel of his leathern jerkin, he being enraged to make me his prisoner for the ill I had done him. Hooking his horny fingers about my throat, he clung to me like any wildcat; but stumbling, shortly, over two who were rolling on the floor, we went down both with a crack, and with such violence that he, being undermost, was stunned by the fall. Then, my blood boiling at this treatment, I got astride of him, and roasted his ribs royally, and ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... ashamed. "After I made sure that we had Chadron's raiders cooped up where they couldn't get out, I went up and got her. Thorn wasn't there, nobody but the Indian woman, the 'breed's wife. She was the jailer—a regular wildcat of ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... ever done that was rational?" cried his mother sharply. "From the beginning, when she was a baby of three months old, and howled at me because I kissed her, and that dreadful mother of hers flew at me like a wildcat and said I had the evil eye, Leam Dundas has been more like some changeling than an ordinary English girl. I declare it sometimes makes my heart ache to, see her with those awful eyes of hers, looking as if she had seen one does not know what—as if she was ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... supper-less and frantic with hunger, after a day of fruitless hunting through the dead forest world, a giant wildcat had been stirred from its first fitful slumber in the ledge's crevice by the impact of the child upon the heap of leaves. The human scent had startled the creature and it had slunk farther back into the crevice. The more so when the bark ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... gentlemen; I will depart and leave you to organize. I wish you all the success you deserve to obtain through a wildcat scheme of a simple boy, who knows just about as much about business and business methods as a yellow dog knows about algebra. Good ...
— Frank Merriwell's Pursuit - How to Win • Burt L. Standish
... were now turned, but not for long. She sprang at me like a wildcat; I defended myself as well as I could without really hurting her, maintaining my hold on the revolver, but not attempting to use it on my scratching, clawing antagonist. The station-master came out of Lone Tree station, a mile away, and walked up the track to see what was going on. Of course ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
... play wildcat on her han's an' knees, Honest! 'T would give ye the gibberees! An' she sneaks along an' jumps at you An' gives sech a ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... the two gazed deep into each other's eyes, and the sense of quickening blood touched Rhoda's heart. Then they both woke to the sound of hoof-beats behind them and John DeWitt, with a wildcat thrown ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... curling-stone obliquely and send it through an opening. Wi's, with his. Wi't, with it. Widdifu', gallows-worthy. Widdle, wriggle. Wiel, eddy. Wight, strong, stout. Wighter, more influential. Willcat wildcat. Willyart, disordered. Wimple, to meander. Win, won. Winn, to winnow. Winna, will not. Winnin, winding. Winnock, window. Winnock-bunker, v. bunker. Win't, did wind. Wintle, a somersault. Wintle, to stagger; to swing; ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... poor people would never hear the sound of the gospel if some one did not take it to them. They have souls to be saved, my friend. I feel it is my duty to carry the word to them. As for the wildcats," he continued, smiling, "I have my rifle. Besides the government offers a small bounty for every wildcat." ...
— Dickey Downy - The Autobiography of a Bird • Virginia Sharpe Patterson
... to show the young people the ferns in the woods. She pulled her sun-bonnet over her eyes and trod out with the solid steps of a woman bred to love the soil under her feet. The photographer sketched along the way, but he finally sat down by Little Wildcat where the water boiled over boulders, and Mrs. Harbison went farther to dig ginseng. There was a joyful hurry of birds all around. That leopard of the Indiana woods, the sycamore, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... game are you playing?" shrilled Furneaux, nevertheless active as a wildcat in his spring to the French window, there to snatch at the blind and turn the knob which ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... of the clan lacked the strength and skill of his elders, he made up for it by a wildcat manner of fighting that taxed Joe severely. Time and again it seemed to him that he must give in to the little whirlwind; but each time he pulled himself together and went doggedly on. For he felt that ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London
... There were many things which his brain must attack and digest in these hours. He must arrange his plan of action to its minutest detail, because he would have as little time for reflection, once he had reached his own country, as a wildcat flung into a pack ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... eagerly, and a wave of nervous energy rushed over her, surging up to her brain like light and electricity. It gave to her a sort of reckless valour to say just the thing she felt. She turned towards Julian with a manner that was half shrew, half wildcat—street girls cannot always compass the impressive, though they may feel the great eternities nestling round their ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... streaming brow. Apparently all hell was busting loose. Under the Post was the San Francisco Examiner, its crowded front page filled with all sorts of strange and startling news items. Malone looked over a few at random. A wildcat waterfront strike had been called off after the resignation of the union local's president. The "Nob Hill Mob," which had grown notorious in the past few years, had been rounded up and captured in toto after what the paper described only as a "police tipoff." Two headlines ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett
... like a wildcat, on the box that contained the Cardinal's Necklace, intent on stowing it away again in the seclusion of my coat-pocket. But again I stood with it in my hand—struck still with the thought that I could ...
— The Indiscretion of the Duchess • Anthony Hope
... which he would climb and hang like some foul spider on its web. Grasping it in both small hands and kicking vainly at it and us, he would scream: "Englaender Schwein," and I know not what other names, spitting venom like a little wildcat. This was not the riffraff of the camp. The boy was the son of the camp Commandant, and the apple of his father's eye and the thing was often done under that eye and amid the vicious applause of the young father ...
— The Escape of a Princess Pat • George Pearson
... greyhound. Forgotten was the rushing torrent, and his own danger. He thought only of that frantically clinging man. He reached the edge of the stream, leaped upon the nearest logs, and, with the agility of a wildcat, threaded his way through that terrible labyrinth of grinding, crashing, ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... wildcat," he growled, yet with an unmistakable note of admiration in his voice, "if I sarved ye 'cordin' to yer earnin's, I'd shorely tap ye over thet-thar purty haid o' your'n, an' pitch ye over into the Devil's Kittle, to wait fer yer runt lover to come arter ye." He twisted her about viciously. ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... see the trees on the ridge-top like a fringe against the brightening sky. Louder sounded the crowing in the orchard, and to me it brought a warning that I must hurry. I looked to the northward, and saw only the mists covering the land, and in my fancy beyond them the mountains where bear and wildcat lurked. There the Professor and Penelope lay unconscious that even now the terrible warrant might be issuing and at any moment would fall upon them. There was only one thing for me to do, and though when I had closed the house door softly behind me and turned my back to the ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... true. They killed three of the men with their guns; they knifed another one, an' they killed Riley with their bare hands. It wasn't no pretty sight to see—the inside of that house. And last of all they got Piotto, fightin' like an old wildcat, into a corner with his daughter; and William Drew, he took Piotto into his arms and busted his back. That don't sound possible, but when you see Drew you'll ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... under some apprehensions during my absence from the land that at least my provisions might be devoured on shore; but when I came back, I found no sign of any visitor, only there sat a creature like a wildcat upon one of the chests, which, when I came towards it, ran away a little distance, and then stood still. She sat very composed and unconcerned, and looked full in my face, as if she had a mind to ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... drew a breath of pure ecstasy, rolled over and began pummelling the inert form of Bob, who had shared his blanket on an improvised bed in the cabin. The Delaware boy opened an eye, closed it again with carefully assumed drowsiness, and the next instant leaped like a joyful wildcat on his tormentor. There was a beautiful tussle that was only broken off by ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... himself with State politics as to be acceptable at home. In this way a man may become chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, because he knows how to pack a caucus in Catawampus County, or sent ambassador to Barataria, because he has drunk bad whiskey with every voter in Wildcat City. Should we ever attain to a conscious nationality, it will have the advantage of lessening the number of our great men, and widening our appreciation to the larger scale of the two or three that are left,—if there should be so many. Meanwhile we offer ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... Uncle Jim, as the boys and Polly called him, felt compelled to apply to rod to Dick—unjustly, as it afterward appeared—Bud burst into a tempest of passionate tears, and, leaping upon the Colonel's back, clung there clawing and striking like a wildcat until Allen was forced to let Dick go. It is shrewdly indicative of the Colonel's character that not only did he refrain from punishing Bud on that occasion, but, when floggings were subsequently due the little fellow, laid on the rod less heavily ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller
... her head, of course. She took me for a wildcat once, poor child. No, no—when she was sane she addressed me very properly. She's back on the old decorous ground now. Made me a beautiful little speech this morning, informing me that I had to stop calling her 'little girl,' for she was twenty-four ...
— Red Pepper's Patients - With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular • Grace S. Richmond
... and waving the blessing of peace and fellowship over the heads of "the children," they paused as they reached a consecrated place at the back of the lodge, facing the entrance to the east. Here the ground had been specially prepared, and a wildcat skin spread upon it for the reception of the "calumets." Over this skin, which had its symbolic meaning, the bearers waved the "calumets," imitating the movements of the eagle, sweeping lower and lower, rising and circling again, and then dropping ...
— Indian Story and Song - from North America • Alice C. Fletcher
... on the desert are the wildcat, coyote, rabbit, deer, rat, tortoise, scorpion, centipede, tarantula, Gila monster, chuck-walla, desert rattlesnake, side-winder, humming-bird, eagle, quail, and road-runner. Wild horses and wild donkeys, or "burros," frequent these great wastes, cropping the vegetation ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... have seen, came up to his chest, the giant's strength and swiftness were such that the woodsmen were taken by surprise, and Uncle Adam, who was in front, was almost caught. In spite of his bulk, he turned and sprang away with the agility of a wildcat; but if his snowshoes had turned and hindered him for one half second, he would have been struck down and trodden to a jelly in the smother of snow. Seeing the imminence of his peril, the other woodsmen threw up their rifles; but Uncle Adam, though ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... were mink, coon, muskrat, wildcat, and beaver. Besides this the stores advertised that they would take for their articles cash, beeswax, and country produce or tallow, hogs' lard in white walnut kegs, butter, pork, new feathers, good horses, and also corn, rye, oats, flax, and "old Congress money," ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... not like to hear a word about Sleepy Cave. It was the same old story with him, beginning, "I don't want to sleep all winter! Mrs. Maria Wildcat, she said, "Young cub, you won't be anything but a Baby Bear, eating porridge out of a little bowl, and sitting in a wee, wee chair, and sleeping in a wee, wee bed, for another hundred years if you lie around and sleep all winter! You'll never grow up!' She always ...
— Little Bear at Work and at Play • Frances Margaret Fox
... The immense forest shutting in the hamlet on every side had (p. 005) terrors to some as real as were its attractions to others. Its recesses were still the refuge of the deer; but they were also the haunt of the wildcat, the wolf, and the bear. All these characteristics of his early home made deep impression upon a nature fond of adventure, and keenly susceptible to the charm of scenery. When afterward in the first flush of his fame Cooper set out to revive the memory of the days of the pioneers, he said that ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... so, Lysander did not doubt but that it would be so. He concluded, therefore, not to catch Toby—that night. Moreover, he resolved to go back to his quarters and sleep. He was afraid of that wildcat; he dreaded the thought of trusting himself in the house with her. He durst not kill her, and he durst not go to sleep, leaving her alive. The Germans, perceiving his fear, looked at each other and grunted. That grunt was the German for ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... out from the whistle of the approaching express train, the engineer of which jerked his throttle wide open in hopes of clearing the oncoming wildcat car. ...
— The Circus Boys on the Plains • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... the impact, Percival's right fore-arm was jammed up under his chin. In the fraction of a second, Landover, unable to withstand this sudden, savage onslaught, toppled over backwards and, with his assailant clinging to him like a wildcat, found himself pinned down to the spacious, ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... coat. I got work at villainous wages in the establishment of John A. Gray and Green in Cliff Street, and I found board in a sufficiently villainous mechanics' boarding-house in Duane Street. The firm paid my wages in wildcat money at its face value, and my week's wage merely sufficed to pay board and lodging. By and by I went to Philadelphia and worked there some months as a "sub" on the "Inquirer" and the "Public Ledger." Finally I made a flying trip to Washington to see the sights there, and in ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... market, and no livin' man can guess that," said the owner of the D Bar Lazy R dogmatically. "Bob, you better put Dave with the crew of that wildcat you're ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... for play or comfort, just as the bull caribou comes up to lie in the snow, with the strong sea wind in his face, to escape the flies which swarm in the thickets below. Owl and hawk, fox and weasel and wildcat,—all the prowlers of the day and night have long since discovered these good hunting-grounds and leave the prints of wing and claw over the records of the wood-mice; but still Tookhees returns, led by ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... is better qualified to speak upon the issues of this campaign than Senator Sherman. He appeals to the thought and reason of his hearers, and he never appeals in vain, and rarely has he made a stronger appeal than in his Music Hall speech. The three issues discussed by him were wildcat currency, the silver question, and the protective tariff question. His discussion of the wildcat currency was exhaustive, and he pictured the evils that must flow from its resumption ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... has been done by church and school through centuries of cultivation is for the moment destroyed, and the decent gentleman or devout saint becomes a howling, bloodthirsty, demented savage. It is not long since we all were cavemen and followed game for food as truly as wildcat or wolf, and the long repression of civilization seems to make the rebound to savage love of blood all the more violent. This frenzy, fortunately, does not last long in its most exaggerated form, and after a season of wildness refined gentlemen from cities ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... little "yearling" toward the close of his first—the "plebe"—encampment, Loring actually kicked the offender out of his tent. The boy was no match for the older, heavier man, but flew at him like a wildcat then and there, and Loring suddenly found himself in a fierce and spirited battle. The little fellow had pluck, science and training, and Loring's eyes and nose were objects to behold in less than a minute. For that moment, shame-stricken, he fought on the defensive, then, stung by the taunts of ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... civilization and social practices of the alien victims made it unwise to tamper with them. Altair I had been recognized at once by the Trading Commission as a commercial prize of tremendous value, but early reports had warned of the danger of wildcat trading on the little, musty, jungle-like planet with its shaggy, three-eyed inhabitants—warned specifically against the confidence tactics so frequently used—but there was always somebody, Meyerhoff reflected sourly, who just ...
— Letter of the Law • Alan Edward Nourse
... money. In that case Hope fancied he would be once more called upon to make good the avuncular loss, and so the marriage would have to be postponed. But it so happened that the pauper uncle made some lucky speculative shots and acquired money, which he promptly reinvested in new mines of the wildcat description. Still, for the moment all was well, and the lovers had a few halcyon days of peace ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... dreamed of you all my life. I was glad when you came here. I've been happy lately. I forgot—till last night. Maybe it needed that to make me see I've loved you all the time.... And I fought him like a wildcat!... Tell me the truth. I feel I'm yours. Is that true? If I'm not—I'll not live another hour. Something holds me up. I am the same.... Do ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... been quietly neglecting their duties while taking a few chances, sit unmoved. Mr. Snivel thinks the woman better be removed. "Our half-starved mechanics," he says, "are a depraved set; and these wives they bring with them from the North are a sort of cross between a lean stage-driver and a wildcat. She seems a poor, destitute creature-just what they all come to, out here." Mr. Snivel shrugs his shoulders, bids George good night, and takes his departure. "Take care of yourself, George," he says admonitiously, as the destitute man watches him take his ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... like a sneaking wildcat, Puppy Reiss crept up and listened to the two women bewailing to each other how they had worked all the past week to clean up the house and scour the kitchen things, and complaining about all they had to ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke |
