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But to Lois the best enjoyment of all was to accompany Steve on his rounds to his rabbit snares. The forest was a revelation to her. She knew it well in summer, but nothing about its winter moods, such as the weird silence of a frosty morning, broken only at times by the pistol-like report from a distant tree.
A sharp, pistol-like noise rent the air, a noise which told its own tale to the listening ears. A tyre had punctured, and a dreary half-hour's delay must be faced while the youthful chauffeur repaired the damage. The passengers leaped to the ground, and exhausted themselves in lamentations.
The "Kirra-kul" tree provides also the means of obtaining that joy in loud explosions which is instinctive in the boy, whatsoever his race or colour. Young, lusty shoots several feet long, and full of sap, are placed in the fire for a few minutes, and upon being "bashed" on a log or other hard substance the heated gas contained in the pithy core bursts out with a pistol-like report.
He had become an expert in the use of his whip over the backs of his splendid dogs. Skillfully he whirled it, and its pistol-like report rang out over them, but not once did it inflict a stinging blow. "Ho! ho! my gallants! With Scotland's best staghound's blood in your veins, and Scotland's names, my bonny dogs, for Scotland win the day!"
Involuntarily the mouth opens: the air rushes in the Eustachian tube, and with sudden velocity strikes the intruded tension of the drum, which snaps back to its normal state with a sharp, pistol-like crack. The strain is momently relieved to be renewed again, and again relieved by the same attending salutes.
"Tap-tap" sounded the blinds which were drawn over the western windows. A pleasant little breeze was trying to come in. "Buzz" sounded a fly on the wall. Bubble arose noisily and killed it with a resounding "thwack." "Wake the doctor, would you?" he said. "Take that!" But even the pistol-like report which accompanied the fly's demise failed to ruffle the sleeper.
While I was chuckling to myself over this, and picking the twigs from my clothes, I heard the pistol-like crack of a bullock whip, and then, quite near at hand, the cries of a 'bullocky, as they called the bullock-drivers thereabout, full of morning-time vehemence. 'Woa, Darkey! Gee, Roan! Baldy, gee! Nigger! Strawberry! Gee, now, Punch! I'll y well trim you in a minute, me gentleman.
I went to a drawer and took out an instrument, and as I approached him he glared at me more savagely than ever, and laid his right hand once more upon the ugly, pistol-like hilt of his kris. Now, sir, what would you have done under the circumstances?" "Bolted," said Archie laconically. "I don't believe you," said Minnie. "What! and left two defenceless women at his mercy, sir?
The crunching and groaning of the wagons, rattling of the enormous cable chains, and the creaking of the heavy yokes of the oxen were awful sounds, but above all came the yells of the drivers, and the sharp, pistol-like reports of the long whips that they mercilessly cracked over the backs of the poor beasts. It was most distressing.
The pistol-like crack of the driver's whip was an intimation to Bruin which he understood, for he slowly dropped into the thick brush and rolled awkwardly away from the roadside.
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