near-spent

Updated: May 10, 2025

So far from things being as bad as they could be, the rapid events of that same morning proved that still more confusion was to ensue, and that speedily. There came riding into the post from the westward a little party of old-time mountain men, driving their near-spent mounts and packs at a speed unusual even in that land of vast distances.

Emerson Hough - The Covered Wagon

Every mother's son of them fell flat upon his pony; they all swooped to right and to left as if the bullets had cleaved them apart in the center; and while I gaped, wondering, they swept past at long range, half on either flank, pelting in bullet and near-spent arrow. She forced me down. "Low, low," she warned. "They'll circle. They hold their scalps dearly. We can only wait. That was three.

Edwin L. (Edwin Legrand) Sabin - Desert Dust