Four or five of the shot-guns boomed at once; then the second barrels were discharged, along with a sharper cracking of small arms.

Still the same old intermittent cracking of the rifle shots and the occasional star shell.

A distant cracking was audible, like the noise of a formidable battery of mitrailleuses.

Whether it was the stupid colt or the loud cracking of the whip, or both together, I cannot say, but she gave a violent kick and dashed off into a headlong gallop.

Presently there would arise an ominous cracking.

He started up from his seat, but as he did so a blast that shook the house swept by; there was an awful cracking, then a crash, and, to his horror, a huge limb of the old oak came with an awful thud upon the very spot where his little niece was standing.

Except for an occasional far-off detonation and the more or less constant and, so to speak, absent-minded cracking of rifles, a mere keeping awake, apparently, and letting the men in the opposite trenches know you are awake, the afternoon was peaceful.

She did much more than the big whip's noisy cracking, did the little Fly, with the music straight from her buzzing heart!

Very often Cedric would stop and listen for the tramp of horses' feet; but there was naught save the occasional cracking of twigs as some wild thing jumped from the roadside frightened, or the stir of the high wind in the giant trees.

General Washburn noticed the sudden cracking of the incrustation before I did, and I was aroused to a sense of my peril by his shout of alarm, and had sufficient presence of mind to fall suddenly backwards at full length upon the sound crust, whence, with my feet and legs extended over the spring, I rolled to a place of safety.

He had been skating over the thinnest ice, and had reached the bank amid terrific crackings, and he began to appreciate the extent of the peril braved.

Suddenly a tremendous cracking was heard, as if the whole pile were tumbling in pieces.

There was a sliding swish, a vast cracking of branches.

As the boy crouched, pensive and distraught, he was suddenly aroused by a vivacious cracking.

The leader was trailing lame, and now and then the whole pack would settle back in their traces, to be urged on again by the fierce cracking of Croisset's long whip.

Some say the name was suggested by the fact that when not otherwise employed, they are constantly cracking the lice which swarm in their never-combed hair; others ascribe it to the frequent cracking of their rifles and long whip-lashes as they pursue their game or drive their cattle.

He called the hounds to order with hoarse oaths and furious crackings of the whip, and as he did so the rest of the field began to arrive, a laughing, trampling crowd of sportsmen who dropped into staring, astounded silence as they reached the scene.

But to pass from genus to species, the truly infernal cracking of whips in the narrow resounding streets of a town must be denounced as the most unwarrantable and disgraceful of all noises.

The internal crackings and detonations could be plainly heard, and a sheaf of smoke was swayed by the wind at the summit.