It was the only thing in his life for which he felt guilt.

His looting of the orderly room had taken only a minute or two and the vicinity was still clear of guerrillas.

It was pitiful to see the thin ranks of warriors, old and young, wheeling and twisting their ponies frantically from side to side only to be tumbled bleeding from their saddles by the relentless slam, slam of the cruelly efficient Hawkinses.

The fire had gone down, and the man was only a shadow against the trees.

There was only one place where Jake Carwood's description had gone badly awry: the peace and quiet.

It was the only thing about her that was the least bit hard to remember.

under the circumstances I was only too willing to confess all.

only the counter at one end was lighted by a long fluorescent tube suspended directly above it.

On a shelf in the office behind the counter was a small radio dialed permanently on a station which broadcast only vulgar commercials and cheap popular music.

Once, pressing him, I learned that his job was only part-time, in the afternoons when nothing went on in the hall.

Though only a relatively short walk separated it from my own part of town, its character was wholly foreign to me.

The river was only a few blocks away but an unbroken line of piers prevented me from seeing it.

Although it was dark as usual I could see that the hall had only recently contained a great many people.

This desire, I went on, growing voluble as my conviction was aroused, had mounted at such a rate recently that I now found its realization necessary not only to my physical but also to my spiritual wellbeing.

The only reason we brought you was to get Miller out.

The only thing which would have attracted attention was that two wore the uniform of prison guards, three the striped suits of convicts.

He had belonged to this land and, perhaps, had desecrated it -- and this was the only material symbol that remained of him.

There was only one place where the mountain might receive her -- that unnamed, unnameable pool harbored in its secret bosom.

Now, he could only play the last card in what was probably the world's coldest deck.

He was only vaguely aware of the sluicing rain.

He paused only long enough to ascertain that Jess's buckskin was still missing and that his own gray was all right, then climbed through a back window and dropped to the ground outside.

There was no lock on the door, only an iron hook which he unfastened.

Again he stood in the darkness listening, but there was only the scrape of a shod hoof on a plank floor.

The easiest thing would be to sell out to Al Budd and leave the country, but there was a stubborn streak in him that wouldn't allow it.

He didn't think it was possible for this couple to be pretending.

Evidently this was a precaution so that mounts would be available in an emergency.

He might tell her how sorry a spectacle she was making of herself, pretending to be blind to the way Julia Fortune had taken Dean's affections from her.

The coyote was calling again, and he hoped that this time there would be no other sounds to interrupt it.

Its front was windowless, but irregularities in the masonry might be an indication that windows, now blinded, had once looked out upon the street.

She regarded them as signs that she was nearing the glen she sought, and she was glad to at last be doing something positive in her unenunciated, undefined struggle with the mountain and its darkling inhabitants.

Having persisted too long in deliberate ignorance and denial of the forces that threatened her, Pamela was relieved now to admit their potency and to be taking definite steps toward grappling with them.

she must be poised and proud and unafraid in order to prove to the mountain that she was in earnest.

There was a peculiar density about it, a thick substance that could be sensed but never identified, never actually perceived.

The herd was watered and then thrown onto a broad grass flat which was to be the first night's bedground.

It was to be nothing more than that.

There was to be no gunplay.

If you don't leave this country within 3 days, your life will be taken the same as Powell's was.

Probably his horse would be close to where he was hiding.

Carmer himself was nowhere to be seen.

There was a feeling that this mission would be canceled like all the others and that this muddy wet dark world of combat would go on forever.

Visibility continued to be limited, and Greg was never able to get above a thousand feet.

It was going to be dangerous.

Forced to realize that this was the end of a very short line I scanned a road marker and discovered what the end of a slightly longer line would be for the old Mexican: Moriarty, New Mexico.

Over the rapidly-diminishing outline of a jump seat piled high with luggage Herry's black brushcut was just discernible, near, or enviably near that spot where -- hidden -- more delicately-textured, most beautifully tinted hair must still be streaming back in cool, oh cool wind sweetly perfumed with sagebrush and yucca flowers and engine fumes.

Mrs. Roebuck thought Johnson was a `` sweet bawh t'lah lahk thet '', but her Herman was getting to be a man, there was no getting around it.