Chapter 4 of Smoke of the .45 is here in full — 141 sentences across 29 reading sections, with audio for every sentence and word.
A keeper or guardian of historical records and memories.
Chapter IV
Chapter 4 of Smoke of the .45 is here in full — 141 sentences across 29 reading sections, with audio for every sentence and word.
FOOT-LOOSE The crowd began trooping downstairs as Doc put the body back on the bed and covered it. Johnny Dice shook his head as he turned to follow his friends. There was something wrong about this affair. He felt it long before he was able to put his fingers on anything definitely suspicious. His tilt with Gallup was of no consequence.
Chapter 4 of Smoke of the .45 is here in full — 141 sentences across 29 reading sections, with audio for every sentence and word.
Reading 1/28 · 5 reading units · Lines 1–5
These definitions explain words found in the current reading and keep every example grounded in its original sentence.
Oxford-style entry order: headword, part of speech, US IPA, concise definition, contextual example, and audio.
without question and beyond doubt
From this reading “He felt it long before he was able to put his fingers on anything definitely suspicious.”
a small cube with 1 to 6 spots on the six faces; used in gambling to generate random numbers
From this reading “Johnny Dice shook his head as he turned to follow his friends.”
a licensed medical practitioner
From this reading “FOOT-LOOSE The crowd began trooping downstairs as Doc put the body back on the bed and covered it.”
on a floor below
From this reading “FOOT-LOOSE The crowd began trooping downstairs as Doc put the body back on the bed and covered it.”
a town in northwestern New Mexico near the Arizona border
From this reading “His tilt with Gallup was of no consequence.”
openly distrustful and unwilling to confide
From this reading “He felt it long before he was able to put his fingers on anything definitely suspicious.”
to incline or bend from a vertical position
From this reading “His tilt with Gallup was of no consequence.”
-ing form of “troop” — march in a procession
From this reading “FOOT-LOOSE The crowd began trooping downstairs as Doc put the body back on the bed and covered it.”
English keeps certain words together, and knowing the pair is worth more than knowing each word alone. Every partnership below was counted across our whole published library, and earns its place by appearing far more often than two unrelated words of the same frequency would.
Shown as this reading writes them, with the form the library counts, what kind of pairing it is, and how often it occurs.
In this reading “He felt it long before he was able to put his fingers on anything definitely suspicious.”
In this reading “FOOT-LOOSE The crowd began trooping downstairs as Doc put the body back on the bed and covered it.”
Every word in these five lines is listed here, and every one of them can be played on its own.
Dictionary details are shown only when verified; these are not licensed Oxford entries.
(usually followed by “to”) having the necessary means or skill or know-how or authority to do something
From this reading He felt it long before he was able to put his fingers on anything definitely suspicious.
on the subject of; concerning
From this reading There was something wrong about this affair.
a vaguely specified concern
From this reading There was something wrong about this affair.
used to join words or parts of a sentence that go together
From this reading FOOT-LOOSE The crowd began trooping downstairs as Doc put the body back on the bed and covered it.
any thing at all
From this reading He felt it long before he was able to put his fingers on anything definitely suspicious.
at the same time that; because; in the way that
From this reading FOOT-LOOSE The crowd began trooping downstairs as Doc put the body back on the bed and covered it.
in or to or toward a former location
From this reading FOOT-LOOSE The crowd began trooping downstairs as Doc put the body back on the bed and covered it.
a piece of furniture that provides a place to sleep
From this reading FOOT-LOOSE The crowd began trooping downstairs as Doc put the body back on the bed and covered it.
earlier than; in front of
From this reading He felt it long before he was able to put his fingers on anything definitely suspicious.
inflected form of “begin” — take the first step or steps in carrying out an action
From this reading FOOT-LOOSE The crowd began trooping downstairs as Doc put the body back on the bed and covered it.
the entire physical structure of an organism (an animal, plant, or human being)
From this reading FOOT-LOOSE The crowd began trooping downstairs as Doc put the body back on the bed and covered it.
a phenomenon that follows and is caused by some previous phenomenon
From this reading His tilt with Gallup was of no consequence.
overlaid or spread or topped with or enclosed within something; sometimes used as a combining form
From this reading FOOT-LOOSE The crowd began trooping downstairs as Doc put the body back on the bed and covered it.
cause to herd, drive, or crowd together
From this reading FOOT-LOOSE The crowd began trooping downstairs as Doc put the body back on the bed and covered it.
without question and beyond doubt
From this reading He felt it long before he was able to put his fingers on anything definitely suspicious.
a small cube with 1 to 6 spots on the six faces; used in gambling to generate random numbers
From this reading Johnny Dice shook his head as he turned to follow his friends.
a licensed medical practitioner
From this reading FOOT-LOOSE The crowd began trooping downstairs as Doc put the body back on the bed and covered it.
on a floor below
From this reading FOOT-LOOSE The crowd began trooping downstairs as Doc put the body back on the bed and covered it.
mat together and make felt-like
From this reading He felt it long before he was able to put his fingers on anything definitely suspicious.
plural of “finger” — any of the terminal members of the hand (sometimes excepting the thumb)
From this reading He felt it long before he was able to put his fingers on anything definitely suspicious.
to travel behind, go after, come after
From this reading Johnny Dice shook his head as he turned to follow his friends.
Dictionary entry pending editorial verification. Tap Listen to hear the word.
From this reading FOOT-LOOSE The crowd began trooping downstairs as Doc put the body back on the bed and covered it.
plural of “friend” — a person you know well and regard with affection and trust
From this reading Johnny Dice shook his head as he turned to follow his friends.
a town in northwestern New Mexico near the Arizona border
From this reading His tilt with Gallup was of no consequence.
a man, boy, or male animal already mentioned, as the subject
From this reading Johnny Dice shook his head as he turned to follow his friends.
the upper part of the human body or the front part of the body in animals; contains the face and brains
From this reading Johnny Dice shook his head as he turned to follow his friends.
belonging to a man, boy, or male animal already mentioned
From this reading Johnny Dice shook his head as he turned to follow his friends.
a thing, animal, or idea already mentioned
From this reading FOOT-LOOSE The crowd began trooping downstairs as Doc put the body back on the bed and covered it.
“Johnny” was applied as a nickname for Confederate soldiers by the Federal soldiers in the American Civil War; “greyback” derived from their grey Confederate uniforms
From this reading Johnny Dice shook his head as he turned to follow his friends.
primarily temporal sense; being or indicating a relatively great or greater than average duration or passage of time or a duration as specified
From this reading He felt it long before he was able to put his fingers on anything definitely suspicious.
not any; not one
From this reading His tilt with Gallup was of no consequence.
belonging to, or connected with, somebody or something
From this reading His tilt with Gallup was of no consequence.
touching and supported by a surface
From this reading FOOT-LOOSE The crowd began trooping downstairs as Doc put the body back on the bed and covered it.
put into a certain place or abstract location
From this reading FOOT-LOOSE The crowd began trooping downstairs as Doc put the body back on the bed and covered it.
a disassembled barrel; the parts packed for storage or shipment
From this reading Johnny Dice shook his head as he turned to follow his friends.
a thing, without saying which
From this reading There was something wrong about this affair.
openly distrustful and unwilling to confide
From this reading He felt it long before he was able to put his fingers on anything definitely suspicious.
used before a noun that is already known, already mentioned, or the only one of its kind
From this reading FOOT-LOOSE The crowd began trooping downstairs as Doc put the body back on the bed and covered it.
in or at that place or location
From this reading There was something wrong about this affair.
used for a person or thing that is near, or that has just been mentioned
From this reading There was something wrong about this affair.
to incline or bend from a vertical position
From this reading His tilt with Gallup was of no consequence.
used before the base form of a verb to make the infinitive
From this reading Johnny Dice shook his head as he turned to follow his friends.
-ing form of “troop” — march in a procession
From this reading FOOT-LOOSE The crowd began trooping downstairs as Doc put the body back on the bed and covered it.
moved around an axis or center
From this reading Johnny Dice shook his head as he turned to follow his friends.
the past form of “be” used with I, he, she, it, or a singular noun
From this reading There was something wrong about this affair.
in the company of; together with
From this reading His tilt with Gallup was of no consequence.
not correct; not in conformity with fact or truth
From this reading There was something wrong about this affair.
Chapter 4 of Smoke of the .45 by Harry Sinclair Drago holds 141 sentences, grouped into 29 reading sections of at most 5 sentences. The text is the source edition, unabridged, and the chapter records which sentences cover which part of the work so that nothing is dropped. Every word can be tapped for its pronunciation and dictionary entry.
Chapter 4 holds 141 sentences of Smoke of the .45, unabridged, divided into 29 reading sections.
This page carries chapter 4 of Smoke of the .45 by Harry Sinclair Drago exactly as it stands in the source edition, without abridgement. It runs to 141 sentences, grouped into 29 sections of at most 5 sentences so that a reader can take the chapter in steady, finishable pieces. The chapter also stores a coverage record mapping every one of its sentences to a part of the work, which is how the edition demonstrates that no line was dropped.
Work through the 29 sections in order, replaying any sentence and tapping unfamiliar words for their entries.
Each of the 29 sections in this chapter is short enough to read once, hear once, and then re-read with the vocabulary in view. Tapping a word plays it alone and opens its dictionary entry with IPA, part of speech and meaning, so the reader is never forced to guess a pronunciation from spelling. Working section by section keeps a long chapter from becoming an undifferentiated wall of text, which is the usual reason a reader abandons a work of this period.
Yes — every sentence and every individual word in chapter 4 can be played aloud in United States English.
Audio covers the whole chapter: any sentence can be played, and any single word within it can be played on its own. The voice uses United States English. For a work of this period that matters, because spelling is an unreliable guide to pronunciation for vocabulary that has fallen out of daily use, and a learner who guesses wrong tends to keep the error. Hearing the word in its own sentence, and then alone, settles it.
Common questions about reading Smoke of the .45 by Harry Sinclair Drago on this page, its source edition and its audio.
Yes. All 5164 sentences of Project Gutenberg eBook #63072 are kept, with a record of which sentences cover which part.
Project Gutenberg eBook #63072, unabridged. The Project Gutenberg header, footer and licence are removed.
About 430 minutes of reading across 1033 sections of 5 sentences each, at an unhurried pace.
How to work through Smoke of the .45 section by section, using the audio and the tap-to-define vocabulary.
Choose one of the 33 chapters of Smoke of the .45 to begin.
Each section holds 5 sentences; read it once through.
Play the section aloud, then tap any unfamiliar word for its entry.
Words and structures a reader meets early in Smoke of the .45, each tappable for pronunciation and meaning.
