The Border Patrol gets to count as success its own estimate of how many run back into Mexico — a fairly unscientific number that can rely on agents' reading of a footstep in the sand or a broken blade of grass.
But he and I must have felt that same marvelous mixture of delight and awe, terror and relief, at the scale of human achievement and the shift in history that hinged on a footstep.
Mr. Nicholl puts it suggestively: "He passes on his way to and from the street, keeping his slightly odd hours; he is a shadow in the doorway, a footstep on the stairs".
I was feeling quite proud of myself, convinced I would get a good grade for my work, when I heard a footstep on the stairs.
Both Ms. Lescar, an elementary- school teacher, and Mr. Atristain, a homicide detective in Richmond, grew up in houses with inexplicable goings-on -- footsteps, knocking, doorknobs that turned by themselves.
He always spoke first from behind her on a street, his footsteps silent.
More recently, Spanish investigating judges - following on the footsteps of a local investigative reporter - are considering issuing arrest warrants for the CIA rendition team that stopped in a Palma de Mallorca luxury hotel in the middle of a flight circuit that involved rendering both Khaled El-Mandi and Binyam Mohamed, the British detainee recently released from Guantanamo.
Humans can recognize the sound of footsteps, regardless of whether they hear footsteps on a pavement or on gravel, in the rain or in a hallway.
The frontier of space is just a follow-on – we're following on in the footsteps of those who preceded us, and hopefully we'll give those that follow-on in our footsteps the same opportunity that we had.
As if on cue our footsteps crackled, breaking a thin crust of sparkling ice covering a mossy depression.
