draw back the hammer

His body trembled as if with passion, as he started to draw back the hammer.

“Huh! got any licker?” went on Si, still eying the boys steadily with that half threat in his bloodshot eyes, that Giraffe knew meant trouble, sooner or later, so that he almost instinctively allowed his thumb to draw back the hammer of his big bore rifle.

The thumb did not draw back the hammer.

He closed the breech; but as he was about to draw back the hammer all his courage, all his resolution, crumbled in an instant like a tower of sand.