To die in one’s tracks is to die where one stands, without retreating.
1843. At the instant the rifle was fired, and its ball glancing entered his head and he fell dead in his tracks.—B. R. Hall (‘Robert Carlton’), ‘The New Purchase,’ i. 130.
1848. I got three or four swallers down before I begun to taste the dratted stuff, and you may depend it liked to killed me right ded in my tracks.—W. T. Thompson, ‘Major Jones’s Sketches of Travel,’ p. 73 (Phila.).
1863. Jefferson Davis, the rebel chieftain, three years ago, in this Chamber, boastfully announced that if blows were struck their northern Democratic friends would throttle us in our tracks.—Mr. Henry Wilson of Mass., U.S. Senate, Feb. 21: Cong. Globe, p. 1165/1.
1864. We are flanked, boys, but let’s die in our tracks.—‘Southern Hist. Soc. Papers,’ i. 437 (Richmond, 1876).
