For some minutes he had been standing, his glove off, and this pistol clasped in his hand.

He was so excited that he had entirely forgotten the intense coldness of the air.

He attempted to aim the pistol and to curl his forefinger around the trigger, but his hand and wrist were stiff, his fingers were stiff.

His pistol-barrel pointed at an angle downward; he had no power to straighten it or to pull the trigger.

Standing thus, his face white with the rage of impotence and his raised hand shaking as if it had been palsied, he was struck full in the face with the shell from Marcy's wide-mouthed pistol.