He nevertheless managed to get the muzzle in the air and pull the trigger.

He remembered even in that terrible moment to do that much and Tayoga would hear the sharp, lashing report.

Then the horde was upon him.

Someone struck him a stunning blow on the side of the head with the flat of a tomahawk, and he fell unconscious.
When he returned to the world, the twilight had come, the hole in the snow had been enlarged very much, and so had the fire.

Seated around it were a dozen Indians, wrapped in thick blankets and armed heavily, and one white man whose attire was a strange compound of savage and civilized.