The menace was serious, but the men up there could not see their targets below, and they themselves were in a precarious position.
Henry once pointed his rifle toward a portion of the roof from which a slight sound came, but for a reason that he did not give he withheld his fire.

Then came a dead stillness, to be broken a few moments later by fierce war cries all around the cabin and a crash of rapid shots.

It seemed to Paul that an attack in great force was being made from every side, and, thrusting his rifle through the loophole, he fired quickly at what he took to be the flitting form of a foe.

The next moment he became aware of a terrible struggle in the cabin itself.

He heard a thud, the roar of a rifle shot within the confined space, a fall, and then, in the half darkness, he saw two powerful figures writhing to and fro.