to lay
fox-traps, early in the morning of December 4, he set out with a couple
of Cossack friends to visit a native house. Korelin, the rescued
castaway, and two other men kept guard at the huts.[2]

At that time, and until very recently, the Aleuts' winter dwelling was
a domed, thatched roof over a cellar excavation three or four feet
deep, circular and big enough to lodge a dozen families. The entrance
to this was a low-roofed, hall-like annex, dark as night, leading with
a sudden pitch downward into the main circle. Now, whether the Aleut
had counted burning fagots, or kept tally some other way, the count was
up. Barely had Drusenin stepped into the dark of the inner circle,
when a blow clubbed down on his skull that felled him to earth. The
Cossack, coming second, had stumbled over the prostrate body before
either had any suspicion of danger; and in a {92} second, both were cut
to pieces by knives traded to the Indians the day before for otter
skins.

Shevyrin, the third man, happened to be carrying an axe. One against a
score, he yet kept his face to the enemy, beat a retreat backward
striking right and left with the axe, then turned and fled for very
life, with a shower of arrows and lances falling about him, that
drenched him in his own blood. Already a crash of muskets told of
battle at the huts. More dead than alive, the pursued Russian turned
but to strike his assailants back. Then, he was at the huts almost
stumbling over the man who had probably been doing sentinel duty but
was now under the spears of the crowd--when the hut door opened; and
Korelin, the Russian, dashed out flourishing a yard-long bear knife
under protection of the other guard's musket fire from the window,
slashed to death two of the nearest Indians, cut a swath that sent the
others scattering, seized the two wounded men, dragged them inside the
hut, and slammed the door to the enraged yells of the baffled warriors.

Some one has said that Oonalaska and Oomnak are the smelting furnaces
of America. Certainly, the volcanic caves supplied sulphur that the
natives knew how to use as match lighters. The savages were without
firearms, but might have burned out the Russians had it not been for
the constant fusillade of musketry from door and roof and parchment
windows of the hut. Two of the Russians were wounded and weak {93}
from loss of blood. The other two never remitted their guard day or
night for four days, neither sleeping