“Please don’t leave my mother and sister to die,” the cub pleaded.

“Of course we won’t,” Kallik said. “Yakone, what if we lay something on top of the snow? That way we could spread out our weight.”

“It might work,” Yakone murmured, measuring the distance with a glance. “Let’s see what we can find.”

Kallik spotted twigs sticking up at the edge of the churned-up earth and hauled out a long branch. “This would do, but we need to find more.”

Gradually the white bears built a path of logs and branches out toward the uprooted oak. Then Kallik crept along it, with Yakone just behind her, ready to drag her out of the snow if the support gave way. The branches creaked, and some of them snapped under the weight of Kallik’s paws, but they kept her on top of the snow and earth. At last she reached the oak tree and leaned carefully off the edge of the wooden path to dig with her front paws.

“Can you find anything?” Yakone called from behind her.

Kallik shook her head. “There’s no sign of them near the surface,” she reported. “Let me listen.”

Crouching down, she pressed her ear to the snow. Yakone edged his way to her side and felt the surface gently with one paw.

“I think there’s something under here,” he said. “Can you hear anything?”

“I’m not sure. . . .” Kallik strained to listen, remembering how skillful Yakone was at sensing what was underneath snow. “Wait. Yes . . . I can hear tiny little scrabbling sounds. Dig down here!”

Lifting each pawful of snow out as gently as they could, Kallik and Yakone scooped a hole, shoring up the sides with branches as they went.

“This reminds me of how my mother built the walls of our den when I was a cub,” Yakone said.

Kallik nodded. “Me too. But she didn’t have to do it in the middle of an avalanche!”

“What’s happening?” the little cub yelped from the edge of the snowfall. “Oh, please hurry!”

“We can’t hurry,” Yakone called back. “But don’t worry—we’re doing our best!”

Kallik began to despair as they dug farther and farther into the chaos of snow and ice and rocks. We should have found something by now. This can’t be the right place. . . .

Then, instead of more snow, her paw landed against soaked fur. Peering into the hole, she spotted a sodden brown flank. “Yakone! Here!” she exclaimed.

With delicate scrapes, Kallik shifted the snow from around the body until she revealed a tiny cub, even smaller than the one who waited under the trees. She fastened her teeth gently in the cub’s scruff and drew her out. The little bear felt icy cold and had no sign of life in her at all.

Please, spirits, let her be alive! Kallik prayed.