Leaving Yakone to keep on digging, Kallik carried the cub to the edge of the snow.

“Yas! Yas!” her brother shrieked, jumping up and down. His eyes bulged as Kallik laid the little body down beside him. “Is she dead?” he whimpered.

“Let’s hope not,” Kallik responded, though she feared the worst. “Come on, lick her and rub her fur to get her warm again.”

The cub crouched over his sister and started to lick her vigorously. “Wake up, Yas,” he encouraged her.

Kallik licked and rubbed, too, and at last the she-cub let out a faint squeak. Her eyelids flickered, and she coughed up a mouthful of melting snow.

“Oh, thank the spirits!” Kallik exclaimed. “You keep licking her,” she instructed the male cub. “I’ll help Yakone dig your mother out.”

When Kallik had edged back over the path of branches, she saw that Yakone had already dug down deeper and uncovered the mother bear. Kallik helped him to clear more snow and debris from around her, shoring up the walls with branches like before. While they were working, the mother bear coughed and raised her head feebly.

“Wapi? Yas?” she murmured.

“Your cubs are safe,” Kallik reassured her. “Now we have to get you out.”

The bear tried to get to her paws, but only flopped down into the hole again with a groan. “I’m sorry. I can’t climb out,” she said.

“And she’s too heavy for us to lift,” Yakone murmured to Kallik. “What are we going to do? It’s already getting dark.”

Kallik had been so absorbed in rescuing the brown bears that she had hardly noticed the sun setting. Now twilight covered the slopes, the snow shining eerily in the light of the first stars.

“Rest for a bit,” Kallik said to the mother bear.

“But I need to see my cubs. Are you sure they’re not hurt?” The brown she-bear made another massive effort to get up, only to sink back again.

“Stay where you are,” Kallik urged. “I’ll bring the cubs to you.” She padded back along the path to the cubs. “We’ve found your mother,” she told them. “She’s fine, but she needs to rest. I’ll take you to her. We’ve made her a sort of den.”

The male cub, Wapi, jumped up and down, letting out a shrill roar of delight. His sister Yas still looked shaky, but her eyes shone.

Kallik nudged Wapi ahead of her along the path, then picked up Yas by her scruff and followed. Wapi jumped down into the hole with his mother, and Kallik lowered Yas down after him. The mother bear drew them to her, and they snuggled into her fur.

“This isn’t safe,” Yakone said quietly to Kallik.

“We can’t keep them apart,” Kallik responded. “If the hole starts to collapse, we’ll get the cubs out of there.”