The visitors from downriver had strange pale skin and blue eyes, but they left a deadly sickness of red spots and fever. Thirteen-year-old Millie and her younger sister Maura were the only survivors. As the first snowflakes fell the dogs were turning wild, and it was clear that the two girls must leave to find a new home. They loaded up a raft to take them away, and so began an epic journey through the harsh snowy landscape.

Raven jumped up and down, he stomped and stomped, until the overhang avalanched down, killing all the people below. For the rest of the winter, he dined on the corpses, savoring the delicate eyeballs, which were his favorite.

Soon enough, the current quickened as the river increased its descent from the high glacial lake. The girls no longer wondered at its name. Rushing water poured itself faster through the valley, and the canoe gathered speed. Both had to work harder and harder to avoid obstacles, which came at them faster and faster. They had no time for rest. Several times the canoe almost smashed into boulders jutting up into the sunlight, the roiling white waves spraying around them.
“Left!” Millie yelled above the din of the raging river.
“Go left!”
And Maura would yell back from the bow, pointing to some approaching object, “Look out!”
 
The girls paddled so forcefully their arms and shoulders soon sang with pain, but still they fought the water, blinking wetness from their eyes, desperately searching for the next threat. It took all their strength to keep the craft from being swamped. All the while, the dogs tried not to fall out of the canoe as the current twisted it this way and that, dipping into falls and shooting rapids.
Up ahead, on a sharp bend, the girls could see that a bank had given way and a large spruce tree, its roots still holding fast, leaned over the river, some of its branches dragging the surface: a sweeper. The girls paddled frantically, trying to win some distance from the danger, but the current was shoving the little boat straight at the tilted tree. As the canoe passed beneath the drooping boughs, almost sideways, the girls flattened themselves against their supplies.

“Tundra!” Maura shouted.
Millie looked up to see that the dog had been swept into the river. He was bobbing in the raging current, his paws working madly. Canoe and dog were careering together downriver, Tundra drifting farther and farther from the boat. Millie tried to turn the bow downstream, back-paddling to straighten the craft.
“Get ready to grab him!” she yelled once the bow was turned.
For a long, straight stretch the boat and the dog were side by side on the swift river. Maura reached for Tundra and tried to catch hold, but she was not strong enough to grip him to any good effect. He was tiring, the frigid water sapping his strength. His muscles were too cold to do as his brain told them. He was having trouble staying afloat.
Maura was crying. It would have been better had the girls left him tied and starving outside the old man’s empty cabin. At least there he would have survived the day.
“We have to save him!” Maura shouted. “Get closer!”
She leaned over the canoe as far as she could, and this time she managed to grasp Tundra’s scruff and pull him close, holding him tight against the side of the craft with all her strength. His eyes were wide and terrified. Millie crawled over the pile of supplies. Together, the sisters managed to pull the sopping, exhausted dog back into the boat.
No sooner had Millie crawled back to take her place at the stern than the boat struck a submerged boulder.
The impact turned the canoe sideways again. Downriver, a series of boulders, like the humps of a dozen giant bears, awaited them. The girls could hear the water rushing around the great stones. It was thunderous.

Millie looked for a gap big enough for the craft to pass through.
“Right side!” she screamed at Maura. “Paddle hard!
Harder!”
Both girls paddled furiously, digging deep, making each stroke count. But the rocks came too fast. The canoe smashed into one of the boulders, which held the craft for only a few seconds, tucking it against stone while the river poured itself into the canoe, swamping it. The dogs jumped out as the supplies were lifted out of the boat to swirl around the boulder, the chests and the tarp and the dried bundles of salmon, all spinning together, held fast by the foaming eddy. The screaming girls gripped the gunwales of the canoe. But when the gushing water had entirely filled it, the boat sank, taking Maura’s small game rifle with it, and the girls and the dogs were swept downriver amid the flotsam of their provisions.