'No food, all lost', said the girl. 'We die ever so soon'. She sat on the trunk of a fallen tree. 'No man's here', she said. 'Land of bears, all ever bears'. Rafe the white boy had been forbidden to play with the 'heathen' Indian girl Tawena. But when the two are swept on an ice floe into the heart of the North American wilderness, far from the settlers' village, only the girl's Indian skills can preserve them from the awesome danger they face. Can Rafe adopt the Indian expertise he needs to enable them to survive? And why does Tawena disappear when they meet two Indian women? This is a compelling novel of survival and of the growing respect between cultures, told by a master storyteller. 'A tremendous writer' - "Irish Times".