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the
bow of the stricken vessel.
    As the seal hunters watched, the “powder men”—these young
men had to be quick on their feet—knelt on the ice and tried to
find a hole suitable to push the ends of the poles beneath the
surface. It was a difficult task, and at first it seemed they would
have to resort to axes to chop a hole in the pressing ice. They
finally found a suitable opening between the tumbled ice pans
and rammed the powder cans, their smoking lucifers already lit,
below the ice until they disappeared with only the black tips of
the blasting tips showing above the ice.
    To the shouts of “Run, ya young buggers, run!” from the
captain and excited yells from the watching men, the powder men
raced back toward the ship, weaving around and jumping over
the hummocks of ice. The shouting men fell suddenly silent when
the two blasters reached them. For several seconds there was no
sound at all. Then a deep, muffled rumble came from below the
ice and, with a tumultuous whump , the exploding powder burst
itself free of the ice. Pulverized snow and blue ice shot into the air
and fell back like white chowder. Several thick, sheared ice pans
rolled over, exposing their blue undersides.
    A narrow black lead of water appeared. The sails bent. The
schooner lurched ahead a few feet and tried to right itself, but
then stopped again. A frantic yell from the schooner’s deck sent
the powder men racing back toward the vessel’s straining bow
again.
    The process was repeated as before. A second blast bellowed
upward, spending its energy among the tumbling ice pans.
Another, wider lead of roiling water appeared. The schooner
eagerly plunged its way into it, surging forward, seizing its chance
for freedom. The men shouted in triumph and went running after
the slow-moving schooner with its ropes trailing.
    The explosion of sound roared away over the ice toward the
nearby land, the second sound wave following the first up through
a mountain gorge, to die at the very edge of a silent valley.

CHAPTER 3
    PRESENTLY , MATTIE CAME UPON A SMALL , snow-covered
clearing in the middle of the thick forest. At the north side of
the clearing and nestled into the edge of the trees stood a rough
wigwam with a south-facing skin door. The trees in the place
had not been cut and the clearing seemed to be natural. There
are many such in every forest. The white surface of a small pond
showed beyond the trees, and behind the wigwam Mattie could
hear more than see a small stream running toward the small body
of water. Listening to the burble of the stream, he noted another
sign of the fading winter. When he had left this place a week ago
the brook was frozen and silent.
    He stopped at the edge of the heavy trees to examine the
wigwam. The structure blended in so completely with its
surroundings that a furtive glance could very well have passed
over it. It stood no more than ten feet wide at its circular base and
its height ended in a narrow, conical shape about as high as the
base was wide. Dozens of smooth, unpeeled, green aspen poles
had long since been driven into the earth at an oblique angle.
Their raised, axe-sharpened, crossed ends were blackened from
countless campfires. This wooden skeleton was covered with
overlapping layers of pale white birch bark that stopped shortof the raised pole ends. Lodged over this bark layer and resting
between each underlying pole were more poles of slender aspen
holding the thin natural covering secure. The door was made
from the hides of two or more stitched caribou quarters, the thick
fur intact and laced at the top.
    Nothing seemed disturbed and after a while Mattie stepped
boldly across the clearing and approached the wigwam. When he
released the heavy load from his tired shoulders and straightened
his back, he staggered just a bit with the sudden relief from the
day-long weight. The thump line left a reddish mark across
his forehead. Wisps of steam that had been clinging to his