Summary

A man named Gordon is the main character of this story, and he relates the narrative in the first person limited point of view. Gordon and his family have survived a massive ice age, leaving them among only a handful of survivors. The people in the area have formed a close-knit community. Gordon hunts with the men in the village and the women of the village spend their days repairing clothing and blankets and preparing what little food the community has available. There is a hated family that lives far off in the distance.

The Paulson family, headed by Mr. Phil Paulson, is a family with a humungous, two-story igloo and a constantly burning fire. Tom, a man who hunts with Gordon, becomes increasingly more upset about the fact that Phil and his family are wasting so much of the precious wood in...