26 WILD BROTHER 



mother ; I am hungry and forsaken." The sound 

 of his wailing was startlingly like that of an infant ; 

 anyone unaware would have said that a child was 

 in distress. His whimpering little call for help, 

 repeated again and again, touched the woman's 

 tender heart ; it suddenly occurred to her that there 

 was one way out. She herself could save its life 

 by letting it share the food that she was giving to 

 her baby girl. 



"You have killed its mother and I alone can save 

 it," she said to her husband. "Poor lonely creature. 

 I '11 do my best to bring it up." 



And so, with pity in her heart, she cherished the 

 cub and took it to her breast. From the 23d of 

 January she had nursed it daily, and the milk of 

 human kindness had sustained and saved its life. 



Here was a story, sure enough. Was ever one 

 like it told before ? 



It was very late when we retired. I took the in- 

 side of the bunk close to the logs of the wall. My 

 big bedfellow was soon fast asleep, and save for 

 the deep and regular breathing of the tired men and 

 the hum of the tea-kettle on the stove, all was 

 quiet. 



For a long time I lay wide-awake. A lantern 

 suspended from one of the rafters overhead shed a 

 dim light on the simple wooded interior. Up above 

 the stove, on a frame of sapling poles, long rows 



