20 WILD BROTHER 
The voice was soon quieted, and the men told me 
that Mrs. Weldon was feeding the cub. Weldon, I 
may say now, is not the real name of this kind- 
hearted woman, but it will serve to identify her 
throughout this narrative and will make it unneces- 
sary for me to reveal her own equally good Ameri- 
can name, which, because she shuns publicity, she 
prefers to have remain unknown. 
Now I learned for the first time the truth about 
the bear — how it happened that Mrs. Weldon 
took him in. It is unusual for a woman to have 
anything to do with a logging-camp; few of the 
wives whose husbands work in the woods ever see 
the winter quarters of their men. All winter long 
the lumberjacks are away, often not returning until 
the snow has gone, in the spring. It so chanced, 
however, that Mrs. Weldon’s husband was a good 
cook, and backwoods cooks are in great demand. 
In the fall of the year, when the lumber boss of- 
fered him a job at good pay, he at first refused it, 
saying that he didn’t care to leave his wife and 
the five children back at home. But Gordon, who 
wanted a cook badly, suggested that he bring the 
wife and children with him, and occupy a cabin 
adjoining the camp. The bargain was made, and 
Mrs. Weldon with the five little ones — two of 
them adopted and all under five years of age — 
moved back into the forest twenty-three miles from 
her home village, where through the winter snows, 
