4 WILD BROTHER 
the snow. Yes, they say the woman’s going to 
fetch him up with her baby. Don’t know what the 
idea is, but that’s what she’s doing, all right. I'll 
find out more about it for yer when Jim gets back.” 
Here was an astonishing incident, if it was true. 
I had, however, no time to verify it. Gordon’s 
lumber-camp was twenty-three miles back from the 
village, with only a rough logging road leading to 
it, and I must be at home next day. 
Before I left, the storekeeper promised to get 
the whole story for me, and to obtain permission 
from his son for me to visit the camp if I could 
manage to get away for another winter trip to the 
woods. 
Not long after my return to the city, however, a 
discouraging letter came from Maine. The bear had 
been sold, the storekeeper said, though the person 
who had bought it had not as yet come to take it 
away. If there was time in the interval before the 
cub left the lumber-camp for me to come down, he 
would write again. 
I had given up all hope of being able to verify 
my extraordinary bear story when, a week later, 
there came another letter, saying that the adopted 
cub was to stay on for the present at least, and that 
I could come as soon as I wished. 
Immediately I wrote the proprietor of the village 
hotel that I should arrive on the morning train on 
