“No; only the two,” replied Bob, coolly. “You see, the starving and heat were too much for them. Whitney did everything he could for them, but, as he said, they died off like flies.”
Mark looked at him in horror.
“How can you be so brutally cynical?” he said, with a shudder.
“Who’s brutally cynical?” cried Bob, indignantly, and forgetting all the doctor’s orders. “I’m very sorry, of course. We did all we could to save the poor fellows, but they died, and there’s an end of them. I don’t feel bound to be miserable because the doctor couldn’t save them.”
Mark’s brow contracted a little. He felt that he did not like Bob Howlett half so well as of old, but that perhaps he had been too hard in calling him brutally cynical, and he spoke more gently now.
“Who were the two that recovered?”
“Eh? I dunno.”
Mark stared.
“Well, how should I know what their names are? Hashy and Quashy, or something of the kind. They’re out and outers to eat, and don’t seem a bit the worse. I called ’em Soup and Taters yesterday after seeing ’em at their feeding.”
“What are you talking about?”