“There’s no question of right or wrong,” said my uncle quietly. “If we do not take these fellows with us it means leaving them to starve to death in the forest, for they have neither gun, boat, nor fishing tackle.”
“But it would be wrong not to take them,” I said.
“Yes,” replied my uncle drily. Then he was silent for a few minutes while he turned back the skin from the bird’s wing joints, and all at once made me look at him wonderingly, for he said “Bill!” with the handle of the knife in his teeth.
“What about Bill?” I said.
“Bill—Cross,” continued my uncle. “What’s the other’s name?”
“Boy,” I said, laughing. “I never heard him called anything else. Hadn’t we better call the carpenter Man?”
“It would be just as reasonable,” said my uncle. “Ask the boy his name.”
By this time our new acquisition was dry, and I stared at him, for he seemed to be someone else as he dusted off the last of the sand.
It was not merely that he had got rid of the dirt and reduced the tar smudges, but that something within was lighting up his whole face in a pleasant, hearty grin as he looked up at me brightly in a way I had never seen before.
“Is my face better, Mr Nat?” he said.