"Oh, I know where they go to, Mr. Mosby," replied Dixie Lee, showing her white teeth in a knowing smile. "If a man will suck eggs, he'll steal--you know that saying yourself--and I can tell by the shells around the fire here what's going on o' nights." "Oh, that's that big fat Brigham Clark!" spoke up Hardy Atkins. "You don't want to judge the whole outfit by _him_!" At this bare-faced libel Bowles cleared his throat to speak. He had noticed particularly on the evening before that the eggs were brought in by Happy Jack and Hardy Atkins himself; but before he could enter a protest a general rumble of laughter set him back to a thinking part. "Yes, sir!" observed Buck Buchanan, speaking to the world at large. "That feller sucks aigs worse'n a setter pup." "An' he don't deny it none, neither," commented Happy Jack, as poor Brigham blushed deeper and hung his head. "Jest born that way, I reckon," remarked Poker-face in a tone of pity; and then the whole outfit broke into a whoop of laughter. It was a new form of jesting to Bowles, and he retired to the shelter of the wood-pile. A sudden gloom had come over his soul, and it even affected his appetite, whetted keen by the cold, thin air. Of course, Dixie Lee had told him she would do so, but it seemed rather heartless not to look at him. He sat down with his back against the jagged juniper stubs and listened sullenly, while the punchers chuckled in front of him and continued to eat with their knives. "Aw, Brig's jest bashful, that's all," explained some simple-minded joker, after every one else had had his say; and as his hollow laughter rose up, Bowles wondered dimly why Brigham did not retort. The evening before, when he was telling stories around the fire, he had returned a Roland for an Oliver until even Hardy Atkins had been content to quit; but now he confined himself to self-conscious mutterings and exhortations to shut up. Perhaps the simple-minded joker was right--poor Brigham was bashful. But Dixie Lee had come down to get some eggs and she did not allow camp persiflage to divert her from her purpose. "Well, say," she said, getting up from the cook's private seat, "I came down to hunt for eggs--who wants to help me?" "That's where I shine!" cried Hardy Atkins, throwing his tin plate into the washtub with a great clatter. "They's a nest around hyer in the wood-pile!" He capered around the end of the wood-pile, and soon Bowles could hear him panting as he forced his way in between the crooked sticks. "Hyer they are!" he shouted at last. "I got a whole hatful--somebody pull me out by the laig!" There was a ripple of high-pitched laughter from Dixie Lee, an interval in which Bowles cursed his fate most heartily, and then a frantic outcry from Hardy: "Hey, there, don't pull so fast! You Dix, you'll break my aigs! Well, laugh, then, doggone it! Now see what you went and done!"