“Well, as soon as I saw them eggs I knew what had happened. The yaller was drippin’ down the sides of the crate an’ there wasn’t a whole egg in the lot. Thinks I, I’ll cart the box home, anyway, an’ show the boss. So I shoves her in the back of this here bus an’ sets out for the 8 X 8. Well, sir, believe it or not, when I hit the ranch, every last one of them eggs was back in their shells, just as they were the day the hens laid ’em! _Careful!_ Why--” “Whoa, Bug Eye, you’re going around a curve!” Teddy sang out. “Take it easy! You’ll strain yourself! I guess the girls know by this time what a careful driver you are.” “We do,” Nell said laughingly. “We didn’t even know we were riding!” With a nod of approval at this remark, Bug Eye once more took his place behind the wheel, and with a shout of, “telephone if you need anything and I’ll bring it over in the tin puddle-jumper,” the puncher started with a rush back to the 8 X 8. “He’s quite a boy,” Roy remarked as, carrying the girls’ week-end bags, or “pocket-books,” as Bug Eye called them, he led the way into the house. Teddy went to put the horses in the corral for the night. “He surely is,” Nell replied to Roy. “Tell me, Roy, did you ever get your horses back?” she went on, her face suddenly serious. “Never did--yet,” Roy answered. “We--Teddy and I--saw them being ridden, and we chased after them, but they got away.” “And that fresh man in the checkered shirt!” Ethel exclaimed. “Have you ever seen him again, Roy?” “Once,” was the grim answer. Hurriedly the boy opened the door and stood aside to let the girls pass in. “Oh, Mother!” he called. “Visitors!” The sound of light footsteps descending the stairs was heard immediately, and in a moment Mrs. Manley appeared. She greeted the girls warmly and said that Belle Ada would be ready in a moment. “Roy, turn on the lights, please, won’t you?” his mother asked. He pushed a wall-button, and a soft glow immediately illuminated the room. Then, as Mrs. Manley saw the girls glance up in apparent surprise, she said, smiling a little: “Yes, we have electric lights--and everything. Mr. Ball has them, also, as you must have noticed. You see most of the ranchers around here have their own gasoline motors which generate the current. But take off your things, won’t you? You are tired and dusty, so come upstairs. Belle is eager to see you.” Roy was hurrying to his own room to “slick up,” as he called it, when Teddy burst into the house. “I just wanted to--” he began. Then, seeing his brother was alone, he stopped in confusion. “Go on, tell me,” Roy jeered. “I make a fine audience. What was it now?” “Nothing!” answered Teddy, his face a trifle red. “I--I forget what I was going to say. Where you bound for in such a rush?” “Oh, I was just going to put on a clean shirt,” Roy responded carelessly. “Have to dog-up a bit for supper.”