The three Ransom boys were home for the holidays and all the household knew it. The household included four dogs, a pony, two pet cats, a very talkative parrot, and several white mice, which had been trained to do all sorts of wonderful tricks. Of course there were others in the household⁠—two sisters, a father, and a mother but, at times, it seemed as if the animals were by far its most important section. The Ransom boys⁠—Harry, George, and Edwin, aged respectively ten, twelve, and sixteen⁠—were as fine a trio of manly school boys as you could find anywhere, even if they were sometimes up to larks that their father was not supposed to know about in general, and certainly did not know about in particular. “Has Fred been over yet?” asked Edwin, the first night after dinner. “Not yet,” answered his sister, a pretty girl of eighteen; “but I expect he will come over tonight.” “You ought to know best, May,” said George, with a wink at his brothers. The blush that rose to May’s fair cheeks was scarcely noticeable in the lamplight, and George was such a persistent tease that this particular stab drew no special degree of attention. May went on sewing placidly, and let the boys ramble on with their talk and plans for the holidays. Fred Winter was a neighbour’s son, who had been at the same school with the Ransoms, but had just gone up to Cambridge. He was specially high in the brothers’ estimation, because, among other claims to their esteem, he possessed a very complete collection of birds’ eggs, which he had accumulated with great pains, and to which his elder brother, who travelled widely, had brought home valuable foreign additions. Harry and George Ransom, just at this period of their lives, thought that a large and complete collection of birds’ eggs was about the most desirable possession in the world. At least two-thirds of their holidays were spent in looking for specimens with which to enlarge their collection; and Edwin, the youngest of the three, who had always joined their expeditions as a sort of golf “caddie” (to carry the bag and climbing irons), was now for the first time admitted seriously into the partnership. “Mr. Winter has added a wonderful new hawk’s egg to his collection, I believe,” May continued quietly, after a pause. “He told me the other day that he bought it from a man who climbed down Farmer Mutton’s cliffs to the nest and⁠—” “Farmer Mutton’s cliffs!” “A new hawk’s egg!” “What hawk is it?” “What kind of egg⁠—speckled or plain?” “How did he get it? Did the birds attack him?” “How did he get down the cliffs?” May dropped her sewing in dismay at the sudden storm the simple remark had raised, but she had the boys in her power now, because, if they teased her, she could hold them in check by refusing to satisfy their curiosity. “He climbed down to the nest with ropes,” she said, answering the last question first, probably because it was the only one she was able to answer. “They let him down from above, and he was so glad to get back again to the ground that he dropped some of the eggs and broke them.” “Silly idiot!” said Edwin. “What an ass!” sneered George. “Humph!” grunted Harry, who was too disgusted even to find words. “There was a straight drop of three hundred feet beneath him,” May went on, “and the rope began to split, or crack, or something, just as they hauled him back over the edge.” A fresh storm of questions that broke out here was interrupted by the arrival of Freddy Winter himself. The boys at once surrounded him and took him prisoner, and their sister, who was the real object of his visit, enjoyed very little personal conversation with Mr. Winter that evening. She recognised that a judicious concession to the enemy might save her much subsequent teasing, and, being of a naturally sweet disposition, she contrived that the boys should have their egg-collecting hero all to themselves for the greater part of the evening. Winter was a good-natured fellow into the bargain, so he allowed himself to be taken prisoner, and made no effort to escape until his captors had forced from him all the secrets concerning the hawk’s nest in Farmer Mutton’s cliffs. Then, by a judicious invitation to “the trio” to come over in the morning, for the hundredth time, to inspect his collection, and particularly to view the new-found treasure, he saw his opportunity to get away. “And now I must say good night to your sister and be getting home,” he said, at last making his escape, while the boys fled to their special den where they could be alone to discuss the exceedingly important matters that had been brought to their consideration that evening. The conference turned out to be a very curious one.