"Eggs!" he muttered. "Real eggs! Now who under the sun can have
moved into Redtail's old house? And what can they mean by laying
eggs before Mistress Spring has even sent word that she has started?
It's too much for me. It certainly is too much for me."



CHAPTER III: Blacky Finds Out Who Owns The Eggs

Two big white eggs in a tumbledown nest, and snow and ice
everywhere! Did ever anybody hear of such a thing before?

"Wouldn't believe it, if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes,"
muttered Blacky the Crow. "Have to believe them. If I can't believe
them, it's of no use to try to believe anything in this world. As
sure as I sit here, that old nest has two eggs in it. Whoever laid
them must be crazy to start housekeeping at this time of year. I
must find out whose eggs they are and then --"

Blacky didn't finish, but there was a hungry look in his eyes that
would have told any who saw it, had there been any to see it, that
he had a use for those eggs. But there was none to see it, and he
took the greatest care that there should be none to see him when he
once again started for a certain lonesome corner of the Green
Forest.

"First I'll make sure that the eggs are still there, " thought he,
and flew high above the tree tops, so that as he passed over the
tree in which was the old nest of Red-tail the Hawk, he might look