At the end of a three hours’ row they turned the skiff to the sloping rock of an island shore, and landing, tied the painter to a big bowlder.

“This is a fine egg island,” said Jimmy, as they set out with their bags.  “Partner brought me out here last year.”

Squawking birds rose in every direction as they approached, and clouds of gulls circled around crying the alarm.  Down in rock crevasses along the shore they saw many sea pigeon eggs, and Bobby wanted to get them, but they were generally well out of reach.

“They’re too small to bother with anyway,” said Jimmy.  “Come on.”

“There!  There!” shouted Bobby.  “There goes an eider duck!  And another!  And another! Their eggs are fine and big!  Let’s find the nests!”

Presently they discovered, under a low, scrubby bush, a down-lined nest containing eight greenish-drab eggs.

“There’s one!” shouted Jimmy.  “This is an eider’s nest.”

And so, hunting among the bushes and rocks, they soon had their bags filled with eider duck, tern, gull, and booby eggs, while the birds in hundreds flew hither and thither, violently protesting, with discordant notes, the invasion and the looting.  But the eggs were good to eat, and the boys smacked their lips over the feasts in store—­and Mrs. Abel wanted them; that was the chief consideration, after all.

“Now,” said Jimmy, “let’s go over to the mainland and boil the kettle.  It’s away past dinner time and I’m as hungry as a bear.”

“All right,” agreed Bobby.  “I’m so hungry I’ve just got to eat.  Where’ll we go?”

“I know a dandy place over here, and there’s a brook coming in close to it where we can get good water.  It’s just a few minutes’ pull—­just below the ledges.”

Ten minutes’ strong rowing landed them on a gravelly beach near the mouth of a brook, which rushed down to the bay through a deep gulch.  To the eastward the gulch banks rose into high cliffs which overhung the sea.  Kittiwakes, tube-nosed swimmers, ivory gulls, cormorants, little auks and other birds were flying up and down and along the cliff’s face, or perching upon ledges on the rock, and, like the birds on the island, making a great deal of discordant noise.

“It seems as though there were no end of birds,” said Bobby, as they secured their boat.  “I’d like to see what kind of nests those make up there, and after we eat I’m going to look at some of them.”

“You can’t get up there,” said Jimmy.  “I’ve tried it lots of times.  They take good care to leave their eggs where nobody can get at them.”

“Well, I’m going to try, anyhow,” Bobby declared, as he turned to the brook for a kettle of water.

“I wish we had something to boil eggs in,” said he, as he set the kettle of water down by Jimmy, who was whittling shavings for the fire.

“What’s the matter with the old tin bucket we use for bailing the skiff?” Jimmy suggested.  “I don’t believe it leaks enough to hurt.”