I am so glad! Can you take me to the big blue rock?"
"We will to-morrow," answered Hal. "It's too dark to find it now."
"You had better stay in our camp until morning," was Grandpa Martin's
kindly invitation, and Mr. Weston did so.
"This meteor is a good bit like a sulphur match," said Mr. Weston.
"When anything hard, like iron or steel, strikes it, blue fire starts
and burns up the rock. The big piece will be very valuable.
"But we'll have to be careful not to set it ablaze. We picked up a lot
of different rocks on the island, hoping some of them might be pieces
of the meteor. But none was. Once I saw your little girl picking
flowers, as I was gathering rocks. I guess she thought I was a tramp.
Did I scare you?" he asked Janet.
"A little," she answered with a smile. "Sometimes we stayed in a cave
we found on the island," went on Mr. Weston. "I thought once the
meteor might be there, but it was not."
The next day Ted, Janet and Hal, followed by all the others in camp,
even down to Trouble, whose mother carried him, went to the place
where the big blue rock was buried in the side of the hill. As soon as
he had looked at it Mr. Weston said it was the very meteor for which
he and Professor Anderson had been looking so long. They seemed to
have missed coming to the hill.
The museum directors bought the fallen star from Grandpa Martin, on
whose part of the island it had fallen many years before, and so the
owner of Cherry Farm had as much money as before the flood spoiled so
many of his crops.
Pages:
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183