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.

Thus the story of the fallen star, after which the island was named, was
true, you see, though it had happened so many years ago that most folk
had forgotten about it.

A few days after Mr. Weston had been led to the queer blue rock, he and
Professor Anderson, no longer dressed like tramps, brought some men to
the island and the big rock was carefully dug out with wooden shovels,
as the wood was soft and could not strike sparks and make blue fire.

"For a time," said Mr. Weston to Grandpa Martin, after the meteor had
been taken to the mainland in a big boat, "I thought you were a
scientist."

"Me--a scientist!" laughed the children's grandfather.

"Yes. I thought maybe you had heard about the fallen star and had come
here and were trying to find it, too."

"No, I haven't any use for fallen stars," said Mr. Martin. "I had heard
the story about one being on this island, but I never quite believed it.
I just came here to give the children a good time camping."

"Well, I think they had it--every one of them," laughed Mr. Weston, as
he looked at the brown Curlytops, who were tanned like Indians.

"Oh, we've had the loveliest time in the world!" cried Jan, as she held
her grandfather's hand. "We're going to stay here a long while yet.
Aren't we, Grandpa