"Are you the ragged man that pulled Trouble out of the spring?" asked
Ted, as they watched the blue light die away.
"I did pull a little boy out of the spring," answered Mr. Weston, "though I didn't know his name was Trouble."
"That's only his pet name," laughed Grandpa Martin. "But come and sit down and tell us your story. The children have been wondering a long while what the blue light meant, and who the ragged man was. And, to- day, they've been trying to find what became of the blue rocks that Trouble made into a playhouse."
"I took those rocks, I'm sorry to say," answered the ragged man. "I'm sorry to have spoiled Trouble's playhouse. I wanted those pieces of rock, for I thought perhaps they were all I would ever be able to get of the fallen star."
"Was the blue rock really once a star?" asked Hal.
"Well, yes, a part of one, or at least part of a meteor, or shooting star, as they are called. Now I'll tell you all that happened, and I'm sorry if I have frightened you. My friend and I didn't mean to.
"Some time ago," went on Mr. Weston, "we heard about Star Island—this place that was so named because it was said a big meteor had landed here many years back. Professor Anderson and I decided to come here and see if we could find it for the museum which is connected with the college in which Anderson teaches.
"For we knew that, though most meteors are burned up as they shoot through the air before they strike the earth, yet some come down in big chunks, and we wanted such a one if we could get it. So we hunted for it all over this island. We saw you, but you were never very near. Sometimes we stayed in the cave at night, but usually went back to the mainland. All the while we were hunting for the blue rocks, for that is the color of this particular meteor.
"A few nights before you folks came here to camp, when we were digging in the ground hoping to find what we wanted, our shovel must have struck a piece of the meteor, for there was a flash of blue fire that burned for quite a while."
"We saw it," cried Ted, "and we didn't know what it was!"