There was no further trouble during the balance of that night, the second they had spent in the old shack.  Saturday morning dawned with a clear sky, and it looked as though the day might be a repetition of the two previous ones.  This gratified the scouts very much, for no matter how seasoned a camper may be, the weather has considerable to do with his enjoyment.  If rain continues to pour down, there is very little pleasure to be found in spending hours or days under canvas or the leaking roof of a cabin, wishing in vain for a break in the weeping clouds.  And so the three lads expressed themselves as contented when they broke out from the shelter of the shack on that morning and found the conditions so favorable.

Bud hoped to make another try with his model before noon, since they expected to be on the move shortly afterward.  There was a long hike before them ere they could expect to reach the road leading home, where possibly a wagon might be hired to help get them into town again.

One thing pleased them, and this was the fact that for the most part the return journey would be down-grade.  In consequence they expected to make the distance separating them from the road in about half the time it had taken in coming.

Bud hurried through the morning meal.  Indeed, Ralph even joked him on his seeming lack of appetite; for as a rule Bud was a good feeder and came second only to Billy Worth, long recognized as champion in the troop.

“Well, you see,” Bud explained, “there are a whole lot of important things I mean to do to-day, and the sooner I get busy the better chance I’ll have to go through the list.  First thing of all is to take a little tramp around toward the west of the camp, to see if I can stumble on the place where that last old shooting star struck us.  I’m going to look sharp for a hole, because it seems to me such a big lump of iron and other ore would smash into our earth at a pretty lively clip.”

“Hold on a minute and let’s start fair!” called out Ralph.  “We’re just as anxious as you are to make some sort of discovery, eh, Hugh?”

“Some sort, yes,” the patrol leader admitted, with a queer little smile that Bud noticed, but could not understand just then.

So the three boys started to comb the immediate vicinity of the shack, spreading out in something like a fan formation.  They took to the west, because all of them seemed to be of one opinion:  that the dreadful crash had come from that particular quarter.

Now and then one of them would call out or give the Wolf signal, just to inform the others where he happened to be.  In this manner some ten minutes went by and Hugh was thinking that the explosion must have been much further away than any of them had suspected at the time, when Bud was heard giving tongue.

Bud, when excited, always broke loose and allowed himself free rein.

“Come this way, boys!” he was shouting gleefully.  “I’ve run the old meteor to earth.  My stars! what a terrible hole she did make!  Must be as big as a house!”