"Why, it's Dick Donovan!" he beamed, hastening up to the car, "the
young journalist who wrote an article about my specimens once and
woefully mixed them up. However, to an unscientific mind----"

"They are all just rocks," finished Dick with a grin.

"I have had unusual success to-day," said the professor, who appeared
not to have heard the remark. "I must have at least fifty pounds of
specimens on my back at this minute."

He broke off suddenly. The next moment he darted off to the side of
the road and chipped off a fragment of rock from a bank that overhung
it.

"This is lucky, indeed," he exclaimed, holding it up to the light so
that some specks in the gray stone sparkled. "An extremely rare
specimen of mica that I had no idea existed in this part of New
England."

The odd little man opened his bag and introduced his latest
acquisition into it While he was doing this Dick had been explaining
to the boys:

"He's a queer character. Professor Jerushah Jenks. They say he's a
great authority on mineralogy and so on. I interviewed him once. He's
always out collecting."

"Does he always carry a quarry like that around on his back?" asked
Tom.