Page:Stringer - Lonely O'Malley.djvu/266

 And an erratic yet fierce discussion straightway ensued as to whether a fossil was a piece of petrified wood, or just common flint rock.

Their disjointed talk seemed to bring certain memories back to the reawakening Lonely, now lying stretched out on the warm grass.

"You kids ever see a real petrifyin' spring?" he asked, sleepily, as he lifted a languid arm and sent a cardboard "messenger" humming up the vibrant kite-string.

There was a further and fiercer dispute as to whether or not petrifying springs were a mere thing of the foolish imagination,—at all of which Lonely smiled loftily and forbearingly.

"Never heard of the Catfish Petrifyin' Spring up near Cowansburg?" he demanded. They of course never had.

"And I s'pose some o' you will be sayin' the Injuns never used to soak their arrowheads in it, to turn 'em into stone?"

Had the excellent Lonely ever seen this spring? Or had any article of this excellent Lonely's ever been turned into stone therein?

Lonely gave over placidly and