the_excerpt(); into an array

Hello guys, i would like to store all of the posts excerpts into an array so i can cycle through them later. Not sure how to go about this though..

Here is what I have so far..

<?php	query_posts('cat=featured'); $counter = 0;
			while ( have_posts() ) : the_post();

			$text[$counter] = the_excerpt();

			$counter++;
			endwhile;
?>

<span style = 'line-height: 20px; font-size: 12px; color: #CCC; '>
	<?php echo $text[0]; ?>
</span>

This does not give me an error, just no output it seems. Any ideas?