"Dad's over there. Come on and shake hands with him. He's going back shortly. You can help me unload the car. Oh, we're going to have a great time, aren't we darlin's!"

"You don't mean that you have come to join the camp, do you!" questioned Miss Elting.

"Of course, I have," retorted Crazy Jane. "What did you think I had come for? Meadow-Brook is like a graveyard since you girls went away. Oh this is great, isn't it? We'll rattle the bones of this old camp, won't we?"

Harriet laughed merrily. Miss Elting looked grave.

"Does Mrs. Livingston know--did she know you were coming?"

"Of course, she did. Dad looked after that. Where is she. She'll be delighted to see me, I'll wager."

"Yeth," nodded Tommy who had joined them. "The'll be tho glad that thhe'll cry her eyeth out. How long are you going to thtay?"

"As long as you do. Now let's get that car unloaded and start something.

This place is so quiet it gives me the blues."

Margery threw up her hands in despair, Harriet smiled amusedly, Miss Elting shook her head hopelessly. Jane darted off with long strides. She had grabbed a hand of the protesting Tommy and was fairly dragging the little girl along with her. It was a strange figure that Mrs. Livingston, who stood talking with Jane's father, saw approaching her, and during the weeks that followed she was to understand quite fully why Jane McCarthy's friends had named her "Crazy Jane."

CHAPTER XIV

CRAZY JANE IS INTRODUCED

"Oh, how do you do?" greeted Jane when her father had introduced her to Mrs. Livingston.

Mrs. Livingston extended her hand to Jane.

"I hope you may be happy with us," said the Chief Guardian. "We shall do our best to make you so. What do you think of our forest home?"

"Stupid place, but I think I'll will be able to start something to stir up these sleepy old woods."

A shade of annoyance passed over the face of the Chief Guardian, then gave place to a tolerant smile. She read Jane McCarthy at a glance and in her saw much that was worthy of development.

"Come here, girls, and help me unload this stuff," called Jane, turning her back on the Chief Guardian. "Dad must get out of the woods with the car before dark or he'll break his precious old neck. Dad wouldn't be worth a cent with a broken neck, so help me to get him started on his way home."

Harriet and Miss Elting were the only ones who accepted the invitation.

First, Mrs. Livingston pointed out the tent where Jane was to live, then Jane backed her car down to it see-sawing to avoid obstructions, until finally sending the car back a few inches too far, she crashed through the tent entrance, smashing the end pole, bringing the front of the tent down over her head.

"Good gracious! That's too bad. I never did such a clumsy thing in my life," declared Jane. "Here, Dad! Settle the damages with Mrs. Livingston.

Anything broken in there?"

"Nothing particular. The tent is wrecked. That's all," sarcastically answered Patricia Scott, who was standing near to Jane. "However, don't let a little thing like that trouble you."

"I won't," answered Jane coolly, turning her back on Patricia and beginning to unload the car, aided by Harriet and Miss Elting.

By this time the entire camp was excited. The advent of this apparently lawless new girl had set every tongue wagging.

"Who is she?" asked girl after girl.

"She is a very dear friend of Miss Burrell, I believe," Cora Kidder informed them. "Some strange people come out of Meadow-Brook, don't they, girls?"

"Yes," agreed Patricia, "One hesitates to even remain in the same camp with them. I am sure my parents wouldn't allow me to stay here if they knew that such crazy girls were admitted."

Several girls turned their backs on Cora and Patricia and walked away, for Harriet and her chums were becoming popular with the Camp Girls, whereas there was a feeling of resentment developing against Patricia especially, on account of her bad disposition and her readiness to condemn others--a trait not to be tolerated for long in Camp Wau-Wau.

Another end pole had been brought and the collapsed tent put back in place. All this was quickly done by the Camp Girls. Jane had watched the operation with keen interest.

"Say, you girls are all right, aren't you? Did you see that, Dad?"

Mr. McCarthy nodded.

"You'll have to teach me how to put up a tent, I can run an automobile and I can ride a horse, but that's about all Crazy Jane McCarthy knows how to do except to make her father tear his hair with worry for fear she will break her neck driving her car recklessly. Never mind, Dad, I shan't have the car for a couple of weeks, but trust me to stir up something else just as exciting."

Mr. McCarthy would not venture to drive the car back to the log road, after it had been finally unloaded of trunks and bags and a great assortment of odds and ends. Jane could not have required more luggage had she been going to a fashionable summer resort for her vacation. She called to the girls to get in and ride out to the log road with them. Harriet and Tommy accepted the invitation with Mrs. Livingston's permission. The Chief Guardian thought that Harriet's influence might have a wholesome effect on this wild, motherless girl. Harriet was glad when the drive came to an end. Time and time again it seemed as though the machine would be wrecked, but Jane jockeyed her car over the dangerous places, missing trunks of trees and rocks by the narrowest possible margin.

"There!" she said driving the car triumphantly out onto the log road. "If you can't get home alone now, Daddy dear, you don't deserve to. Come back to see me next Sunday. Maybe they won't want me after that. Maybe they won't be able to stand me that long."

Jane leaped back into the car, from which she had descended, giving her father an affectionate hug and a kiss. Then she suddenly threw in the clutch and sprang out. The car shot ahead, lurching from side to side of the narrow logging road, greeted with shouts of delight from Jane, her father making frantic efforts to regain control of it, which he finally did after threatening to wreck it. He shook a fist over his shoulder at Jane, then disappeared around a bend in the road.

"Isn't he the prize old dad?" laughed Jane, a suspicious moisture appearing on her eye-lashes.

"He ith too eathy with you, that ith what ith the matter with him,"

declared Tommy abruptly.

"Of course he is," admitted Jane. "He is afraid to be otherwise. Let's go back and see what's going on. It looks like a regular circus. What time do they feed the animals?"

"Dinner is at half past six, if that is what you mean," replied Harriet rather severely. "May I make a suggestion or two, Jane?"

"Sure you may. Is it a lecture?"

"A sort of lecture."

"Advance your spark. I'm in on the back seat."

"You should try to control yourself here. The girls will think you unfit to associate with them if you are so boisterous. Besides, Mrs. Livingston will not tolerate it."

"What, be a goody-goody girl?" demanded Jane, opening her eyes in amazement.

"No. But try to curb your spirits a little."

"Darlin', I can't do it. I've got to be my own natural self. If they don't like me they can tell me to go home. I don't care so long as you and Tommy dear, and Hazel, and cross, cranky Margery like me a little bit."

"We do like you," answered Harriet impulsively. "We will see that the other girls do not misunderstand you altogether, if we can make them see you as you really are."

"There goes a bell. What is it, fire?" demanded Jane, looking up expectantly.