Tommy uttered a little shriek.

"It'th Crathy Jane! It'th Crathy Jane! Thomebody thave her!"

Harriet Burrell was the "somebody" who sprang to the rescue. No sooner had Jane touched the ground than Harriet was dragging her away, rolling her on the ground, patting out the little flames that sprang up here and there from her clothing. This was made the more difficult because of the long stilts upon which the daring Jane McCarthy had walked. The long arms had been sticks on which sheets had been draped. The arms had dropped when Jane took her mighty fall and now lay on the ground on the other side of the campfire.

"Are you hurt?" begged Harriet anxiously.

"Oh, my darlin'! I'm killed entirely."

"Wait till I take off your stilts. You will be all right as soon as you get to your feet."

"Tommy has laid the ghost," cried a girl who had last run away. At this the others came hesitatingly back. Mrs. Livingston half laughing, half crying was assisting Jane to her feet. Jane's face wore a sheepish grin as she shrugged her shoulders to make sure that they had not been dislocated.

Harriet had thrown off her mask. Her white robe was blackened from the smoke and the fire from which she had rescued the singed banshee, and Margery upon returning to the scene was complaining that she had bursted half the buttons off her waist.

"There is your ghost, young ladies," smiled Mrs. Livingston. "Let it be a lesson to you to never forget your self-possession, never to be carried away by your impulses. Always use reason."

"Yeth. That ith what I did," declared Tommy.

"Why didn't you run?" asked Miss Partridge, who had remained near the scene, but at what she considered a safe distance from the apparition.

"I thaw a lock of Crathy Jane'th hair thlipping out from behind her mathk.

The minute I thaw that hair I knew it. Then when I got behind her I thaw the thtiltth. You thee the light wath on the other thide. I could thee right through her drapery."

Now that the banshee had been "laid" the frightened girls could afford to laugh and they did.

Mrs. Livingston spoke again.

"Miss Burrell has fairly won an honor. Some of you observed her presence of mind when she rolled Miss McCarthy on the ground to put out the fire in the latter's clothing, thus possibly saving that young woman's life. For this you are awarded five red beads, Miss Burrell, for fire is red and fire is the enemy that you overcame."

"Do I get a bead for laying the ghotht?" interrupted Grace.

"Yes, you do," answered the Chief Guardian with a smile. "Miss McCarthy also shall have two beads, one for making the finest molasses candy we have ever eaten, the second for providing the most unusual amusement ever known at Camp Wau-Wau. And now we will go to our quarters. It has been a most entertaining evening, even if it did cause some of us apprehension."

Jane McCarthy stepped up to Mrs. Livingston, looking the latter squarely in the eyes.

"Mrs. Livingston, I do not think I am entitled to either of those rewards," she said.

"No? And why not?"

"I never made any candy in my life before. I didn't even know whether you used baking-soda or flour in it. Harriet helped with the recipe and told me all she could about how to go to work. Oh, I want to be perfectly honest about it all. Harriet suggested the ghost party too, though the big banshee and the idea of the story were mine. I don't want the beads, Mrs.

Livingston. I want Harriet Burrell to have them. She earned them, I didn't."

"Fine! Splendid! You are a Camp Girl in reality now. The spirit of Wau-Wau has taken possession of you. My dear I congratulate you. The beads are yours. Your truthfulness and unselfishness would win them for you even though nothing else could. The fire-makers will subdue the flames after the others have reached their tents."

Three happy girls went arm in arm to the camp street. They were Crazy Jane, Harriet Burrell and Tommy Thompson, the latter more proud than she had ever been in her life, because she had done what not one of some forty others had dared to do--she had laid the ghost. Tommy expressed her admiration for herself that night when snuggling down under the blankets she murmured:

"Well, I gueth I'm thome folkth."

CHAPTER XVII

THE SOUP THAT FAILED

Almost the sole topic of discussion at Camp Wau-Wau on the following day was the train of exciting events of the previous evening. There were, too, murmurs of disapproval at the trick that Harriet Burrell and Jane McCarthy had played on the girls. Some of the Camp Girls were ashamed that they had shown such cowardice, others were angry at the Meadow-Brook Girls for making them appear at a disadvantage. Among the latter were Patricia and Cora. These two were talking it over when Harriet in passing, bade them a pleasant good morning.

"Now look at her superior smile, will you?" jeered Patricia. "I just would like to take her down a notch or two, and I will before I leave this camp."

"How?" asked Cora reflectively.

"I don't know. I'll catch her somehow and make a laughing stock of her before the rest of the girls."

"Patricia, have you forgotten the bath towel--have you forgotten what she knows about us?"

"No, I haven't," answered Patricia Scott, with a toss of her head.

"And she hasn't said a word to any one about it."

"You don't know that. Have you noticed that that Miss Elting looks at us very queerly when she passes us? She is very cold and distant, too, just as though she knew something about us. You mark my words, that Meadow-Brook Girl has told her all about finding the towel, but if it gets to the Chief Guardian I know how I can turn the tables on that impudent Harriet Burrell."

"How?"

"In the easiest way you can imagine. I'll say that Harriet never has liked me and that she had taken my towel and hidden it purposely, just to produce it at the right time and accuse me of having been implicated in the hazing."

"But it wasn't your towel," protested Cora. "It was mine."

"That's all right. That will make it all the better. She will say it was your towel and I will say it was mine. Don't you see how that will mix the affair up? You must stand by me if it comes to that."

"Of course," answered Cora Kidder, but in rather a weak voice. She was not a bad girl at heart, but she was easily influenced; it was not difficult to persuade her to look at any matter with other eyes than her own. It was the bad influence of Patricia Scott that already had led Cora so far into mischief, and that gave promise of leading her still farther. Patricia, on the other hand, possessed a jealous and revengeful disposition. It had caused her trouble in her own home and lost her many friends in her home town. She had been sent to the camp in the hope that the wholesome life in the woods might give her a new point of view, and that the association with the Camp Girls might make a better girl of her. Thus far the desired result had not been attained, though she had managed to hide her shortcomings from Mrs. Livingston and the guardians. At times Mrs.

Livingston, close observer that she was, had wondered as to the girl's real character, but Patricia's sweet smile, easily assumed to fit the occasion, had on each occasion disarmed the Chief Guardian.

"You must pretend to be very indignant if ever you are called to account, and I will pretend to be indignant, too. I almost hope she does complain of us, and she will, too. She is a sneak."

"I don't hope she'll complain of us," cried Cora in alarm. "I know I should die of mortification."

"You haven't any courage, Cora Kidder," declared Patricia scornfully. "I see I shall have to look out for both of us, and----"

"No, no," protested Cora. "Tell me what you want me to do. I will do it. I don't want to be found out for what I already have done and be sent home.

What would I do? Oh, what would I do?"

Patricia gave her a withering glance.

"What you need is backbone. You haven't any more courage than a two-year old child. What ails you?"

"You say I haven't any courage," answered Cora hotly. "I'll show you whether I have or not. What do you want me to do?" she demanded, straightening up to her full height and looking Patricia squarely in the eyes.