"Why don't you girls stop squabbling and answer Miss Elting's question?"

demanded Hazel. "Harriet is at home, Miss Elting."

"Yeth, Harriet ith wathing ditheth for her mother," said Tommy. "I'd like to thee anybody make me wath ditheth if I didn't want to."

"That isn't a nice thing to say, Grace," rebuked the teacher. "Of course Harriet is a great help to her mother, as every girl should be. Suppose, Grace, that your mother could not afford to hire a servant to do these things for her? In that case I am positive you would do whatever you could to assist your mother. I believe you would make a fine little housekeeper."

Grace shook her head with emphasis.

"No? Then what would you do if your mother insisted upon your washing dishes?"

"I'd drop the ditheth. Maybe they wouldn't want me to wath any more ditheth after that," replied Tommy, screwing up her face so impishly that Miss Elting laughed aloud.

"Is it any wonder that Grace and myself quarrel awfully at times, Miss Elting?" asked Margery.

"They don't mean anything by it," apologized Hazel.

"Thay, what did you come up here for, Mith Elting?" questioned Tommy, directing a glance of suspicious inquiry at the teacher. "Do you want uth to go for another nithe little walk? No, thank you. I've walked with you before. Thank you very kindly. My feet are too thore and Buthter ith too tired. Harriet'th brother thayth that Buthter wath born with that tired feeling. I geth he'th right. Don't you think tho, Miss Elting? Thit down and retht, and I'll tell your fortune with a daithy."

"If you are rested sufficiently I think we had better move on. Don't worry, Grace. I am not going to drag you away on one of those long walks.

But I have something to tell you."

"I knew it," piped Tommy. "Look out! There cometh another automobile."

Tommy shied from her position in the road like a skittish horse.

Just then the car that had caused all the trouble came honking toward them and slowed down with a series of explosions that sounded like the discharges of a Gatling gun. The young woman who was driving the car, brought it to a stop, leaped out and running to Grace threw her arms about the slender girl in white.

"Oh, my darlin', my darlin'. My blessed little Tommy. Did I kill you altogether? And I wasn't going a little bit, was I? But didn't I come near to ripping the cowcatcher from that engine? Wasn't it just glorious the way I dodged the old thing? I knew all the time it was going to be a close shave, but I made up my mind I'd beat 'em out even if I took off the hind wheels of my car. Get in, you dears. I'll drive you home."

"What! Ride with you?" questioned Margery. "Not for a million dollars.

It's a shame. They ought to arrest you."

"Yes, Jane," rebuked Miss Elting. "You shouldn't go racing about the way you do. Your car nearly ran over Grace."

"Dad says I drive too fast. He says he doesn't blame folks for calling me 'Crazy Jane.' He says I'll meet with an accident one of these days. But Dad has old-fashioned ideas."

Jane paused long enough to brush back two stray locks from her flushed face. Her hair was all awry and her attire showed carelessness and haste in dressing.

"Well, darlin's, if you won't go with me I think I'll go and get Harriet.

She isn't afraid to ride with me."

"Please don't do that," replied Miss Elting. "We are on our way to see Harriet on important business."

"So long, then. I'm off, girls."

Jane sprang into her car and drove away with a sputter and a roar, disappearing in a cloud of pungent blue smoke.

"Isn't she a crazy creature?" demanded Margery disdainfully.

"She means well," soothed Hazel.

"Yeth. Thhe meanth to kill thomebody well," corrected Tommy.

Jane McCarthy had acquired the name of "Crazy Jane" because of her reckless driving, her harum-scarum ways and her complete ignoring of public opinion. Not a few of the residents of the little New Hampshire village feared that Jane might be brought home after one of her wild drives, with broken bones, if not worse.

In spite of her reckless manner Jane was well liked. She was good hearted and very charitable, though her charity was not always bestowed with judgment Being motherless she had practically done as she pleased ever since she began to walk, and her father, a wealthy contractor, had indulged her every whim, believing that Jane could do no wrong. Jane was prompt to take advantage of this paternal leniency, though her worst offense was that of continuously terrorizing the neighborhood in which she lived and the whole countryside as well, by her reckless driving with both car and horse.

The narrow escape of Grace Thompson from being run over by the big touring car had not shaken Jane's nerve in the least. It had shaken Tommy's only briefly. Tommy, supple and alert, had leaped from the road just in time to avoid being run down by the car. A second's delay on her part would undoubtedly have proved serious if not fatal to Tommy Thompson.

But the three girls were to see more of Jane in the near future. She was to play a more active part in their lives than she had ever before done.

Just now they were more interested in what they instinctively felt Miss Elting had to say to them.

"Now, listen, girls," said Miss Elting after the roar of the car had died away in the distance. "I will tell you about the very pleasant plans I have made for you and Harriet."

CHAPTER III

THE TRAIL TO CAMP WAU-WAU

"I understand that your parents have been considering your going to the sea shore with them, Grace?" said Miss Elting with a rising inflection in her voice. "I suppose you are eager to go?"

"No, I'm not. What'th, more, I'm not going. I'm going to thtay here with the girlth. Why?" Tommy regarded the teacher keenly.

"Because my dear, if you are not going to the sea shore I wish to include you in my plans for the summer. I have a fine vacation planned for the four of you. Does any of you know the location of Pocono Woods?"

The girls shook their heads.

"It is a forest near Jamesburg about twenty-five miles from here. How would you young women enjoy spending your vacations in a camp in the woods, living in tents and----"

"Really truly tentth?" interrupted Tommy.

"Yes, dear. Real tents and campfires and all that sort of thing, right in the heart of the Pocono Woods, miles and miles from civilization."

"Are there any thnaketh there?" questioned Grace apprehensively.

"No, no snakes."

"Mothquitoeth?"

"There may be a few mosquitoes. I cannot say as to that. But it is a lovely spot. This camp," Miss Elting went on to say, "is for young girls and young women, and is part of the Camp Girls' Association, a large and growing organization. You will find a great many other young women there and you will, while there, be in charge of a guardian."

"Guardian!" interrupted Grace. "My father ith my guardian."

"Oh, I don't mean that sort of a guardian," answered Miss Elting with a bright smile. "The guardians are merely the women who take charge of the girls during their stay in camp. I am to be one of them this summer. I had planned to take you four girls there after the close of school, but did not think it advisable to speak of my plans until they were more fully developed and all arrangements completed. Now what do you think of it?"

"It is perfectly splendid," cried Margery. "Won't that be great, girls?

But," she added, her face sobering, "I do not think my father and mother would permit me to go."