“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.