Harriet ceased her laughing at once.  She got up, stepping carefully over to the place where the driver was standing nursing his injured whiskers.

“It was I who pulled your whiskers, Mr. Jasper,” she said.  “I am so sorry.  But—­but I thought you were some sort of animal and—­and——­”

Harriet’s concluding words were lost in a shout of laughter from the girls.

There was nothing more to be said.  Harriet felt so humiliated that she was glad they were unable to see her face.

“Jasper!” commanded Miss Elting sharply.  “I shall require you to keep just ahead of us within sound of our voices even though you cannot see us in the darkness.  How far are we from the camp?”

“Three miles,” answered the man sourly.

Tommy groaned.

“My feet are giving out,” she complained.

“Let me help you along,” said Harriet, placing an arm about her little companion.  “Try to forget your tired feet.”

“I’ve a pain in my neck too.  I might forget the pain in my neck but the pain in my feet ith there to thtay.”

“Never mind, we shall be at Camp Wau-Wau in a couple of hours, then we will have something to eat and you will go to bed and sleep.  Isn’t it all perfectly delightful, dear?” comforted Harriet.

“Yeth, it ith fine.  Tho fine you can’t thee it,” agreed Tommy dolefully.

It was a trying journey at best.  They had lost all track of time, not being able to consult their watches in the dark.  Jasper had no matches and he was very irritable, which perhaps was not surprising in view of the fact that he had lost his horse and wrecked a wagon for which he undoubtedly would be called upon to pay, as it did not belong to him.  After a time they gave up trying to obtain information from Jasper.

The dull glow of a fire through the trees gave them the first inkling that they were nearing their destination.  Tommy was being fairly lifted along by Harriet The latter did not complain at supporting the girl and the suit case, but her arms ached from the exertion.

“There’s the camp, dear,” encouraged Harriet.

“Camp’s a mile down the path,” growled Jasper, bringing a groan from Margery and Grace.  “That’s the fire the girls built up so that we shouldn’t go past the path.”

“That was thoughtful,” exclaimed Harriet.  The building of the fire made quite an impression on her.  This impression was strengthened when upon reaching the low fire she observed that all leaves and combustible matter had been raked away to a safe distance from the fire so that the forest might not be fired by the blaze.  It was her first lesson in woodcraft on this eventful journey into the big forest.

They followed a dark path that wound in and out, a gloomy aisle in the great forest with the tops of the trees over their heads, so high as almost to be lost to view even in daylight, Margery puffing, Tommy uttering little moans now and then so that her companions might know of her misery.  That last stretch along the narrow path seemed an endless journey.  Then too, it will be recalled that the Meadow-Brook Girls had had nothing to eat since morning except the cold luncheon served by Miss Elting.