“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: