“Well, what do you want?” she demanded, turning on Jane.

“I want to talk with you.”

“Please go away and let me alone.”

“Where were you last night?” Jane flung the question at her without warning.  Cora flushed to the roots of her hair.  Jane saw that her hands trembled too.

“Is there no such thing as privacy in this camp?” flared Cora.

“Yes, for those who are entitled to it.”

Cora drew herself up, enraged past all endurance.

“Steady there!  Steady!  I know where you were last night.  I know you went to ‘The Pines’ with that Collier chap.  Oh, I know all about it, and what’s more, you went with him alone.”

“I didn’t.  His sister was with us.  She came back with us, and——­”

Crazy Jane threw back her head and laughed softly.

“Thanks, darlin’,” she chuckled.  “Confession is good for a guilty soul.”

“Oh!” gasped Cora Kidder, realizing that she had confessed, that Jane had trapped her into the confession.  Then she burst forth angrily.

“It’s that hateful Harriet Burrell!  I might have known it.  She has been spying on me all the time.  I hate her!  I hate her!  Oh, how I hate her!  I could claw her eyes out, and——­”

“Softly, my darlin’, softly!”

“I don’t care.  I’m going anyway.  I’ll have Jasper take me to the train to-day.  I don’t want to stay here with such sneaks following me and spying on everything I do.  You’re no better than the rest.  I suppose she’s told Mrs. Livingston, I suppose every girl in the camp knows about it by this time.  I haven’t done anything of which I’m ashamed.”

“Oh, yes, you have,” interjected Jane quickly.  “Harriet has not told the Chief.  Cora Kidder, sit down there and listen to me; listen to the story of the finest bit of loyalty that any girl ever heard.”

“I won’t!  Get out of my tent!”

“Sit down there.  Harriet Burrell has not told any one.”

“She told you; you know she did!”

“I had to drag it out of her.  Then she tried to make me promise I wouldn’t tell the Chief Guardian.”

“And you will?  You’ll give me away?”

“You have given yourself away, Cora.  Now that I’ve had it from your own lips I am free to tell whom I please.  But I think you are going to tell Mrs. Livingston yourself.”

“Never!” with a stamp of the foot.

“Listen!  Harriet Burrell deceived them this morning.  When they asked her about you she led them to believe that you were sleeping.  She was trying to protect you.  She did wrong.  I shouldn’t have done it if you had been as mean to me as you have to her.  Oh, my stars! what a girl!”

Cora Kidder opened her eyes.  She regarded Crazy Jane wonderingly.