"It's an animal!" cried the girl, tugging with all her might. "Quick!
Help!"

Miss Elting ran forward, now really alarmed, the frightened Tommy still
clinging to her skirts. Then came a voice, a male voice raised in angry
protest.

"Leggo my whiskers, consarn ye!" it shouted. "Leggo, I tell ye. It's
Jasper."

There followed a scuffle and a fall, as Jasper in trying to rise from the
suit cases that he had been carrying, fell over them. He landed on his
back, shouting angrily. Harriet sat down in the road overcome by a sudden
weakness, then she laughed. The other girls, now that the tension had
snapped, were laughing also, all except Tommy who was so frightened that
she could not say a word.

"Jasper, what do you mean by frightening us in this manner?" demanded Miss
Elting severely. "First, you run away from us then you frighten us nearly
out of our wits."

"Yaas. Mebby ye think it's fun to pull a man's whiskers out when he ain't
looking. I sot down here on them bags to rest. I was waitin' for ye to
come up seein' as I'd got ahead. Then one of 'em had to come blundering
along and fall over me. Before I knowd what had hit me, the other--I don't
know who she is in the dark--lighted on my whiskers like a pesky
mosquito," complained the driver.

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 H