at I was very foolish to come. But my grandfather is a Judge. If
anything happens to me, he will call you to account. Go back to the
camp. Go back and let me alone."
The man stopped short and gazed at her.
"You are brave," he said, in a more respectful tone.
"None of my family have ever been cowards," said Judy, who was herself
again. "I am not afraid of you."
His bold eyes dropped before the fearlessness in hers.
"Good-bye," he said, humbly, and when he reached the edge of the camp
he turned and looked after her, and there was a shadow on his swarthy
face.
The girl on the pile of rugs called him.
"I got it," she said.
"Give it to me," he ordered, roughly. But she held the necklace away
from him with a teasing laugh. "It is mine, it is mine," she cried,
then shrieked, as he wrenched it out of her hand, twisting her wrist
cruelly.
Judy, alone once more and with her courage all gone, so that she was so
weak that she could hardly stand, ran on and on, blindly. She dared
not go back the way she had come for fear of meeting again some of the
hated band.
"I will keep ahead," she thought. "There must be a house somewhere,
and I can get them to drive me home."
But though she walked on and on, no house appeared. She was faint with
fatigue and hunger, and at last, as she came to the end of a road and
found herself stranded in a great pasture, a sob caught in her throat.
She sat down on a rock and looked around. There seemed to be nothing
in sight but rocks and scrubby bushes, and already twilight was
descending over the land.
"I believe I am lost," she owned at last, "and if some one doesn't find
me pretty soon, I shall have to stay out all night."
CHAPTER XIV
A PRECIOUS PUSSY CAT
The moon was out and the stars when Judy discovered a flock of sheep in
the middle of the great pasture.
They were gathered together in a close woolly bunch as she came upon
them, and they turned to her their mild white faces, but did not get up
from the ground. It was nice to be near something alive, even if it
was only such meek, silly creatures, and Judy sat down on a stone near
them.
"I will stay here," she decided. "I simply cannot walk another step."
It was very lonely and she was very frightened. The moon lighted the
world with a white light, but the shadows were black under the trees;
somewhere in the distance a whippoorwill uttered a plaintive note, and
from the gloomy woods beyon
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