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."