Becky, was it?" asked Judy, "that I saw first? But
what made you look so tall?"

She went to the place where she had first seen the apparition, and
found the slender stump of a tree, on top of which Becky had been
perched.

"What are you doing here, so far from home, Belinda," asked Judy, as
she sat down and took the purring, gentle creature in her lap.

But Belinda could not talk, although she patted Judy's hand with her
paw and curled down with her head in the crook of Judy's arm.

"My, it's good to have you here," said Judy, "but I wonder how it
happened."

She gathered the big cat close to her, grateful for the warmth of the
soft body, and with Becky perched up on a rock behind, she sat very
still, comforted by the sound of Belinda's sleepy song, and by Becky's
sentinel-like watchfulness.

It was in the black darkness that precedes the dawn that she was roused
by a lantern flashing across her eyes.

"Grandfather," she said, sleepily, as a haggard old face bent above
her. "Grandfather."

"Judy," he said, with a break in his voice.

Wide-awake now, she saw that his hands trembled so that he had to set
the lantern down.

"Oh," she said, remorsefully, as she sat up, "how tired you look,
grandfather."

"We have hunted for you all night," he said, and the dim rays from the
lantern showed the droop of his figure and the lines in his face.

"Oh, grandfather," she said again, and clung to him, sobbing softly.

"Hush," he said, holding her close. "Hush, Judy. You are all right
now."

"Oh, I am all right," she sobbed, despairingly, "but it is you,
grandfather, you are all tired out, and just because I was
such--such--a silly goose--"

"Never mind, never mind," said the Judge, hastily, "I have found you
now."

"I am not worth finding," said Judy, miserably, "I am not, grandfather."

But the Judge laughed at that, and smoothed her hair away from her
forehead with a loving touch. "You are always my dear little girl," he
assured her, "whatever you do--you know that, don't you?"

"Yes," she whispered, and laid her face against his sleeve.

"Now we will go back," he said presently, and with Belinda and Becky in
close attendance, they went up the hill together.

At the top Judy gave a cry of astonishment, for right in front of her,
on the other side of the hill, was the little gray house, ablaze with
light.

"And I have been right back of it all night. If I had just walked a
few steps farther," exc