COEUR d'ALENE - Scarlett is home.

Again.

Thanks to Lincoln Hammons.

For the second time, the arborist rescued the calico with golden eyes that was stuck 90 feet up a pine tree for 11 days.

"I'll do it as many times as necessary," said Hammons, who lives in the Spokane Valley.

Scarlett's owner, Stacy Armstrong of Coeur d'Alene, was happy to have her pet back. Thinner, a bit angry, but still healthy and purring.

"She's great," Armstrong said.

The feline disappeared earlier this month and Armstrong feared it was long lost.

"I searched and searched and searched," she said.

Finally, after nine days, she heard Scarlett's cry, up high in a tree in a remote forested section near her home. Too scared to come down, it would take a climber to get her.

For two days, Armstrong called for help. Police, fire, tree services. None could.

"I had a meltdown on day 11, just watching this poor little thing starving and not being able to do anything," Ashe said.

Then, she remembered Hammons' name. He had rescued Scarlett last year, when it spent eight days in a tree.

Friday, he arrived, climbing gear ready.

He had one request from Armstrong: Get a pillowcase from your bed.

"He could put the cat in it and the cat could smell me," she said.

The plan worked.

Within 15 minutes, Hammons scaled the pine, put Scarlett in the pillowcase, tied it shut - so she couldn't see, be scared and jump out - and returned to Earth.

Hammons, an experienced mountain climber, wasn't surprised Armstrong called him a second time.

"Cats are cats," he said.

Hammons is used to heights. His first cat rescue in northern California required that he venture 260 feet up a Redwood - all the way to the top - in pursuit of his prey.

He also got that cat.

"They haven't called me back," he said, laughing.

Armstrong said Scarlett, named after Scarlett O'Hara of "Gone with the Wind," has been part of her family a few years, ever since her son found an abandoned litter of six kittens at the top of Coeur d'Alene Mountain.

Every family member adopted one.

Armstrong is keeping Scarlett indoors - but not much longer.

"She wants out. She's back to being a fat, sassy cat,"

Let's hope Hammons' number is on speed dial.