refused to discuss the matter in any further way.
'At any rate,' said the Frogman, 'the Pink Bear has led us to your boy friend and so enabled you to rescue him.'
Scraps was leaning so far over the hole trying to find Ozma in it that suddenly she lost her balance and pitched in head foremost. She fell upon Button-Bright and tumbled him over, but he was not hurt by her soft, stuffed body and only laughed at the mishap. The Wizard buckled some straps together and let one end of them down into the hole, and soon both Scraps and the boy had climbed up and were standing safely beside the others. They looked once more for Ozma, but the hole was now absolutely vacant. It was a round hole, so from the top they could plainly see every part of it. Before they left the place, Dorothy went to the Bear King and said, 'I'm sorry we couldn't believe what the little Pink Bear said, 'cause we don't want to make you feel bad by doubting him. There must be a mistake, somewhere, and we prob'ly don't understand just what the little Pink Bear said. Will you let me ask him one more question?'
The Lavender Bear King was a good-natured bear, considering how he was made and stuffed and jointed, so he accepted Dorothy's apology and turned the crank and allowed the little girl to question his wee Pink Bear.
'Is Ozma REALLY in this hole?' asked Dorothy.
'No,' said the little Pink Bear.
This surprised everybody. Even the Bear King was now puzzled by the contradictory statements of his oracle.
'Where IS she?' asked the King.
'Here, among you,' answered the little Pink Bear.
'Well,' said Dorothy, 'this beats me entirely! I guess the little Pink Bear has gone crazy.'
'Perhaps,' called Scraps, who was rapidly turning 'cartwheels' all around the perplexed group, 'Ozma is invisible.'
'Of course!' cried Betsy. That would account for it.'
'Well, I've noticed that people can speak, even when they've been made invisible,' said the Wizard. And then he looked all around him and said in a solemn voice, 'Ozma, are you here?'
There was no reply. Dorothy asked the question, too, and so did Button-Bright and Trot and Betsy, but none received any reply at all.
'It's strange, it's terrible strange!' muttered Cayke the Cookie Cook. 'I was sure that the little Pink Bear always tells the truth.'
'I still believe in his honesty,' said the Frogman, and this tribute so pleased the Bear King that he gave these last speakers grateful looks, but still gazed sourly on the others.
'Come to think of it,' remarked the Wizard, 'Ozma couldn't be invisible, for she is a fairy, and fairies cannot be made invisible against their will. Of course, she could be imprisoned by the magician or enchanted or transformed, in spite of her fairy powers, but Ugu could not render her invisible by any magic at his command.'
'I wonder if she's been transformed into Button-Bright?' said Dorothy nervously. Then she looked steadily at the boy and asked, 'Are you Ozma? Tell me truly!'
Button-Bright laughed.
'You're getting rattled, Dorothy,' he replied. 'Nothing ever enchants ME. If I were Ozma, do you think I'd have tumbled into that hole?'
'Anyhow,' said the Wizard, 'Ozma would never try to deceive her friends or prevent them from recognizing her in whatever form she happened to be. The puzzle is still a puzzle, so let us go on to the wicker castle and question the magician himself. Since it was he who stole our Ozma, Ugu is the one who must tell us where to find her.
Chapter 21
MAGIC AGAINST MAGIC
The Wizard's advice was good, so again they started in the direction of the low mountain on the crest of which the wicker castle had been built. They had been gradually advancing uphill, so now the elevation seemed to them more like a round knoll than a mountaintop. However, the sides of the knoll were sloping and covered with green grass, so there was a stiff climb before them yet. Undaunted, they plodded on and had almost reached the knoll when they suddenly observed that it was surrounded by a circle of flame. At first, the flames barely rose above the ground, but presently they grew higher and higher until a circle of flaming tongues of fire taller than any of their heads quite surrounded the hill on which the wicker castle stood. When they approached the flames, the heat was so intense that it drove them back again.
'This will never do for me!' exclaimed the Patchwork Girl. 'I catch fire very easily.'
'It won't do for me either,' grumbled the Sawhorse, prancing to the rear.
'I also strongly object to fire,' said the Bear King, following the Sawhorse to a safe distance and hugging the little Pink Bear with his paws.
'I suppose the foolish Shoemaker imagines these blazes will stop us,' remarked the Wizard with a smile of scorn for Ugu. 'But I am able to inform you that this is merely a simple magic trick which the robber stole from Glinda the Good, and by good fortune I know how to destroy these flames as well as how to produce them. Will some one of you kindly give me a match?'
You may be sure the girls carried no matches, nor did the Frogman or any of the animals. But Button- Bright, after searching carefully through his pockets, which contained all sorts of useful and useless things, finally produced a match and handed it to the Wizard, who tied it to the end of a branch which he tore from a small tree growing near them. Then the little Wizard carefully lighted the match, and running forward thrust it into the nearest flame. Instantly, the circle of fire began to die away, and soon vanished completely leaving the way clear for them to proceed.
'That was funny!' laughed Button-Bright.
'Yes,' agreed the Wizard, 'it seems odd that a little match could destroy such a great circle of fire, but when Glinda invented this trick, she believed no one would ever think of a match being a remedy for fire. I suppose even Ugu doesn't know how we managed to quench the flames of his barrier, for only Glinda and I know the secret. Glinda's Book of Magic which Ugu stole told how to make the flames, but not how to put them out.'
They now formed in marching order and proceeded to advance up the slope of the hill, but had not gone far when before them rose a wall of steel, the surface of which was thickly covered with sharp, gleaming points resembling daggers. The wall completely surrounded the wicker castle, and its sharp points prevented anyone from climbing it. Even the Patchwork Girl might be ripped to pieces if she dared attempt it. 'Ah!' exclaimed the Wizard cheerfully, 'Ugu is now using one of my own tricks against me. But this is more serious than the Barrier of Fire, because the only way to destroy the wall is to get on the other side of it.'
'How can that be done?' asked Dorothy.
The Wizard looked thoughtfully around his little party, and his face grew troubled. 'It's a pretty high wall,' he sadly remarked. 'I'm pretty sure the Cowardly Lion could not leap over it.'
'I'm sure of that, too!' said the Lion with a shudder of fear. 'If I foolishly tried such a leap, I would be caught on those dreadful spikes.'
'I think I could do it, sir,' said the Frogman with a bow to the Wizard. 'It is an uphill jump as well as being a high jump, but I'm considered something of a jumper by my friends in the Yip Country, and I believe a good, strong leap will carry me to the other side.'
'I'm sure it would,' agreed the Cookie Cook.
'Leaping, you know, is a froglike accomplishment,' continued the Frogman modestly, 'but please tell me what I am to do when I reach the
'You're a brave creature,' said the Wizard admiringly. 'Has anyone a pin?'
Betsy had one, which she gave him. 'All you need do,' said the Wizard to the Frogman, giving him the pin, 'is to stick this into the other side of the wall.'
'But the wall is of steel!' exclaimed the big frog.
