rther than her eyes could reach. It was this desert, she
thought, with much interest, that alone separated her from the
wonderful Land of Oz, and she remembered sorrowfully that she had been
told no one had ever been able to cross this dangerous waste but
herself. Once a cyclone had carried her across it, and a magical pair
of silver shoes had carried her back again. But now she had neither a
cyclone nor silver shoes to assist her, and her condition was sad
indeed. For she had become the prisoner of a disagreeable princess who
insisted that she must exchange her head for another one that she was
not used to, and which might not fit her at all.

Really, there seemed no hope of help for her from her old friends in
the Land of Oz. Thoughtfully she gazed from her narrow window. On all
the desert not a living thing was stirring.

Wait, though! Something surely WAS stirring on the desert--something
her eyes had not observed at first. Now it seemed like a cloud; now it
seemed like a spot of silver; now it seemed to be a mass of rainbow
colors that moved swiftly toward her.

What COULD it be, she wondered?

Then, gradually, but in a brief space of time nevertheless, the vision
drew near enough to Dorothy to make out what it was.

A broad green carpet was unrolling itself upon the desert, while
advancing across the carpet was a wonderful procession that made the
girl open her eyes in amazement as she gazed.

First came a magnificent golden chariot, drawn by a great Lion and an
immense Tiger, who stood shoulder to shoulder and trotted along as
gracefully as a well-matched team of thoroughbred horses. And standing
upright within the chariot was a beautiful girl clothed in flowing
robes of silver gauze and wearing a jeweled diadem upon her dainty
head. She held in one hand the satin ribbons that guided her
astonishing team, and in the other an ivory wand that separated at the
top into two prongs, the prongs being tipped by the letters "O" and
"Z", made of glistening diamonds set closely together.

The girl seemed neither older nor larger than Dorothy herself, and at
once the prisoner in the tower guessed that the lovely driver of the
chariot must be that Ozma of Oz of whom she had so lately heard from
Tiktok.

Following close behind the chariot Dorothy saw her old friend the
Scarecrow, riding calmly astride a wooden Saw-Horse, which pranced and
trotted as naturally as any meat horse could have done.

And then c