her big voice, that until now they had not been alarmed
in the least.

By and by the Scarecrow, whose mixed brains had been working steadily,
asked the woman:

"Are we to consider you our friend, Mrs. Yoop, or do you intend to be
our enemy?"

"I never have friends," she said in a matter-of-fact tone, "because
friends get too familiar and always forget to mind their own business.
But I am not your enemy; not yet, anyhow. Indeed, I'm glad you've come,
for my life here is rather lonely. I've had no one to talk to since I
transformed Polychrome, the Daughter of the Rainbow, into a
canary-bird."

"How did you manage to do that?" asked the Tin Woodman, in amazement.
"Polychrome is a powerful fairy!"

"She was," said the Giantess; "but now she's a canary-bird. One day
after a rain, Polychrome danced off the Rainbow and fell asleep on a
little mound in this valley, not far from my castle. The sun came out
and drove the Rainbow away, and before Poly wakened, I stole out and
transformed her into a canary-bird in a gold cage studded with
diamonds. The cage was so she couldn't fly away. I expected she'd sing
and talk and we'd have good times together; but she has proved no
company for me at all. Ever since the moment of her transformation, she
has refused to speak a single word."

"Where is she now?" inquired Woot, who had heard tales of lovely
Polychrome and was much interested in her.

"The cage is hanging up in my bedroom," said the Giantess, eating
another biscuit. The travelers were now more uneasy and suspicious of
the Giantess than before. If Polychrome, the Rainbow's Daughter, who
was a real fairy, had been transformed and enslaved by this huge woman,
who claimed to be a Yookoohoo, what was liable to happen to them? Said
the Scarecrow, twisting his stuffed head around in Mrs. Yoop's
direction:

"Do you know, Ma'am, who we are?"

"Of course," said she; "a straw man, a tin man and a boy."

"We are very important people," declared the Tin Woodman.

"All the better," she replied. "I shall enjoy your society the more on
that account. For I mean to keep you here as long as I live, to amuse
me when I get lonely. And," she added slowly, "in this Valley no one
ever dies."

They didn't like this speech at all, so the Scarecrow frowned in a way
that made Mrs. Yoop smile, while the Tin Woodman looked so fierce that
Mrs. Yoop laughed. The Scarecrow suspected she was going to laugh, so
he slipped behind his friends to e