st--or south. But once you reach the thistle fields you are
on solid ground."

"Ah, I begin to understand," said the Wizard, nodding his head. "But I
have another question to ask: How does it happen that the Thists have no
King to rule over them?"

"Hush!" whispered the High Coco-Lorum, looking uneasily around to make
sure they were not overheard. "In reality, I am the King, but the people
don't know it. They think they rule themselves, but the fact is I have
everything my own way. No one else knows anything about our laws, and so
I make the laws to suit myself. If any oppose me, or question my acts, I
tell them it's the law, and that settles it. If I called myself King,
however, and wore a crown and lived in royal state, the people would not
like me, and might do me harm. As the High Coco-Lorum of Thi, I'm
considered a very agreeable person."

"It seems a very clever arrangement," said the Wizard. "And now, as you
are the principal person in Thi, I beg you to tell us if the Royal Ozma
is a captive in your city."

"No," answered the diamond-headed man, "we have no captives. No
strangers but yourselves are here, and we have never before heard of the
Royal Ozma."

"She rules all of Oz," said Dorothy, "and so she rules your city and
you, because you are in the Winkie Country, which is a part of the Land
of Oz."

"It may be," returned the High Coco-Lorum, "for we do not study
geography and have never inquired whether we live in the Land of Oz or
not. And any Ruler who rules us from a distance, and unknown to us, is
welcome to the job. But what has happened to your Royal Ozma?"

"Someone has stolen her," said the Wizard. "Do you happen to have any
talented magician among your people--one who is especially clever, you
know?"

"No, none especially clever. We do some magic, of course, but it is all
of the ordinary kind. I do not think any of us has yet aspired to
stealing Rulers, either by magic or otherwise."

"Then we've come a long way for nothing!" exclaimed Trot regretfully.

"But we are going farther than this," asserted the Patchwork Girl,
bending her stuffed body backward until her yarn hair touched the floor
and then walking around on her hands with her feet in the air.

The High Coco-Lorum watched Scraps admiringly.

"You may go farther on, of course," said he, "but I advise you not to.
The Herkus live back of us, beyond the thistles and the twisting lands,
and they are not very nice people to meet, I a