ed on the back of the famous live Sawhorse and was
clinging to its neck with both his arms; for the Sawhorse was speeding
to Glinda's castle with the velocity of the wind, bearing the news that
Royal Ozma, Ruler of all the great Land of Oz, had suddenly disappeared
and no one in the Emerald City knew what had become of her.

"Also," said the Wizard, as he stood before the astonished Sorceress,
"Ozma's Magic Picture is gone, so we cannot consult it to discover where
she is. So I came to you for assistance as soon as we realized our loss.
Let us look in the Great Book of Records."

"Alas," returned the Sorceress sorrowfully, "we cannot do that, for the
Great Book of Records has also disappeared!"

[Illustration]

Robbery of Cayke the Cookie Cook

[Illustration]

CHAPTER 3

One more important theft was reported in the Land of Oz that eventful
morning, but it took place so far from either the Emerald City or the
castle of Glinda the Good that none of those persons we have mentioned
learned of the robbery until long afterward.

In the far southwestern corner of the Winkie Country is a broad
tableland that can be reached only by climbing a steep hill, whichever
side one approaches it. On the hillside surrounding this tableland are
no paths at all, but there are quantities of bramble-bushes with sharp
prickers on them, which prevent any of the Oz people who live down below
from climbing up to see what is on top. But on top live the Yips, and
although the space they occupy is not great in extent the wee country is
all their own. The Yips had never--up to the time this story
begins--left their broad tableland to go down into the Land of Oz, nor
had the Oz people ever climbed up to the country of the Yips.

Living all alone as they did, the Yips had queer ways and notions of
their own and did not resemble any other people of the Land of Oz. Their
houses were scattered all over the flat surface; not like a city,
grouped together, but set wherever their owners' fancy dictated, with
fields here, trees there, and odd little paths connecting the houses one
with another.

It was here, on the morning when Ozma so strangely disappeared from the
Emerald City, that Cayke the Cookie Cook discovered that her
diamond-studded gold dishpan had been stolen, and she raised such a
hue-and-cry over her loss and wailed and shrieked so loudly that many of
the Yips gathered around her house to inquire what was the matter.

It was