here I belong, at once, or you'll be sorry!"

The cruel King turned pale at hearing the grasshopper's threats, but
the Wicked Witch merely laughed in derision. Then she raised her stick
and aimed a vicious blow at the grasshopper, but before the stick
struck the bed the tiny hopper made a marvelous jump--marvelous,
indeed, when we consider that it had a wooden leg. It rose in the air
and sailed across the room and passed right through the open window,
where it disappeared from their view.

"Good!" shouted the King. "We are well rid of this desperate wizard."
And then they both laughed heartily at the success of the incantation,
and went away to complete their horrid plans.

After Trot had visited a time with Princess Gloria, the little girl
went to Button-Bright's room but did not find him there. Then she went
to Cap'n Bill's room, but he was not there because the witch and the
King had been there before her. So she made her way downstairs and
questioned the servants. They said they had seen the little boy go out
into the garden, some time ago, but the old man with the wooden leg
they had not seen at all.

Therefore Trot, not knowing what else to do, rambled through the great
gardens, seeking for Button-Bright or Cap'n Bill and not finding either
of them. This part of the garden, which lay before the castle, was not
walled in, but extended to the roadway, and the paths were open to the
edge of the forest; so, after two hours of vain search for her friends,
the little girl returned to the castle.

But at the doorway a soldier stopped her.

"I live here," said Trot, "so it's all right to let me in. The King has
given me a room."

"Well, he has taken it back again," was the soldier's reply. "His
Majesty's orders are to turn you away if you attempt to enter. I am
also ordered to forbid the boy, your companion, to again enter the
King's castle."

"How 'bout Cap'n Bill?" she inquired.

"Why, it seems he has mysteriously disappeared," replied the soldier,
shaking his head ominously. "Where he has gone to, I can't make out,
but I can assure you he is no longer in this castle. I'm sorry, little
girl, to disappoint you. Don't blame me; I must obey my master's
orders."

Now, all her life Trot had been accustomed to depend on Cap'n Bill, so
when this good friend was suddenly taken from her she felt very
miserable and forlorn indeed. She was brave enough not to cry before
the soldier, or even to let him see her grief an