e, and so
he thought very, very hard how best to answer the woman without
betraying himself. "I beg to inform you," said he, "that nothing in
the Yip Country has ever been stolen before."

"We know that already," answered Cayke the Cookie Cook impatiently.

"Therefore," continued the Frogman, "this theft becomes a very
important matter."

"Well, where is my dishpan?" demanded the woman.

"It is lost, but it must be found. Unfortunately, we have no policemen
or detectives to unravel the mystery, so we must employ other means to
regain the lost article. Cayke must first write a Proclamation and
tack it to the door of her house, and the Proclamation must read that
whoever stole the jeweled dishpan must return it at once."

"But suppose no one returns it," suggested Cayke.

"Then," said the Frogman, "that very fact will be proof that no one has
stolen it."

Cayke was not satisfied, but the other Yips seemed to approve the plan
highly. They all advised her to do as the Frogman had told her to, so
she posted the sign on her door and waited patiently for someone to
return the dishpan--which no one ever did. Again she went, accompanied
by a group of her neighbors, to the Frogman, who by this time had given
the matter considerable thought. Said he to Cayke, "I am now convinced
that no Yip has taken your dishpan, and since it is gone from the Yip
Country, I suspect that some stranger came from the world down below us
in the darkness of night when all of us were asleep and took away your
treasure. There can be no other explanation of its disappearance. So
if you wish to recover that golden, diamond-studded dishpan, you must
go into the lower world after it."

This was indeed a startling proposition. Cayke and her friends went to
the edge of the flat tableland and looked down the steep hillside to
the plains below. It was so far to the bottom of the hill that nothing
there could be seen very distinctly, and it seemed to the Yips very
venturesome, if not dangerous, to go so far from home into an unknown
land. However, Cayke wanted her dishpan very badly, so she turned to
her friends and asked, "Who will go with me?"

No one answered the question, but after a period of silence one of the
Yips said, "We know what is here on the top of this flat hill, and it
seems to us a very pleasant place, but what is down below we do not
know. The chances are it is not so pleasant, so we had best stay where
we are."

"It ma