ely within. The soldiers afterward tried to lift Tiktok, but they
found the machine so solid and heavy that they could not stir it. So
they left him standing in the center of the drawing-room.

"People will think I have a new statue," said Langwidere, "so it won't
matter in the least, and Nanda can keep him well polished."

"What shall we do with the hen?" asked the colonel, who had just
discovered Billina in the work-basket.

"Put her in the chicken-house," answered the Princess. "Some day I'll
have her fried for breakfast."

"She looks rather tough, Your Highness," said Nanda, doubtfully.

"That is a base slander!" cried Billina, struggling frantically in the
colonel's arms. "But the breed of chickens I come from is said to be
poison to all princesses."

"Then," remarked Langwidere, "I will not fry the hen, but keep her to
lay eggs; and if she doesn't do her duty I'll have her drowned in the
horse trough."

[Illustration]

Ozma of Oz to the Rescue

[Illustration]

Nanda brought Dorothy bread and water for her supper and she slept upon
a hard stone couch with a single pillow and a silken coverlet.

In the morning she leaned out of the window of her prison in the tower
to see if there was any way to escape. The room was not so very high up,
when compared with our modern buildings, but it was far enough above the
trees and farm houses to give her a good view of the surrounding
country.

To the east she saw the forest, with the sands beyond it and the ocean
beyond that. There was even a dark speck upon the shore that she
thought might be the chicken-coop in which she had arrived at this
singular country.

Then she looked to the north, and saw a deep but narrow valley lying
between two rocky mountains, and a third mountain that shut off the
valley at the further end.

Westward the fertile Land of Ev suddenly ended a little way from the
palace, and the girl could see miles and miles of sandy desert that
stretched further than her eyes could reach. It was this desert, she
thought, with much interest, that alone separated her from the wonderful
Land of Oz, and she remembered sorrowfully that she had been told no one
had ever been able to cross this dangerous waste but herself. Once a
cyclone had carried her across it, and a magical pair of silver shoes
had carried her back again. But now she had neither a cyclone nor silver
shoes to assist her, and her condition was sad indeed. For she had
become th