e prisoner of a disagreeable princess who insisted that she
must exchange her head for another one that she was not used to, and
which might not fit her at all.

Really, there seemed no hope of help for her from her old friends in the
Land of Oz. Thoughtfully she gazed from her narrow window. On all the
desert not a living thing was stirring.

Wait, though! Something surely _was_ stirring on the desert--something
her eyes had not observed at first. Now it seemed like a cloud; now it
seemed like a spot of silver; now it seemed to be a mass of rainbow
colors that moved swiftly toward her.

What _could_ it be, she wondered?

Then, gradually, but in a brief space of time nevertheless, the vision
drew near enough to Dorothy to make out what it was.

A broad green carpet was unrolling itself upon the desert, while
advancing across the carpet was a wonderful procession that made the
girl open her eyes in amazement as she gazed.

First came a magnificent golden chariot, drawn by a great Lion and an
immense Tiger, who stood shoulder to shoulder and trotted along as
gracefully as a well-matched team of thoroughbred horses. And standing
upright within the chariot was a beautiful girl clothed in flowing robes
of silver gauze and wearing a jeweled diadem upon her dainty head. She
held in one hand the satin ribbons that guided her astonishing team, and
in the other an ivory wand that separated at the top into two prongs,
the prongs being tipped by the letters "O" and "Z", made of glistening
diamonds set closely together.

The girl seemed neither older nor larger than Dorothy herself, and at
once the prisoner in the tower guessed, that the lovely driver of the
chariot must be that Ozma of Oz of whom she had so lately heard from
Tiktok.

Following close behind the chariot Dorothy saw her old friend the
Scarecrow, riding calmly astride a wooden Saw-Horse, which pranced and
trotted as naturally as any meat horse could have done.

And then came Nick Chopper, the Tin Woodman, with his funnel-shaped cap
tipped carelessly over his left ear, his gleaming axe over his right
shoulder, and his whole body sparkling as brightly as it had ever done
in the old days when first she knew him.

The Tin Woodman was on foot, marching at the head of a company of
twenty-seven soldiers, of whom some were lean and some fat, some short
and some tall; but all the twenty-seven were dressed in handsome
uniforms of various designs and colors, no two be