"It was this way," began the Su-dic, glad to change the subject. "We
Flatheads love fish, and as we have no fish on this mountain we would
sometimes go to the Lake of the Skeezers to catch fish. This made the
Skeezers angry, for they declared the fish in their lake belonged to
them and were under their protection and they forbade us to catch them.
That was very mean and unfriendly in the Skeezers, you must admit, and
when we paid no attention to their orders they set a guard on the shore
of the lake to prevent our fishing.

"Now, my wife, Rora Flathead, having four cans of brains, had become a
wonderful witch, and fish being brain food, she loved to eat fish
better than any one of us. So she vowed she would destroy every fish in
the lake, unless the Skeezers let us catch what we wanted. They defied
us, so Rora prepared a kettleful of magic poison and went down to the
lake one night to dump it all in the water and poison the fish. It was
a clever idea, quite worthy of my dear wife, but the Skeezer Queen--a
young lady named Coo-ee-oh--hid on the bank of the lake and taking Rora
unawares, transformed her into a Golden Pig. The poison was spilled on
the ground and wicked Queen Coo-ee-oh, not content with her cruel
transformation, even took away my wife's four cans of brains, so she is
now a common grunting pig without even brains enough to know her own
name."

"Then," said Ozma thoughtfully, "the Queen of the Skeezers must be a
Sorceress."

"Yes," said the Su-dic, "but she doesn't know much magic, after all.
She is not as powerful as Rora Flathead was, nor half as powerful as I
am now, as Queen Coo-ee-oh will discover when we fight our great battle
and destroy her."

"The Golden Pig can't be a witch any more, of course," observed Dorothy.

"No; even had Queen Coo-ee-oh left her the four cans of brains, poor
Rora, in a pig's shape, couldn't do any witchcraft. A witch has to use
her fingers, and a pig has only cloven hoofs."

"It seems a sad story," was Ozma's comment, "and all the trouble arose
because the Flatheads wanted fish that did not belong to them."

"As for that," said the Su-dic, again angry, "I made a law that any of
my people could catch fish in the Lake of the Skeezers, whenever they
wanted to. So the trouble was through the Skeezers defying my law."

"You can only make laws to govern your own people," asserted Ozma
sternly. "I, alone, am empowered to make laws that must be obeyed by
all the peoples of