t dark."

"I fear that wouldn't do," replied the Scarecrow. "The well must be
naturally dark, and the water must never have seen the light of day,
for otherwise the magic charm might not work at all."

"How much of the water do you need?" asked Jack.

"A gill."

"How much is a gill?"

"Why--a gill is a gill, of course," answered the Scarecrow, who did not
wish to display his ignorance.

"I know!" cried Scraps. "Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch--"

"No, no; that's wrong," interrupted the Scarecrow. "There are two kinds
of gills, I think; one is a girl, and the other is--"

"A gillyflower," said Jack.

"No; a measure."

"How big a measure?"

"Well, I'll ask Dorothy."

So next morning they asked Dorothy, and she said:

"I don't just know how much a gill is, but I've brought along a gold
flask that holds a pint. That's more than a gill, I'm sure, and the
Crooked Magician may measure it to suit himself. But the thing that's
bothering us most, Jack, is to find the well."

Jack gazed around the landscape, for he was standing in the doorway of
his house.

"This is a flat country, so you won't find any dark wells here," said
he. "You must go into the mountains, where rocks and caverns are."

"And where is that?" asked Ojo.

"In the Quadling Country, which lies south of here," replied the
Scarecrow. "I've known all along that we must go to the mountains."

"So have I," said Dorothy.

"But--goodness me!--the Quadling Country is full of dangers," declared
Jack. "I've never been there myself, but--"

"I have," said the Scarecrow. "I've faced the dreadful Hammerheads,
which have no arms and butt you like a goat; and I've faced the
Fighting Trees, which bend down their branches to pound and whip you,
and had many other adventures there."

"It's a wild country," remarked Dorothy, soberly, "and if we go there
we're sure to have troubles of our own. But I guess we'll have to go,
if we want that gill of water from the dark well."

So they said good-bye to the Pumpkinhead and resumed their travels,
heading now directly toward the South Country, where mountains and
rocks and caverns and forests of great trees abounded. This part of the
Land of Oz, while it belonged to Ozma and owed her allegiance, was so
wild and secluded that many queer peoples hid in its jungles and lived
in their own way, without even a knowledge that they had a Ruler in the
Emerald City. If they were left alone, these creatures never