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CHAPTER 3 - THE ROBBERY OF CAYKE THE COOKIE COOK
One more important theft was reported in the Land of Oz that eventful
morning, but it took place so far from either the Emerald City or the castle of
Glinda the Good that none of those persons we have mentioned learned of the
robbery until long afterward.
In the far southwestern corner of the Winkie Country is a broad tableland that
can be reached only by climbing a steep hill, whichever side one approaches
it. On the hillside surrounding this tableland are no paths at all, but there
are quantities of bramble bushes with sharp prickers on them, which prevent
any of the Oz people who live down below from climbing up to see what is on
top. But on top live the Yips, and although the space they occupy is not great
in extent, the wee country is all their own. The Yips had never--up to the time
this story begins--left their broad tableland to go down into the Land of Oz,
nor had the Oz people ever climbed up to the country of the Yips.
Living all alone as they did, the Yips had queer ways and notions of their own
and did not resemble any other people of the Land of Oz. Their houses were
scattered all over the flat surface; not like a city, grouped together, but set
wherever their owners' fancy dictated, with fields here, trees there, and odd
little paths connecting the houses one with another. It was here, on the
morning when Ozma so strangely disappeared from the Emerald City, that
Cayke the Cookie Cook discovered that her diamond-studded gold dishpan
had been stolen, and she raised such a hue and cry over her loss and wailed
and shrieked so loudly that many of the Yips gathered around her house to
inquire what was the matter.
It was a serious thing in any part of the Land of Oz to accuse one of stealing,
so when the Yips heard Cayke the Cookie Cook declare that her jeweled
dishpan had been stolen, they were both humiliated and disturbed and forced
Cayke to go with them to the Frogman to see what could be done about it. I
do not suppose you have ever before heard of the Frogman, for like all other
dwellers on that tableland, he had never been away from it, nor had anyone
come up there to see him. The Frogman was in truth descended from the
common frogs of Oz, and when he was first born he lived in a pool in the
Winkie Country and was much like any other frog. Being of an adventurous
nature, however, he soon hopped out of his pool and began to travel, when a
big bird came along and seized him in its beak and started to fly away with
him to its nest. When high in the air, the frog wriggled so frantically that he
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