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canary-bird in a gold cage studded with diamonds. The cage was so she

couldn't fly away. I expected she'd sing and talk and we'd have good times

together; but she has proved no company for me at all. Ever since the

moment of her transformation, she has refused to speak a single word."

"Where is she now?" inquired Woot, who had heard tales of lovely

Polychrome and was much interested in her.

"The cage is hanging up in my bedroom," said the Giantess, eating another

biscuit. The travelers were now more uneasy and suspicious of the Giantess

than before. If Polychrome, the Rainbow's Daughter, who was a real fairy,

had been transformed and enslaved by this huge woman, who claimed to be

a Yookoohoo, what was liable to happen to them? Said the Scarecrow,

twisting his stuffed head around in Mrs. Yoop's direction:

Do you know, Ma'am, who we are?"

Of course," said she; "a straw man, a tin man and a boy."

We are very important people," declared the Tin Woodman.

All the better," she replied. "I shall enjoy your society the more on that

account. For I mean to keep you here as long as I live, to amuse me when I

get lonely. And," she added slowly, "in this Valley no one ever dies."

They didn't like this speech at all, so the Scarecrow frowned in a way that

made Mrs. Yoop smile, while the Tin Woodman looked so fierce that Mrs.

Yoop laughed. The Scarecrow suspected she was going to laugh, so he

slipped behind his friends to escape the wind from her breath. From this

safe position he said warningly:

"We have powerful friends who will soon come to rescue us."

"Let them come," she returned, with an accent of scorn. "When they get here

they will find neither a boy, nor a tin man, nor a scarecrow, for tomorrow

morning I intend to transform you all into other shapes, so that you cannot

be recognized."

This threat filled them with dismay. The good-natured Giantess was more

terrible than they had imagined. She could smile and wear pretty clothes

and at the same time be even more cruel than her wicked husband had

been.

The Tin Woodman of Oz