ling to separate himself from the Tin Soldier, whose
legs and arms were mixed with his own.

"I'm not sure it was a person," said Polychrome, looking more grave
than usual. "It seems to me that I merely ran into some hard substance
which barred my way. In order to make sure of this, let me try another
place."

She ran back a way and then with much caution advanced in a different
place, but when she reached a position on a line with the others she
halted, her arms outstretched before her.

"I can feel something hard--something smooth as glass," she said, "but
I'm sure it is not glass."

"Let me try," suggested Woot, getting up; but when he tried to go
forward, he discovered the same barrier that Polychrome had encountered.

"No," he said, "it isn't glass. But what is it?"

"Air," replied a small voice beside him. "Solid air; that's all."

They all looked downward and found a sky-blue rabbit had stuck his head
out of a burrow in the ground. The rabbit's eyes were a deeper blue
than his fur, and the pretty creature seemed friendly and unafraid.

"Air!" exclaimed Woot, staring in astonishment into the rabbit's blue
eyes; "whoever heard of air so solid that one cannot push it aside?"

"You can't push this air aside," declared the rabbit, "for it was made
hard by powerful sorcery, and it forms a wall that is intended to keep
people from getting to that house yonder."

"Oh; it's a wall, is it?" said the Tin Woodman.

"Yes, it is really a wall," answered the rabbit, "and it is fully six
feet thick."

"How high is it?" inquired Captain Fyter, the Tin Soldier.

"Oh, ever so high; perhaps a mile," said the rabbit.

"Couldn't we go around it?" asked Woot.

"Of course, for the wall is a circle," explained the rabbit. "In the
center of the circle stands the house, so you may walk around the Wall
of Solid Air, but you can't get to the house."

"Who put the air wall around the house?" was the Scarecrow's question.

"Nimmie Amee did that."

"Nimmie Amee!" they all exclaimed in surprise.

"Yes," answered the rabbit. "She used to live with an old Witch, who
was suddenly destroyed, and when Nimmie Amee ran away from the Witch's
house, she took with her just one magic formula--pure sorcery it
was--which enabled her to build this air wall around her house--the
house yonder. It was quite a clever idea, I think, for it doesn't mar
the beauty of the landscape, solid air being invisible, and yet it
keeps all strangers away