turn to violet and the other to rose, and wondered that his tail should
be yellow and his body striped with blue and orange like the stripes of
a zebra. Then she looked at Zeb, whose face was blue and whose hair was
pink, and gave a little laugh that sounded a bit nervous.
"Isn't it funny?" she said.
The boy was startled and his eyes were big. Dorothy had a green streak
through the center of her face where the blue and yellow lights came
together, and her appearance seemed to add to his fright.
"I--I don't s-s-see any-thing funny--'bout it!" he stammered.
[Illustration: HORSE, BUGGY AND ALL FELL SLOWLY.]
Just then the buggy tipped slowly over upon its side, the body of the
horse tipping also. But they continued to fall, all together, and the
boy and girl had no difficulty in remaining upon the seat, just as they
were before. Then they turned bottom side up, and continued to roll
slowly over until they were right side up again. During this time Jim
struggled frantically, all his legs kicking the air; but on finding
himself in his former position the horse said, in a relieved tone of
voice:
"Well, that's better!"
Dorothy and Zeb looked at one another in wonder.
"Can your horse talk?" she asked.
"Never knew him to, before," replied the boy.
"Those were the first words I ever said," called out the horse, who had
overheard them, "and I can't explain why I happened to speak then. This
is a nice scrape you've got me into, isn't it?"
"As for that, we are in the same scrape ourselves," answered Dorothy,
cheerfully. "But never mind; something will happen pretty soon."
"Of course," growled the horse; "and then we shall be sorry it
happened."
Zeb gave a shiver. All this was so terrible and unreal that he could not
understand it at all, and so had good reason to be afraid.
Swiftly they drew near to the flaming colored suns, and passed close
beside them. The light was then so bright that it dazzled their eyes,
and they covered their faces with their hands to escape being blinded.
There was no heat in the colored suns, however, and after they had
passed below them the top of the buggy shut out many of the piercing
rays so that the boy and girl could open their eyes again.
"We've got to come to the bottom some time," remarked Zeb, with a deep
sigh. "We can't keep falling forever, you know."
"Of course not," said Dorothy. "We are somewhere in the middle of the
earth, and the chances are we'll reach the
|