ll, we are
really in the Land of Oz, where Ozma rules ev'ry King and ev'rybody
else. I never heard of anybody getting hurt in her dominions, did you,
Button-Bright?"

"Not when she knows about it," he replied. "But those birds landed us
in just the wrong place, seems to me. They might have carried us right
on, over that row of mountains, to the Em'rald City."

"True enough," said Cap'n Bill; "but they didn't, an' so we must make
the best of Jinxland. Let's try not to be afraid."

"Oh, I'm not very scared," said Button-Bright, pausing to look at a
pink rabbit that popped its head out of a hole in the field near by.

"Nor am I," added Trot. "Really, Cap'n, I'm so glad to be anywhere at
all in the wonderful fairyland of Oz that I think I'm the luckiest girl
in all the world. Dorothy lives in the Em'rald City, you know, and so
does the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman and Tik-Tok and the Shaggy
Man--and all the rest of 'em that we've heard so much about--not to
mention Ozma, who must be the sweetest and loveliest girl in all the
world!"

"Take your time, Trot," advised Button-Bright. "You don't have to say
it all in one breath, you know. And you haven't mentioned half of the
curious people in the Em'rald City."

"That 'ere Em'rald City," said Cap'n Bill impressively, "happens to be
on the other side o' those mountains, that we're told no one is able to
cross. I don't want to discourage of you, Trot, but we're a'most as
much separated from your Ozma an' Dorothy as we were when we lived in
Californy."

There was so much truth in this statement that they all walked on in
silence for some time. Finally they reached the grove of stately trees
that bordered the grounds of the King's castle. They had gone halfway
through it when the sound of sobbing, as of someone in bitter distress,
reached their ears and caused them to halt abruptly.

Chapter Ten

Pon, the Gardener's Boy

It was Button-Bright who first discovered, lying on his face beneath a
broad spreading tree near the pathway, a young man whose body shook
with the force of his sobs. He was dressed in a long brown smock and
had sandals on his feet, betokening one in humble life. His head was
bare and showed a shock of brown, curly hair. Button-Bright looked down
on the young man and said:

"Who cares, anyhow?"

"I do!" cried the young man, interrupting his sobs to roll over, face
upward, that he might see who had spoken. "I care, for my heart is
broken!"