and let one end of them down into the hole, and
soon both Scraps and the boy had climbed up and were standing safely
beside the others. They looked once more for Ozma, but the hole was
now absolutely vacant. It was a round hole, so from the top they could
plainly see every part of it. Before they left the place, Dorothy went
to the Bear King and said, "I'm sorry we couldn't believe what the
little Pink Bear said, 'cause we don't want to make you feel bad by
doubting him. There must be a mistake, somewhere, and we prob'ly don't
understand just what the little Pink Bear said. Will you let me ask
him one more question?"

The Lavender Bear King was a good-natured bear, considering how he was
made and stuffed and jointed, so he accepted Dorothy's apology and
turned the crank and allowed the little girl to question his wee Pink
Bear.

"Is Ozma REALLY in this hole?" asked Dorothy.

"No," said the little Pink Bear.

This surprised everybody. Even the Bear King was now puzzled by the
contradictory statements of his oracle.

"Where IS she?" asked the King.

"Here, among you," answered the little Pink Bear.

"Well," said Dorothy, "this beats me entirely! I guess the little Pink
Bear has gone crazy."

"Perhaps," called Scraps, who was rapidly turning "cartwheels" all
around the perplexed group, "Ozma is invisible."

"Of course!" cried Betsy. "That would account for it."

"Well, I've noticed that people can speak, even when they've been made
invisible," said the Wizard. And then he looked all around him and
said in a solemn voice, "Ozma, are you here?"

There was no reply. Dorothy asked the question, too, and so did
Button-Bright and Trot and Betsy, but none received any reply at all.

"It's strange, it's terrible strange!" muttered Cayke the Cookie Cook.
"I was sure that the little Pink Bear always tells the truth."

"I still believe in his honesty," said the Frogman, and this tribute so
pleased the Bear King that he gave these last speakers grateful looks,
but still gazed sourly on the others.

"Come to think of it," remarked the Wizard, "Ozma couldn't be
invisible, for she is a fairy, and fairies cannot be made invisible
against their will. Of course, she could be imprisoned by the magician
or enchanted or transformed, in spite of her fairy powers, but Ugu
could not render her invisible by any magic at his command."

"I wonder if she's been transformed into Button-Bright?" said Dorothy
nervously. Then