nce captured from the Nome
King," she replied.

"A Magic Belt! Why, that's fine. I'm sure a Magic Belt would take
you over these hills."

"It might if I knew how to work it," said the little girl. "Ozma knows
a lot of its magic, but I've never found out about it. All I know is
that while I am wearing it, nothing can hurt me."

"Try wishing yourself across and see if it will obey you," suggested
the Wizard.

"But what good would that do?" asked Dorothy. "If I got across, it
wouldn't help the rest of you, and I couldn't go alone among all those
giants and dragons while you stayed here."

"True enough," agreed the Wizard sadly. And then, after looking around
the group, he inquired, "What is that on your finger, Trot?"

"A ring. The Mermaids gave it to me," she explained, "and if ever I'm
in trouble when I'm on the water, I can call the Mermaids and they'll
come and help me. But the Mermaids can't help me on the land, you
know, 'cause they swim, and--and--they haven't any legs."

"True enough," repeated the Wizard, more sadly.

There was a big, broad, spreading tree near the edge of the gulf, and
as the sun was hot above them, they all gathered under the shade of the
tree to study the problem of what to do next. "If we had a long rope,"
said Betsy, "we could fasten it to this tree and let the other end of
it down into the gulf and all slide down it."

"Well, what then?" asked the Wizard.

"Then, if we could manage to throw the rope up the other side,"
explained the girl, "we could all climb it and be on the other side of
the gulf."

"There are too many 'if's' in that suggestion," remarked the little
Wizard. "And you must remember that the other side is nothing but
spinning mountains, so we couldn't possibly fasten a rope to them, even
if we had one."

"That rope idea isn't half bad, though," said the Patchwork Girl, who
had been dancing dangerously near to the edge of the gulf.

"What do you mean?" asked Dorothy.

The Patchwork Girl suddenly stood still and cast her button eyes around
the group. "Ha, I have it!" she exclaimed. "Unharness the Sawhorse,
somebody. My fingers are too clumsy."

"Shall we?" asked Button-Bright doubtfully, turning to the others.

"Well, Scraps has a lot of brains, even if she IS stuffed with cotton,"
asserted the Wizard. "If her brains can help us out of this trouble,
we ought to use them."

So he began unharnessing the Sawhorse, and Button-Bright and Dorothy