e too many to be repulsed for long. They tired Jim and
Eureka out, and although the field of battle was thickly covered with
mashed and disabled Mangaboos, our animal friends had to give up at
last and allow themselves to be driven to the mountain.

7. Into the Black Pit and Out Again

When they came to the mountain it proved to be a rugged, towering chunk
of deep green glass, and looked dismal and forbidding in the extreme.
Half way up the steep was a yawning cave, black as night beyond the
point where the rainbow rays of the colored suns reached into it.

The Mangaboos drove the horse and the kitten and the piglets into this
dark hole and then, having pushed the buggy in after them--for it
seemed some of them had dragged it all the way from the domed
hall--they began to pile big glass rocks within the entrance, so that
the prisoners could not get out again.

"This is dreadful!" groaned Jim. "It will be about the end of our
adventures, I guess."

"If the Wizard was here," said one of the piglets, sobbing bitterly,
"he would not see us suffer so."

"We ought to have called him and Dorothy when we were first attacked,"
added Eureka. "But never mind; be brave, my friends, and I will go and
tell our masters where you are, and get them to come to your rescue."

The mouth of the hole was nearly filled up now, but the kitten gave a
leap through the remaining opening and at once scampered up into the
air. The Mangaboos saw her escape, and several of them caught up their
thorns and gave chase, mounting through the air after her. Eureka,
however, was lighter than the Mangaboos, and while they could mount
only about a hundred feet above the earth the kitten found she could go
nearly two hundred feet. So she ran along over their heads until she
had left them far behind and below and had come to the city and the
House of the Sorcerer. There she entered in at Dorothy's window in the
dome and aroused her from her sleep.

As soon as the little girl knew what had happened she awakened the
Wizard and Zeb, and at once preparations were made to go to the rescue
of Jim and the piglets. The Wizard carried his satchel, which was
quite heavy, and Zeb carried the two lanterns and the oil can.
Dorothy's wicker suit-case was still under the seat of the buggy, and
by good fortune the boy had also placed the harness in the buggy when
he had taken it off from Jim to let the horse lie down and rest. So
there was nothing fo