ch and bite, so the next moment she was dropped to
the floor.

"Did you see that, Dorothy?" she gasped.

"Yes, dear," her mistress replied; "there are people living in this
house, although we cannot see them. And you must have better manners,
Eureka, or something worse will happen to you."

She placed a plate of food upon the floor and the kitten ate greedily.

"Give me that nice-smelling fruit I saw on the table," she begged, when
she had cleaned the plate.

"Those are damas," said Dorothy, "and you must never even taste them,
Eureka, or you'll get invis'ble, and then we can't see you at all."

The kitten gazed wistfully at the forbidden fruit.

"Does it hurt to be invis'ble?" she asked.

"I don't know," Dorothy answered; "but it would hurt me dre'fully to
lose you."

"Very well, I won't touch it," decided the kitten; "but you must keep
it away from me, for the smell is very tempting."

"Can you tell us, sir or ma'am," said the Wizard, addressing the air
because he did not quite know where the unseen people stood, "if there
is any way we can get out of your beautiful Valley, and on top of the
Earth again."

"Oh, one can leave the Valley easily enough," answered the man's voice;
"but to do so you must enter a far less pleasant country. As for
reaching the top of the earth, I have never heard that it is possible
to do that, and if you succeeded in getting there you would probably
fall off."

"Oh, no," said Dorothy, "we've been there, and we know."

"The Valley of Voe is certainly a charming place," resumed the Wizard;
"but we cannot be contented in any other land than our own, for long.
Even if we should come to unpleasant places on our way it is necessary,
in order to reach the earth's surface, to keep moving on toward it."

"In that case," said the man, "it will be best for you to cross our
Valley and mount the spiral staircase inside the Pyramid Mountain. The
top of that mountain is lost in the clouds, and when you reach it you
will be in the awful Land of Naught, where the Gargoyles live."

"What are Gargoyles?" asked Zeb.

"I do not know, young sir. Our greatest Champion, Overman-Anu, once
climbed the spiral stairway and fought nine days with the Gargoyles
before he could escape them and come back; but he could never be
induced to describe the dreadful creatures, and soon afterward a bear
caught him and ate him up."

The wanders were rather discouraged by this gloomy report, but Dorothy
sai