Gaper's Gulch
Kabumpo, as happy to escape from Court life as Randy, moved
rhythmically as a ship through the soft spring night. Humming to
himself and busy with his own thoughts, he scarcely noticed that the
highway was growing steeper and narrower until he was brought up sharp
by an impassable barrier of rock.
"Now, Bosh and Botherskites! I was sure this road ran straight to the
Deadly Desert," he muttered, reaching back with his trunk to see that
Randy was still safely aboard and asleep. "Beets and butternuts! Do
I have to turn back, or plough through all this rubble?" The Elegant
Elephant's small eyes twinkled with irritation, and easing himself
to the right off the highway, he peered crossly up at the offending
mass of stone. Finding no way round here, he swung over to the left
and examined it closely from that side, and was just about to start
resignedly through the brush when he discovered that what he had
taken for an especially dark shadow was really a cleft in the rock.
It was barely wide enough for him to squeeze through without scraping
the jewels from his robe. "Now then, shall I risk it or wait till
morning?" mused Kabumpo, swaying undecidedly to and fro. "It might take
us straight through to the other side of the highway. On the other
trunk, it might lead into a robber's cave or plunge us suddenly over a
precipice!"
Edging closer, the Elegant Elephant thrust his trunk into the crevice.
It seemed smooth and solid, and, resolved to try it even though little
of the moonlight penetrated into the narrow opening, Kabumpo stepped
inside and proceeded to pick his way cautiously along the rocky
corridor. For about the length of a city street it ran straight ahead,
then curved sharply to the right. Here Kabumpo was heartened to see
a lantern hanging from an iron spike, while carved on the smooth rock
below was a blunt message.
"This is the entrance to Gaper's Gulch. Pause here and give three yawns
and a stretch for Sleeperoo, Great, Grand and Most Snorious Gaper!"
"Snorious Gaper! Ho, Ho! kerumph! Who ever heard of such nonsense?"
snorted Kabumpo, squinting impatiently down at the notice. "Ah, Hah!
HOH, HUM!" At this point, and without seeming able to help it, the
Elegant Elephant yawned so terrifically his head-piece fell over one
ear, and his jaw was almost dislocated. To recover his dignity and
with tears starting from his eyes, he gave himself a quick shake, then
stretched up his trunk to straighten his headgear.
"Splen--did!" drawled a sleepy voice. "You may now proceed as before."
Blinking angrily about to see who had addressed him, the Elegant
Elephant spied a round-faced and widely gaping guard standing in a
little niche in the rock. Strapped to his shoulders, instead of a
knapsack, was a fat feather pillow, and as Kabumpo came opposite the
guard's eyes closed, and falling back against his cushion he began
gently to snore. As Kabumpo stopped in some astonishment, the guard's
nap was rudely interrupted by a pailful of pebbles that cascaded
merrily down over his ears. There were twenty pails operating on a
moving belt above his head and at three-minute intervals they pelted
him awake, as Kabumpo presently discovered. The buttons on the guard's
uniform were illuminated and spelled out his name, "WINKS."
"Well, do I surprise you?" inquired Winks, shaking the pebbles from his
shoulders and rubbing his eyes with his yellow-gloved hands. Kabumpo,
too amused to speak, nodded.
"And you surprise me," admitted the guard, gaping three times just to
prove it, "you big, enormous, impossible whatever you are--you! Why,
you should have been underground months ago! But that'll all be taken
care of," he added smoothly. "Just follow the arrows and you cannot
miss--just follow the arrows--just fol--"
As Kabumpo, fuming from what he considered a mortal insult, lunged
forward, the little soldier's eyes fell shut again. Held more by
curiosity than by a desire to continue the conversation, Kabumpo waited
for the next bucket of pebbles to shower over the guard.
"'Low the arrows," went on Winks as calmly as if he had not been
interrupted at all. "There are forty guards to point the way. Forty
Winks," he repeated, closing one eye. "Ha, Ha! To point the way. Ha,
Ha! HOH, HUM! Do you get the point?"
As Kabumpo started off with a little snort of disgust, he felt a slight
prick in his left hind leg, for Winks, just as he feel asleep, let fly
an arrow from his old-fashioned bow. Before Kabumpo had reached the
end of the passageway he had passed forty of the Gaper Guards. After
his experience with the first, he did not stop for further talk, but
made the best speed possible, resolved to rush through Gaper's Gulch
when he came to it without even pausing to express his contempt. The
pebble awakeners were so neatly timed, each guard had a chance to speed
an arrow after the flying elephant, and by the time Kabumpo reached
the opening at the other end of the rocky pass, he had forty arrows
pricking through his robe or stuck here and there in his ears and
ankles. With his tough hide, they hurt no more than pin pricks, but
vastly indignant at such treatment, the Elegant Elephant began jerking
them out with his trunk.
"What do they think I am, a pincushion? Hoh!" he snorted, pulling out
the last one, and relieved to note that Randy had escaped the missiles
entirely. Indeed, the young King of Regalia was sleeping as placidly
as if he were home in his own castle. Kabumpo, too, felt unaccountably
drowsy, and as he pushed his way down into the rocky little glen his
steps grew slower and slower. So far as he could see by the light of
the fast waning moon, there were neither houses nor people in Gaper's
Gulch. In the center of the valley the rough stones and brush had been
cleared away and a series of flat rocks were spaced out almost like
a gigantic checker-board. Pausing beside the largest rock, Kabumpo
spelled out the name of Sleeperoo the Great and Snorious.
"What is this, a cemetery?" gulped the Elegant Elephant. "But that
could not be, for no one in Oz ever dies. Ho, Hum!"
Leaning up against a dead pine and blinking furiously to keep awake,
he pondered the unpleasant situation. Then, deciding that, cemetery
or not, he must have some sleep, he lifted Randy down from his back
and rolled him in a blanket he had thoughtfully brought along. Then,
divesting himself of his jeweled robe and head-piece, Kabumpo stretched
out carefully beside his young comrade and in twenty minutes was fast
asleep.
How long he slumbered Kabumpo never knew, but from a nightmare in which
he was struggling in a bank of treacherous quicksand, he awoke with a
frightful sinking feeling to find he was surrounded by forty more of
the Gaper Guards. Their buttons were also lit up and on each plump
chest he could read the word "Wake." The Wakes were busily at work
with pick and spade, and, unlike the Winks, did not seem the least bit
drowsy. Half convinced he was still asleep and dreaming, Kabumpo peered
out at them through half-closed lids, then gave a tremendous grunt.
Great Gillikens! He was sinking! The busy little Wakes had dug a trench
at least twenty feet deep all around him and now, careless of their
own safety, were shoveling away at the mound on which he was still
precariously resting.
"Quick, a few more to the right," directed a crisp little voice. "Watch
yourself there, Torpy. Ah, here he comes! Heads up, lads!"
As the Chief Wake spoke, Kabumpo felt the mound give way and down he
rolled into the pit, while the Wakes scrambled frantically up the sides.
"Did you hear that fierce TOOT?" puffed the little Guard addressed
as Torpy. "It's awake, fellows! What's wrong with those sleeping
arrows--don't they work any more? I myself saw forty sticking in the
big Whatisit when he came pounding out of the pass. Hurry, hurry! let's
get him under ground!" And, seizing their picks and spades again, the
Gaper Guards began shoveling dirt into the pit, paying no attention
to Kabumpo's furious blasts and bellows, which grew wilder and more
anguished as he suddenly realized that Randy was no longer beside him.
"What have you done with the boy? Halt! Stop! How dare you cast dirt on
an Imperial Prince of Pumperdink or try to bury the Elegant Elephant of
Oz?"
Shaking the mud from his head and raising his trunk, Kabumpo let out
such an ear-splitting trumpet, twenty Wakes fell to their knees, and
the others dropped pick and shovel and stared at him in positive dismay.
"But, sir, it is quite customary to bury all visitors," quavered Torpy
as soon as he could make himself heard. "We'll dig you up in six months
and you'll be good as new. Our dormitories are so very comfortable,
and all Gapers lie dormant for six months!"
"But I'm not a GAPER," screamed Kabumpo, interrupting himself with a
yawn both wide and gusty.
"Oh, but you soon will be," asserted Torpy, squinting down at him
earnestly. "Why, you're gaping already. Now lie down like a good beast.
Sleeping underground is lovely."
"LOVELY!" repeated all the rest of the Wakes, beginning to croon as
they shoveled. Kabumpo, opening his mouth to protest again, caught a
bushel of earth between his tusks and, half choked and blind with rage,
the Elegant Elephant hurled himself at the side of the pit. He could
almost reach the top with his trunk and, as the Wakes squealing with
alarm shoveled faster and faster, he wound his trunk round an old tree
stump and by main strength hauled himself up over the edge.
"NOW!" he bellowed, spreading his ears like sails. "Where have you
buried the boy? Quick, speak up or I'll pound you to splinters."
Snatching a log in his trunk, Kabumpo surged forward. But the terrified
Wakes, instead of answering, fled for their lives, leaving Kabumpo all
alone in the ghostly little valley.
"Randy! Randy, where are you? Oh, my poor boy, are you suffocated?"
Galloping this way and that, Kabumpo peered desperately about for a
patch of newly turned earth. But only the wind whistling drearily
through the dead branches of the pine trees came to answer him. Frantic
with worry, the Elegant Elephant began pounding with his log on the
headstones of the dormant Gapers, trumpeting at the same time in a way
to wake the dead.