The Field of Feathers
"Good Gapers, everything's pink!" marveled Randy as Kabumpo, still
muttering and snuffling, pushed his way through the last fringe of the
forest.
"So now we're in the pink, eh?" With a last convulsive snort, Kabumpo
stuffed the handkerchief into a lower pocket and trumpeted three times
for Thun to halt. "Are those flowers, d'ye 'spose? May I see one of
them, my dear?"
Catching up with the little Princess who was already on the edge of the
field, Kabumpo took the long spray she had picked and passed it back
to Randy.
"My gooseness, it's a feather! The largest and finest I've ever seen,"
Randy said in surprise. "Hey, I always thought feathers grew on birds,
yet here's a whole field of feathers, Kabumpo--imagine that! And taller
than I am, too."
"Well, there's no harm in feathers," observed Kabumpo jocularly. "Pick
a plume for your bonnet, my child. The girls in our countries adorn
themselves with these pretty fripperies. I've even worn them myself
at court functions," he admitted self-consciously. "But do you think
you can hold the colt's head up as we go through? Burnt feathers smell
rather awful, and we don't wish to anger the owner or spoil his crop."
A bit confused by the word "owner" and "crop," Planetty nevertheless
caught the idea and explained it so cleverly to Thun, the Thunder Colt
started through the field, holding his head high and handsome so that
the flames spurted upward and not down.
"It was rather like ploughing through a wheat field," decided Randy
as Kabumpo, treading lightly as he could, stepped after Thun. It was,
though, more like a sea of waving plumes, endlessly bending, nodding
and rippling in the wind. Planetty gathered armfuls of these bright
and newest treasures, liking them almost as much as the flowers in the
forest. Thun, for his part, found the whole experience irksome in the
extreme.
"These pink feathers give me the big pain in the neck," he puffed up
indignantly as he trotted along with his head in the air. Planetty,
reading his message with a little smile, was astonished to hear a
series of roars and explosions behind her. Surely Thun's remarks were
not as funny as all that! Turning round, she was shocked to see Kabumpo
swaying and stumbling in his tracks, coughing and spluttering, and torn
by such gigantic guffaws he had already shaken Randy from his back. The
young King himself rolled and twisted on the ground, fairly gasping for
breath.
"It's the feathers!" he gasped weakly, as Planetty, leaping off the
Thunder Colt, ran back to investigate. "They're tickling us to death.
Get away quickly, Netty, dear, before they get you--Oh, ha, ha, HAH!
Oh, ho, ho! Quick! Before it is too late. Oh, hi, hi, hi! I shall die
laughing!" To the startled little Princess he appeared to be dying
already.
"No, no! Please not!" she cried, dropping her armful of feathers.
With surprising strength she jerked Randy upright and, in spite of his
continued roars and wild writhing, managed to fling him across Thun's
back. Now Kabumpo was down, kicking and rolling hysterically. It seemed
to Planetty that the feathers were wickedly alive and tickling them on
purpose. They tossed, swayed and brushed against her and Thun, too, but
having no effect on the metalic skin of the Nuthers, curled away in
distaste.
"Stop! Stop! I hate you!" screamed Planetty, stamping on the bunch she
had picked a moment before, then struggling in vain to pull Kabumpo up
by his trunk. "Thun! Thun! What shall we do?"
Racing back to the Thunder Colt, Planetty tapped out all that was
happening to their best and only friends, holding the convulsed and
still laughing Randy in place with one hand as she did so. Thun, from
anxious glances over his shoulder, had guessed more than half the
difficulty.
"Search in the Kabumpty's pocket for something to tie round him so I
may pull him out of the feathers," flashed the Thunder Colt, swinging
in a circle to prance and stamp on the plumes still curling down to
tickle the helpless boy on his back.
Feeling in Kabumpo's pockets as he tossed and lashed about was hard
enough, but Planetty, who was quick and clever, soon found a long,
stout, heavily linked gold chain Kabumpo twisted round and round his
neck on important occasions. Slipping the chain through his belt,
the little Princess clasped the other ends round the Thunder Colt's
chest, making a strong and splendid harness. Then, mounting quickly
and holding desperately to Randy, Planetty gave the signal for Thun to
start. And away through the deadly field charged the night black steed,
burning feathers left and right with his flashing breath and dragging
Kabumpo along as easily as if he had been a sack of potatoes instead of
a two-ton elephant. The feathers bending beneath made the going soft so
that the Elegant Elephant did not suffer so much as a scratch, and Thun
galloped so swiftly that in less than ten minutes they had reached the
other side of the beautiful but treacherous field. Going half a mile
beyond, Thun came to an anxious halt, the golden chain falling slack
around his ankles, while Planetty jumped down to see how Kabumpo was
doing now.
The Elegant Elephant had stopped laughing, but his eyes still rolled
and his muscles still twitched and rippled from the terrible tickling
he had endured. Randy, exhausted and weak, hung like a dummy stuffed
with straw over the Thunder Colt's back.
"Oh, we were too late, too long!" mourned Planetty, wringing her
hands and running distractedly between the Elegant Elephant and the
insensible King. "Oh, my netness, they will become stiff and still as
Nuthers deprived of their springs," she tapped out dolefully to Thun.
"Do not be too sure." The Thunder Colt puffed out his message slowly.
"See, already the big Kabumpty is trying to rise."
And such, indeed, was the case. Astonished and mortified to find
himself stretched on the ground in broad daylight and still too
confused to realize what had happened, the Elegant Elephant lurched to
his feet and stood blinking uncertainly around. Then, his eyes suddenly
coming into proper focus, he caught sight of Randy lying limply across
the Thunder Colt.
"What in Oz? What in Ix? What in Ev is the matter here?" he panted,
wobbling dizzily over to Thun.
"Feathers!" sighed Planetty, clasping both arms round Kabumpo's trunk
and beginning to pat and smooth its wrinkled surface. "The feathers
tickled you and you fell down, my poor Bumpo. Randy too was almost
laughed to the death. What does death mean?" Planetty looked up
anxiously into his eyes.
"Great Grump! So that was it! Great Gillikens! I remember now, we were
both nearly tickled to death and it was awful, AWFUL! Not that Ozians
ever do die," he explained hastily, "but, after all, we are not in Oz
and anything might have happened. And what I'd like to know is how in
Ev we ever got out of those feathers."
"Thun pulled you out," Planetty told him proudly. "And look, LOOK,
Bumpo dear, Randy is going to waken, too."
"Randy! Randy, do you hear that?" Kabumpo lifted the young King down
and shook him gently backward and forward. "This colt of Planetty's,
this Thunder Colt, all by himself, mind you, pulled us out of that
infernal feather field! You and me, but mostly me. Now tell me how did
he manage to pull an elephant all that way?"
Randy, only half comprehending what Kabumpo was saying, said nothing,
but Thun, guessing Kabumpo's question, threw back his head and puffed
quickly:
"We Nuthers are strong as iron, Master. Strong for ourselves, strong
for our friends. Thun, the Thunder Colt, will always be strong for
Kabumpty!"
"Strong! Strong? Why, you're marvelous," gasped the Elegant Elephant.
Placing Randy on the ground, he fished jewels from his pocket with
a reckless trunk till he found a band of pearls to fit Thun. Then
carelessly risking the sparks from the Thunder Colt's nostrils, he
fastened the pearls in place.
"Tell him, tell him THANKS!" he blurted out breathlessly. "Tell him
from now on we are friends and equals, friends and warriors, together!"
With a pleased nod Planetty translated for Thun, and the delighted
colt, tossing his flying mane, raced round and round his three
comrades, filling the air with high-flown and flaming sentences.
"Friends and warriors!" he heralded, rearing joyously. "Friends and
warriors!"
By this time Randy had recovered his breath and his memory and felt not
only able but impatient to continue the journey. The field of feathers
could still be seen waving pink and provokingly in the distance, but
without one backward glance the four travelers set their faces to the
north. A few of Chillywalla's boxes had been crushed while Kabumpo
rolled in the feathers, and he and Randy still felt weak and worn from
their dreadful experience, but these were small matters when they
considered the dreadful fate they had escaped through the quick action
of Planetty and Thun.
"I always thought of Ix as a pleasant country," sighed Randy as Kabumpo
moved slowly along a shady by-path.
"I don't believe this is Ix," stated the Elegant Elephant bluntly.
"The air's different, smells salty, and this sandy road looks as if we
might be near the sea. I think myself that we've come north by east
through Ix into Ev and will reach the Nonestic Ocean by evening."
Kabumpo paused to peer up at a rough board nailed to a pine.
"So! You got through the feathers, did you?" sneered the notice in
threatening red letters. "Then so much the worse for you! Beware! Watch
out! Gludwig the Glubrious has his eye on you."
"Glubrious!" sniffed Kabumpo, elevating his trunk scornfully as Randy
read and re-read the impertinent message. "I don't recall anyone named
Gludwig, do you?"
"Sounds rather awful, doesn't it?" whispered Randy, sliding to the
ground to examine the billboard from all sides. "Say, look here,
Kabumpo, there's something on the back. It's been scratched out with
red chalk, but I can still read it."
"Then read it," advised Kabumpo briefly.
"This is the Land of Ev! Everybody welcome! Take this road to the
Castle of the Red Jinn."
"Oh, that means we're almost there!" exulted the young King, but his
joy evaporated quickly as he re-read the other side of the board.
"Looks as if someone had switched signs on Jinnicky," he muttered,
pushing back his crown with a little whistle. "Do you think anything
has happened to him?"
"Probably some mischievous country boy trying out his chalk," answered
the Elegant Elephant, not believing one of his own words. "Straight on,
my dear," he called cheerfully to Planetty, who had pulled in the colt
and was looking questioningly back at them. "At last we are in the Land
of Ev, and just ahead lies the castle of our wizard."
"Oh, Bumpo, how nite!" Planetty hugged herself from pure joy. "I've
never seen a castle, I've never seen a wizard!"
"But, Kabumpo--" worried Randy as the little Princess of Anuther Planet
galloped gaily ahead of them. "Suppose this Gludwig really has his eye
on us? Suppose he rushes out before we can reach Jinnicky's castle?"
"Well, that will not be very 'nite,' will it?" The Elegant Elephant
spoke ruefully. "But what can we do? Are we going to stop for a mere
sign?"
"No!" declared Randy, feeling about for his sword. "Of course not. But
I'll wager a Willikin he was the fellow who planted those feathers."
"Very likely," agreed Kabumpo, pushing grimly along through the sand.