Land of Ev

Thinks, speaks, acts, and does everything but live.

Manufactured only at our works at Evna, Land of Ev.

All infringements will be promptly prosecuted according to law.

"How queer," said the yellow hen.

"It's a very wonderful story,"

said Dorothy.

"And proves that the land of Ev is really a fairyland, as I thought it was."

"Of course it is,"

But they, for their part, did not know they had so dangerous an enemy.

Indeed, Ozma and Dorothy had both almost forgotten that such a person as the Gnome King yet lived under the mountains of the land of Ev, which lay just across the deadly desert to the south of the land of Oz.

An unsuspected enemy is doubly dangerous.

End of chapter one.

Yet Guph determined to be careful and to lay his plans well so as not to fail.

He argued that only careless people fail in what they attempt to do.

The mountains underneath which the Nome King's extensive caverns were located lay grouped just north of the Land of Ev, which lay directly across the deadly desert to the east of the Land of Oz.

As the mountains were also on the edge of the desert, the Nome King found that he had only to tunnel underneath the desert to reach Ozma's dominions.