"Ho! THERE you are!" he roared, suddenly catching sight of the two travellers trembling together in the center of the cavern. "How dare you enter the cave of the King of the Silver Mountain without invitation or permission?" "Then this really IS the Silver Mountain!" marveled Handy, twisting her apron nervously in her wooden fingers. "Of course!" yelled the giant, thumping the floor with an enormous silver club. "And I, Snorpus the Mighty, am Keeper of the Hidden Door. I am OUTKEEPER for this whole mountain," he boasted truculently expanding his chest and looking complacently down at the two midgets at his feet. But something in his manner began to reassure the Goat Girl. "I'll bet he's dumb as he's big," she confided hurriedly to Nox. Then raising her voice and all of her arms, she called up loudly, "Then you must indeed be strong and sturdy!" "Oh, I AM!" bawled the Giant, twirling his silver moustache and fixing Handy for a moment with his glittering eye. "Snorpus the Door Keeper is strong as an OX!" There was something very peculiar about the eye of the Giant. It seemed to revolve on a moving belt, peering out as it passed through the four wide open lids set at intervals round the top of his head, so that half the time he was looking the other way. "Did you ever see an ox?" inquired Handy politely as the eye of Snorpus again flashed by. "No, but I'd like to," admitted the Giant, shooting his head out to the side. "Well, this is an ox," cried Handy, tapping the anxious beast at her side with a rubber hand. "And if you are strong as an ox you are strong as Nox and nothing much can stop you." "How strong is he?" asked Snorpus, lowering himself stiffly to one knee in order to get a look at what he had first supposed to be a small and insignificant animal. "So strong," explained the Goat Girl impressively, as she pointed with all hands to the side of the cave, "that if he so much as bumped into that wall yonder, this whole cavern would collapse like a pack of cards." "Then I hope he'll be very careful," faltered Snorpus, taking out a huge silk handkerchief to mop his forehead. "It would annoy the King frightfully if you destroyed his cavern, and I might even lose my head and position here." "Oh, he'll be careful," promised Handy Mandy generously. "He, being an ox, and you being strong as an ox, makes us all friends, doesn't it?" "I--I suppose so," muttered Snorpus, tapping his knee uncertainly with his club. "But just the same, I am still the outkeeper and must do my duty at all hazards. AT ALL HAZARDS!" he shouted, standing up to give himself courage and puffing out his cheeks like a porpoise.