Too breathless to run, Betsy picked herself up and looked fearfully around for the tiger. Ugh! There he was and growling frightfully, for the vegetable cart and all the vegetables had hit him on the head. Slashing right and left and shaking himself so violently, that potatoes, beets and apples flew in every direction, he rose and started toward her. This, after all the other frightful happenings of the morning, was too much and covering her face, Betsy burst into tears. But if Betsy was frightened, the Hungry Tiger was perfectly petrified. "Betsy! Betsy!" panted the astonished beast. "How in Oz did you get here?" And rubbing his soft nose against her cheek, he began to dry her tears with his tongue. At the first sound of that familiar voice, Betsy's eyes flew open and next instant she had both arms round the Hungry Tiger's neck, hugging him for dear life. "Carter! Carter!" called the little girl excitedly, "Don't be scared. It's the Hungry Tiger, the Hungry Tiger of Oz!" She fairly sang out the name, in her relief and happiness. The Vegetable Man had dropped head first into the tiger's tub of water. At Betsy's cries, he made a valiant attempt to rise, but when he saw her actually embracing the tiger he was so startled and horrified that he fell back with a splash. "Hungry Tiger!" gurgled Carter, bobbing up and down like a cork, "Hungry Tiger! Then so much the worse for us!" CHAPTER 6 The Scarlet Prince "Would you mind not using my drinking cup for a bath," observed the Hungry Tiger mildly, as Carter continued to gurgle and splash about in the tub. Laughing with relief, Betsy seized the Vegetable Man's hands and pulled him out of the water. "Don't be scared," whispered Betsy comfortably. "This tiger's a friend of mine and he wouldn't hurt anybody!" "Then what's he doing here?" asked Carter accusingly. "Is this parsnippy Pasha his friend, too?" The Hungry Tiger winced guiltily at Betsy's kind little speech, but resolved that she should never know he had willingly come to Rash. "I'm his prisoner," he explained in a hollow voice. (And, indeed, he was terribly hollow by this time.) "I'm a prisoner like yourselves." In a husky roar, he told of his trip by hurry-cane to Irashi's Kingdom and of his imprisonment in the Rash courtyard. "So this light fingered Ippty brought you here," mused Carter wonderingly. "But why?" "To eat the Rash Prisoners," answered the Hungry Tiger faintly. "And have you eaten any?" Betsy regarded her old friend anxiously. "Well, not yet," admitted the Hungry Tiger, rolling his eyes mournfully at the little girl. "Not yet!" "Have a cabbage," quavered Carter, waving toward the overturned vegetable cart. "Have a cauliflower or a nice bunch of beets." The Hungry Tiger was a perfect stranger to him, and Carter could not feel the same confidence in the beast that Betsy seemed to feel.