"Is this--a--king?" called a fretful voice, and, lurching round, Kabumpo saw a fat old Gaper now half-way above ground. Balancing his stone on his fat head, he held Randy out at arm's length. "Instead of digging him a proper bed, they stuck him in with me," he complained. "Here, take him--he kicks like a mule and I can't abide a kicker." With a relieved grunt, Kabumpo snatched Randy from the Gaper's damp clutches, thankful the boy still had strength enough to kick. Randy's face was quite pale and covered with dirt, but after a few anxious shakes he opened his eyes and looked confusedly round him. "It's nothing," sniffed Kabumpo. "It's quite all right, my boy. You've just been buried to the ears and sleeping with a ground-hog." "Buried?" shivered Randy, as Kabumpo set him gently on his back. "Not buried at all, just lying dormant as a sensible body should," corrected the old Gaper, dropping out of sight with a slam of his headstone. "Go away! Please go away!" begged Sleeperoo, as Kabumpo began stepping gingerly between the stones. "You're ruining our rest, you big bullying Behemoth!" "I'll not stir a step till you send a guide to lead me out of this gulch," declared Kabumpo. "Call a guard or I'll call one myself." "No. No! Please NOT! Torpy Snorpy--I say, Torpy," wheezed Sleeperoo, stretching up his thin neck. "Come, come all of you at once. At ONCE!" As quickly as they had vanished, the Wakes slid from behind boulders and trees and up out of rocky crevices, their buttons twinkling cheerfully in the dark. "Conduct these travelers to the head of the valley," ordered Sleeperoo, with a weak wave at the Gaper Guards. "I thought this was a gulch," yawned Kabumpo, while Randy began to shake the dirt from his hair and ears. "A gulch is a valley," sniffed Sleeperoo, lowering himself crossly. "Look it up in any pictionary. A gulch is a valley or chasm." "And Gaper's Gulch is a yawning chasm," mumbled Kabumpo, as the Chief Gaper and all the others began ducking back into their holes like rabbits into warrens. "Good night to you," he added, as the last stone slammed down. "Now, then, you boys fetch my head-piece and robe from that pit and let's start on." Kabumpo spoke so sharply ten Wakes sprang to obey, and after they had brought them and both had been adjusted to Kabumpo's liking, he signaled imperiously for Torpy and Snorpy to lead the way, and their companions took thankfully to their heels. For a while the two little Wakes marched ahead in a subdued silence as the Elegant Elephant picked his way around rocks and tree stumps. "Not mad, I hope?" Torpy, most talkative of the two, looked anxiously over his shoulder. "No, no--certainly not. I don't know when I've spent a more delightful evening," Kabumpo said. "Being stuck full of arrows and then buried alive is such splendid entertainment."