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Looking far up, they saw Ugu suspended in his cage at the very top, which had once been the floor. "Ah," said he, grinning down at them, "the way to conquer is to act, and he who acts promptly is sure to win. This makes a very good prison, from which I am sure you cannot escape.
"Was it enchanted?" asked Button-Bright. "Of course," replied the Bluefinch. "Ugu the Shoemaker did that." "But why? And how was it enchanted? And what will happen to one who eats it?" questioned the boy. "Ask Ugu the Shoemaker. He knows," said the bird, preening its feathers with its bill. "And who is Ugu the Shoemaker?"
So he began to study the papers and books and to practice magic, and in time he became so skillful that, as I said, he scorned our city and built a solitary castle for himself." "Do you think," asked Dorothy anxiously, "that Ugu the Shoemaker would be wicked enough to steal our Ozma of Oz?" "And the Magic Picture?" asked Trot. "And my own magic tools?" asked the Wizard.
"That was the most wonderful leap I ever saw, and it has saved us from defeat by our enemy. Let us now hurry on to the castle before Ugu the Shoemaker thinks up some other means to stop us." "We must have surprised him so far," declared Dorothy. "Yes indeed. The fellow knows a lot of magic all of our tricks and some of his own," replied the Wizard.
While the Frogman and his party were advancing from the west, Dorothy and her party were advancing from the east, and so it happened that on the following night they all camped at a little hill that was only a few miles from the wicker castle of Ugu the Shoemaker.
"Scraps," said she, "you know that Ugu couldn't hurt you a bit, whatever he did, nor could he hurt ME, 'cause I wear the Gnome King's Magic Belt. S'pose just we two go on together and leave the others here to wait for us." "No, no!" said the Wizard positively. "That won't do at all. Ozma is more powerful than either of you, yet she could not defeat the wicked Ugu, who has shut her up in a dungeon.
"I suppose the foolish Shoemaker imagines these blazes will stop us," remarked the Wizard with a smile of scorn for Ugu. "But I am able to inform you that this is merely a simple magic trick which the robber stole from Glinda the Good, and by good fortune I know how to destroy these flames as well as how to produce them. Will some one of you kindly give me a match?"
"One reason was that I like peaches, and the other reason was that I didn't know it was enchanted." "That won't save you from Ugu the Shoemaker," declared the White Rabbit and it scurried away before the boy could ask any more questions. "Rabbits and birds," he thought, "are timid creatures and seem afraid of this shoemaker whoever he may be.
"That may not be a wise speech, but it sounds good," said Dorothy approvingly. "Ugu the Shoemaker is not only a common man, but he's a wicked man and a cruel man and deserves to be conquered. We mustn't have any mercy on him till Ozma is set free. So let's go to his castle as the Frogman says and see what the place looks like." No one offered any objection to this plan, and so it was adopted.
Only Ugu the Shoemaker, kept in place by the bars of his golden cage, remained in his former position, and the wicked magician seemed to enjoy the surprise of his victims immensely.
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