CHAPTER 9
The Box Wood
"Why! Why, they're all in boxes!" breathed Randy, as a group with upraised and boxed fists advanced upon the newcomers.
"Chillywalla! Chillywalla!" yelled the Boxers, their voices coming muffled and strange through the hat-boxes they wore on their heads.
"Chillywalla, Chillywalla, Chillywalla!" echoed Planetty, waving cheerfully at the oncoming host.
"Shh-hh, pss-st, Princess, that may be a war cry," warned Randy, drawing his sword and swinging it so swiftly round his head it whistled. Thun, too astonished to move a step, stood with lowered head, his flaming breath darting harmlessly into the moist floor of the forest.
"Chillywalla! Chillywalla! Chillywalla!" roared the Boxers, keeping a safe distance from Kabumpo's lashing trunk. "Chillywalla! CHILLYWALLA!" Their voices rose loud and imploring. As Randy slid off the Elegant Elephant's back to place himself beside Planetty, a perfectly enormous Boxer came clumping out of the Box Wood to the left.
"Yes! Yes?" he grunted, holding on his hat-box as he ran. When he caught sight of the travelers, he stopped short, and, not satisfied with peering through the eyeholes in his hat-box, took it off altogether and stood staring at them, his square eyes almost popping from his square head. "Box their ears, box their ears! Box their heads and arms and rears! Box their legs, their hands and chests, box that fire plug 'fore all the rest! An IRON box!" screamed Chillywalla, as Thun, with a soundless snort, sent a shower of sparks into a candy box bush, toasting all the marshmallows in the boxes. "Oh, aren't you afraid to go about in this barebacked, barefaced, unboxed condition?" he panted, "exposed to the awful dangers of the raw outer air?"
Chillywalla hastily clapped on his hat box, but not before Randy noticed that his ears were nicely boxed, too. Without waiting for an answer to his question, the Boxer, with one shove of his enormous boxed fist, pushed Thun under a Box Tree. Planetty had just time to leap from his back when Chillywalla shook a huge iron box loose and it came clanking down over the Thunder Colt. It was open at the bottom, and Thun, kicking and rearing underneath, jerked it east and west.