Proclamation must read that whoever stole the jeweled dishpan must
return it at once."

"But suppose no one returns it," suggested Cayke.

"Then," said the Frogman, "that very fact will be proof that no one
has stolen it."

Cayke was not satisfied, but the other Yips seemed to approve the plan
highly. They all advised her to do as the Frogman had told her to, so
she posted the sign on her door and waited patiently for someone to
return the dishpan--which no one ever did. Again she went,
accompanied by a group of her neighbors, to the Frogman, who by this
time had given the matter considerable thought. Said he to Cayke, "I
am now convinced that no Yip has taken your dishpan, and since it is
gone from the Yip Country, I suspect that some stranger came from the
world down below us in the darkness of night when all of us were
asleep and took away your treasure. There can be no other explanation
of its disappearance. So if you wish to recover that golden,
diamond-studded dishpan, you must go into the lower world after it."

This was indeed a startling proposition. Cayke and her friends went
to the edge of the flat tableland and looked down the steep hillside
to the plains below. It was so far to the bottom of the hill that
nothing there could be seen very distinctly, and it seemed to the Yips
very venturesome, if not dangerous, to go so far from home into an
unknown land. However, Cayke wanted her dishpan very badly, so she
turned to her friends and asked, "Who will go with me?"

No one answered the question, but after a period of silence one of the