The Dooners!
All day, with only a short pause for lunch, Pigasus had flown north,
Dorothy keeping a sharp lookout for Thunder Mountain or mountains of
any sort, but the wild, desolate country through which they were flying
was flat, desert-like and apparently perfectly uninhabited.
"A fine healthy chance we have of finding an army here!" snorted
Pigasus as the afternoon drew to a hot, weary close, "and what we'll
do when we find Thunder Mountain, I haven't the faintest notion, have
you? Even if I butt my nose black, blue and blunt, and you break both
knuckles beating on its rocky exterior, how can we ever hope to enter
such a place, much less release our unfortunate sovereigns? I told you
Kalico was a scoundrel; I'll wager he's sent us on a wild goose chase
just to get us out of the way."
"Ah, don't say I told you so,
There's always some way, you know,"
said Dorothy almost as down-hearted as Pigasus, though she would not
admit it. The pink pig, rather ashamed of himself, flew for several
miles without saying anything, then, in rather a gruff voice, he called
Dorothy's attention to the changing nature of the scenery below.
"Notice the hills?" he snorted, more hopefully. "Maybe there is a
mountain, after all, but the sun's going down and I'm ready to sink
myself, so let's descend and see whether we can find a soft rock on
which to lay our heads."
"Not hills, dunes!" cried Dorothy, bouncing off as soon as Pigasus
touched the earth. "Sand dunes; we must be near the coast and the
Nonestic Ocean."
"It does smell salty," agreed Pigasus, sniffing the air eagerly, "but
suppose we save the ocean for tomorrow, my feet ache, my wings ache,
and I'm hollow as a drum."
"Then we'll have supper," decided Dorothy, sensibly. So seating
themselves comfortably with their backs against a dune, the two weary
explorers finished up all the cold meat, fruit, pie, and sandwiches
Shoofenwaller had packed up for them. After a long, wistful sniff into
the box convinced him there was not another crumb, Pigasus folded his
wings, lay down in the soft sand at the foot of the dune, giving only
indistinct grunts and snorts to Dorothy's questions and observations.
Finally, getting no answer at all, Dorothy discovered he was asleep.
The regular rise and fall of the pink pig's sides, the soft drowsy
singing of the west wind lulled Dorothy into a pleasant state of
dreaminess, and presently, with her head comfortably pillowed on the
pig's plump shoulder, she fell asleep too.
It must have been hours later when terrified squeals from Pigasus and
the patter of a hundred hurrying feet made her start up in alarm.
Still only half awake, she was startled to find herself and Pigasus
surrounded by a horde of savage-looking sandmen. In the pale and watery
moonlight they looked like creatures out of some very bad dream. Their
bodies were roughly moulded of sand, their eyes strangely green and
phosphorescent, while their hair, rising like beach grass from their
pointed heads, waved about their lumpy faces.
Clutching the basket that contained her small store of clothing, the
Black Witch's powder of darkness, and Potaroo's box of stumbling
blocks, Dorothy pressed back against the dune. Her first idea of
leaping on the pig's back and bidding him fly was useless. Pigasus lay
helplessly on his side, his wings and legs bound tightly with long
strands of tough, strong seaweed. Thankful to find that she at least
was free, Dorothy went a step closer to her struggling, squealing,
furious little comrade. As she did so, a perfect shower of sand balls
came flying toward them. The sharp sting of the sandmen's missiles not
only awoke her completely, but goaded her into instant and angry action.
"Stop that! Stop that at once!" she cried, stamping her foot
indignantly, but her words only brought another shower of sand balls
down on their heads.
"You have dared to invade the sacred domain of the Dooners," yelled
the rasping voice of the leader, rattling a long string of sea shells
he wore round his neck. "And therefore you shall be sand balled, sand
bagged and made into sandwiches for the sand crabs!"
If the Dooner had not looked so wild and dangerous, his foolish threat
might have been amusing, but as he and his bandy-legged sandmen came
leaping forward, Pigasus gave a squeal of sheer terror, and Dorothy,
raising the basket over her head, hurled it with all her might into the
midst of the advancing army. The effect was immediate and astonishing.
Cowering down beside Pigasus and expecting to be seized or trampled
on, Dorothy saw the first line of Dooners going down like a row of
tenpins, then all the others began tumbling and tripping and falling in
heaps. No sooner would a sandman rise than he would instantly tumble
down again, and their squalls and screeches of rage were so piercing
Dorothy put both hands over her ears.
"It's the blocks," wheezed Pigasus, managing to lift his head a few
inches. "Kalico's stumbling blocks are flying like fur and fury. Now if
they just keep 'em down for a while longer, we might get away."
Dorothy, peering sharply into the midst of the tumbling Dooners, saw
the fifty magic squares released from their box when she flung her
basket, fairly exploding with activity, and scramble up as they would
after each tumble, the sandmen could not advance an inch, nor even
manage to stand erect. The leader, attempting to crawl forward on his
hands and knees, was caught by a dozen of the whirling missiles and
rolled back like a log among his churning comrades.
"Hurray! Three cheers for Kalico!" puffed Pigasus. "Quick, my girl, see
if you can untie these wretched seaweeds and we'll be flying and be off
in a pigwhistle."
"I had a pair of scissors in my basket if it hasn't fallen out, and
anyway I'm not going without my things," declared Dorothy, now quite
bold since the enemy had been overcome by magic. And in spite of the
pig's anxious squeals of warning, she rushed forward, grabbed her
basket and began picking up her scattered belongings, noting with a
sigh of relief that the box containing the powder of darkness was still
closed. With the scissors, still safe in the little pocket in the side
of the basket, she soon clipped the seaweed trusses from Pigasus, and
clasping the basket in her arms climbed swiftly on his back. Pigasus,
without one backward glance, rose straight into the air and again
headed north. Dorothy, peering fearfully over his left wing, saw the
Dooners spring suddenly to their feet and then, like frightened prairie
dogs, disappear into many holes in the sand.
Funny, mused Dorothy, that they had not noticed these openings before.
Funny that the Dooners had stopped stumbling as soon as she and Pigasus
had taken to the air. Funny--but then, everything was funny. Right in
the middle of her conjectures the box of stumbling blocks, now closed
and tied with a red ribbon, dropped "plink" into the middle of her
basket.
"Someone's throwing things," gasped Pigasus, flapping his wings a bit
faster and looking rather wildly over his shoulder.
"No, just our box of stumbling blocks," yawned Dorothy. Now that the
excitement was over she felt dreadfully tired and even the sight of the
Nonestic Ocean rippling and gleaming a few yards ahead did not arouse
or interest her.
It did not interest Pigasus, either. He was far from pleased to find
himself so near the coast.
"I don't like this, I don't like this at all," muttered the pig,
perking up his ears and wiggling his nose rapidly. "We've flown
straight north and instead of striking Thunder Mountain, we strike the
sea, and how could a mountain be in the middle of the sea?"
"There are mountains on islands and I have a notion
There are plenty of islands out there in the ocean,"
said Dorothy sleepily, recalling the days she had studied geography in
the United States.
"Take Japan, for instance, over there
Mountains are simply everywhere!"
"I don't care if they are," answered Pigasus fiercely, "I won't go to
Japan and I'll not go a wing's breadth over this ocean tonight, islands
or no islands. Sa--hay! There's the North Star to our left, so we're
not going north at all. We're off our course, that's what we are!"
"North Star? North Star, of course we are!" mumbled Dorothy with a
drowsy nod.
"You're asleep," scolded Pigasus in a worried voice. "I'd better land."
"If you land too soon, you'll strike a dune," warned Dorothy with
another yawn. And after a quick glance below, and convinced they were
still over the Dooner's domain, Pigasus spread his wings a bit wider
and swung along the coast looking carefully for a safe place to land
and spend the rest of the night. He was so busy squinting downward that
he never saw the long curious tube-like shadow shooting after him with
incredible accuracy and speed. A terrific blast of air as it rushed by
them on the right was his first warning of danger. Dorothy, too, caught
unaware, gave a faint shriek as an immense snake-like body curved back
and began to coil round and round them like some gigantic air serpent.
"It is a snake!" thought poor Dorothy, as Pigasus hung helplessly in
the little circle of air left in the center of its coils. Neither
spoke, for truly there seemed nothing to say or do. Then just as the
suspense grew too awful to be endured, the monster opened its mouth and
Dorothy, backing as far along the pig's back as she possibly could,
almost lost her balance. Instead of a tongue or long tusks, out popped
the head and shoulders of a little old man no larger than Dorothy
herself.
"Pardon me," he murmured politely, "I was looking for a sea serpent."
"Do I look like a sea serpent?" snorted Pigasus in a quivering voice,
for he was still half choked from shock and fright. "If you and that
monster you're riding are looking for a sea serpent, go ahead--look for
one, but leave honest travelers alone!"
"Monster?" exclaimed the little man in a hurt voice. "Oh, I say now,
you have us all wrong. This is no monster, this is the long, strong,
flexible, stretchable SHOOTING TOWER of my private castle, and I,
myself, am Bitty Bit, the Seer of Some Summit."
In the short silence that followed Bitty Bit's astonishing
announcement, Dorothy, examining more closely the tube-like coils
encircling herself and Pigasus, saw that they really were of stone with
rubber-like sections between. What she had taken for a mouth was really
a window. With his elbow resting on the ledge, Bitty Bit was regarding
them fixedly.
"Well, even if you are a seer and have a shooting tower," grunted
Pigasus, gathering courage as he went along, "there is no reason for
you to come towering over us this way!"
"But a seer must be constantly looking for things," explained Bitty
Bit, spreading his hands expansively, "that, you know, is his business.
I am always looking for something and tonight it happens to be sea
serpents."
"Sorry to disappoint you," said Pigasus, more mildly, "but since we are
not sea serpents, perhaps you'll be good enough to unwind your tower.
As it happens, I have a little looking to do myself. As a matter of
fact, when you and your tower overtook us I was searching for a safe
place for this young Princess and myself to spend the night."
"Look no more!" begged Bitty Bit, leaning so far over the sill Dorothy
involuntarily put out her hand to save him from falling. "You shall
both spend the night in my castle. COME!" Grasping Dorothy by one hand
and Pigasus by one wing, the little seer with superhuman strength for
one so small and wrinkled dragged them both through the open window of
his shooting tower.