The Flight to Oz
Keeping the flying sticks in a more or less level position so they
would not slip off, and at the same time pointing them downward,
required no little skill. The Wizard, being used to magic appliances,
mastered his in double quick time. But Jellia, who sat in front on the
other staff soared up for seventy feet and across for fifty before she
learned the trick of flying it. During the first twenty minutes of
their flight, not a word was spoken. Each had enough to do to hold on,
and the Cowardly Lion, hurtling through the air beside the Soldier
with Green Whiskers, looked the picture of despair and discouragement.
A dozen times Dorothy, after a glance downward, gave herself up for
lost. But gradually the strangeness of their situation wore off.
Passing out of the moist, clammy strata just below Strut's Kingdom
into a dryer and less clouded area, the spirits of the little band of
adventurers rose. The wings of each flying staff, though not large,
were powerful as airplane propellers, and they flapped as rhythmically
as the wings of a bird.
"Not exactly like riding in an Ozoplane!" called the Wizard, waving
cheerfully to Jellia! "Still--it's better than falling, eh?" Jellia,
who had maneuvered her staff to a position close to his, nodded
emphatically.
"What worries me, is--the--altitude!" she called back presently.
"Somewhere or other we lost our air helmets. Will the effects of those
altitude pills wear off before we're out of the strat?"
"No, we'll be all right," promised the Wizard. "My altitude pills
condition one for the upper areas for several days at a time!"
"Oh! Then everything's splendid!" sighed Jellia, pushing back her curly
locks and smiling at Dorothy.
"Unless we meet a meteor, and then our flight will soon be o'er,"
quavered the Scarecrow, waving his arm in a doleful circle.
"Now, now, don't anticipate!" advised the Wizard, guiding the staff
with one hand and opening his kit bag with the other. For several
moments he had been anxiously regarding the Cowardly Lion. The buoyancy
resulting from the wind pudding was at last subsiding, and the swelled
and bloated appearance of the unfortunate beast was fast disappearing.
At almost any time now, the lion would become a dead weight. His
poundage--added to the Wizard's and the Soldier's--would be too much
for the flying staff and they all would plunge like plummets to the
earth. Feeling hurriedly around in the kit-bag, the Wizard pulled out
a small, black bottle. Uncorking it with his teeth, he turned it upside
down and held it out at arm's length until not a drop of its oily
contents remained.
"Now, don't be alarmed at a sudden bump!" he warned, as his companions
watched him with surprise and curiosity! "Whatever happens--hold on to
your staff!" Scarcely had the Wizard issued his warning when the air
directly beneath them froze into a solid block of blue ice on which
they landed with a series of bumps, and began sliding around in great
confusion. "Nothing to worry about! Nothing to worry about!" panted the
Wizard, keeping a firm hold on his flying stick and at the same time
managing to extract a large envelope from the kit-bag. "Hold on to
that stick, Jellia, and keep it down!"
The Cowardly Lion, completely deflated by his smack against the
ice, was sprawled flat as an animal skin in the center of the berg.
Dismounting from his own staff, the Wizard scurried perilously round
the edges of the rapidly falling block of ice scattering seeds from his
envelope with a lavish hand. Instantly, or so it seemed to Dorothy, a
thick green hedge sprang up, enclosing them snugly inside.
"To keep us from tumbling off," explained the Wizard, sliding anxiously
after Wantowin Battles, who was galloping round and round on his flying
stick like a child on a merry-go-round. "Whoa, whoa!" cried Ozma's
chief magician, grabbing the Soldier's coat-tails. "We need these
sticks to act as brakes to stop our fall!" Unseating the Soldier, the
Wizard lifted the flying stick and stuck it through the top branches
of the hedge. Bidding the others dismount from their staff, he thrust
it through the hedge on the opposite side. The wings of both staffs
kept up their steady beating and, as the Wizard had predicted, acted as
strong brakes on the plunging cake of ice.
"I was afraid we'd lose the lion," explained the Wizard as the little
company of adventurers gathered breathlessly round him.
"I'd just as lief be lost as frozen!" Sneezing plaintively, the lion
pulled himself to his feet and slid over to the hedge, bracing his back
against its stouter branches.
"It won't be long before we strike solid earth now, old fellow," the
Wizard observed brightly.
"Strike the earth!" roared the lion. "Well, good-bye, friends! I'll say
it now--before I'm squashed and scattered to the four points of the
compass!"
"Never mind, you'll make a lovely splatter!" teased the Scarecrow.
"Better stamp your feet, girls, to keep from freezing!"
"Here, stand on my coat," offered the Wizard, gallantly. "Not YOU!"
Indignantly he pushed the Soldier with Green Whiskers aside. "You can
stand on your own coat!"
"But it's against regulations for a soldier to appear without his
jacket," shivered Wantowin, piteously. "The manual of arms says--"
"How about the manual of feet?" snorted the Scarecrow, thankful he was
stuffed with cotton and incapable of feeling the cold. "Say, Wiz, I
guess this is about the oddest flying trip a band of explorers ever
had?"
"Did those magic drops freeze the air into ice?" called Dorothy. "And
how'd you grow the hedge so fast?"
"Yes, the drops froze the air," the Wizard bawled back, for the
rush of air as they shot downward made it difficult to hold polite
conversation, "And I just happened to have some of my instant sprouting
saplings in that kit-bag."
To keep up their spirits they continued to shout back and forth as
they fell. "I don't suppose we'll _ever_ catch up with Strut and Nick
Chopper now," screamed Jellia, hooking her arms securely through the
hedge.
"Why not?" cried the Wizard. "As soon as we land, we can fly these
flying sticks straight to the Emerald City, and be there before the
Oztober arrives. Remember now, the first one up after we hit the earth
is to snatch a winged staff."
"And how do you suppose we will be able to rise, after striking the
earth at one hundred and forty miles an hour?" roared the lion, a
trifle sarcastically.
"Well, it won't hurt _me_!" boasted the Scarecrow, holding to his hat
with both hands. He had lost the balloons long ago. "And I promise to
pick up the rest of you as soon as possible. Is--there--anything in
that kit-bag for breaks, sprains and bruises, Wiz?"
"Oh, hold your tongue!" snapped Jellia, trying to peer over the hedge.
"We're not going to crash at all! We'll probably get stuck on a steeple
or tower!"
"How'd Nick manage with his flying?" shrieked the Wizard, who was
anxious to change the subject. The less said about their landing the
better. Of course, they could take to the flying sticks and abandon the
Cowardly Lion, but that did not seem exactly sporting. So he resolutely
put the thought of it out of his mind.
"Grand, just grand!" answered Jellia, making a megaphone of her hands.
"Nick had the Oztober going smoothly as a swallow."
"That's good!" boomed the Wizard, beating his arms against his breast
to keep warm. "Maybe he'll get the best of Strut yet and bring the
Oztober safely down. I'd certainly like to have one ship left to
present to Ozma!"
"How long'll it be before we do get down?" called Dorothy, as the
Wizard paused for breath. "Seems to me we're falling faster. FASTER AND
FASTER!"
"Any minute now," predicted the Wizard, popping his head over the top
of the hedge. "Oh! It's going to be all right!" he shouted joyfully.
"We're coming down right in the middle of a great big--"
SPLASH!!!
Before the Wizard could finish his sentence, the block of ice struck
the smooth surface of a large, mountain lake, and went completely
under. As it came bobbing to the top, its drenched and shivering
passengers looked at one another with mingled dismay and relief.
Dorothy, picking up the Wizard's coat, handed it back and then
went slipping and sliding over to help the Scarecrow, who was too
water-soaked and sodden even to move.
"Wring me out! Hang me up to dry, somebody!" gurgled the straw man
dismally.
"Grrr--rah!" The Cowardly Lion, outraged at the cold plunge after all
the other shocks and indignities of the day, jumped over the hedge and
began to swim grimly for the shore. The Soldier with Green Whiskers,
better at carrying out orders than the others, already was pulling
one of the flying sticks from the hedge. As it came loose he took a
brief glance over the top, gave an agonized shriek and fell backward,
stepping all over the Wizard who was just behind him.
"An army!" shivered Wantowin, clutching his dripping
beard--"Thou--sands of them!"
"It is an army, too!" echoed Jellia, who had parted the hedge to have a
look for herself.
"What do they look like?" demanded the Wizard, shoving past the soldier
and grabbing the winged staff which was on the point of flying off by
itself.
"Like trouble!" said Jellia, reaching for Dorothy's hand. "They have
long bows and pointed red beards and--my goodyness--their beards are
pointed straight at us!"
"Bearded Bowmen, eh?" grunted the Wizard. "Well, that doesn't prove
they're unfriendly." The Wizard stuck his head over the hedge, barely
avoiding the arrow that sped past his ear.
"I suppose you'd call THAT friendly," sniffed Jellia, flopping on her
stomach and pulling Dorothy down with her. The Wizard had no time to
answer, for Wantowin Battles had one of the winged staffs and was
preparing to ride by himself.
"Drop it! Drop it at once!" commanded the Wizard sharply. "How dare
you fly off without us? Why it's plain desertion, that's what!"
"I was just going to do a bit of reconnoitering," mumbled the Soldier,
looking terrible abashed and then diving to a place beside Jellia as
three more arrows came hissing over the hedge. Quickly recovering the
staff, the wet little Wizard crouched down.
"Now girls!" he directed, panting from the exertion of holding down
both sticks. "When I give the signal, you and the Scarecrow mount one
staff, and Wantowin and I will mount the other, and fly high over the
enemy lines!"
"The higher the better," said Jellia, as a perfect shower of arrows
whizzed over their heads.