"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?"

said Dorothy sleepily, recalling the days she had studied geography in the United States.

"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!"