“Oh!” Fitz exclaimed.
“That’s a good idea,” the boy-giant remarked.
“A splendid idea,” the goblin-giant agreed.
“And we can give giant-tabs to the two camels we’re going to use,” Bob suggested.
“Of course we can,” Fitz assented.
“Well, here goes!”
The two giants went to work. After repeated trials they succeeded in getting the camels and horses to swallow the magic medicine. All those animals to whom they gave gob-tabs shrunk to pygmy size; and the two camels to whom they administered giant-tabs grew to giant size. Then the old sheik and his bearded warriors, looking very dejected and forlorn, got upon their tiny beasts and rode away over the sands.
Bob and Fitz lashed their balloon upon the back of one of the giant camels, and mounted and set out toward the north. All that day they traveled and far into the night, the great desert animals covering the ground rapidly. At last they stopped at an oasis; and there rested until morning. Then they tested the selector of the balloon and, to their unbounded delight, found it in perfect working order. They had got beyond the influence of the magnetic mountain.
“Now,” said Bob, “we’ll take some gob-tabs and give some to the camels; then we’ll be all ready to take to the air again.”
They carried out the plan thus expressed. When they were once more ready to embark upon the tenuous tide of the air, Fitz Mee remarked: