After they had gone a long distance in this way he drew rein. "There!" he said, "the desert is passed; but there is a greater danger than it to come."
"What is that?"
"Look!" And the lad pointed.
Ellen looked, and then she saw that what she had thought was a stretch of grass and rocks before them, was really an enormous green and gray dragon that lay stretched in a rocky defile.
His neck and tail were coiled upon the ground; his wings stretched up the rocky walls on each side of him, and their tips were like tall green trees against the sky. Presently he turned his head and Ellen could see his big blinking eyes, each as big as a barrel. He yawned and his mouth was like a red cavern.
Ellen was frightened.
"Suppose he comes at us," she whispered.
"Oh no, he won't pay any attention to us," the lad assured her. "That is, unless we try to go past him, and then he'd snap us up in a twinkling."
"Couldn't we go round?"