They looked around and, sure enough, there was no path to be seen.
"Well," said Dorothy, "we're going southwest, and it seems just as easy to follow that direction without a path as with one."
"Certainly," answered the Sawhorse. "It is not hard to draw the wagon over the meadow. I only want to know where to go."
"There's a forest over there across the prairie," said the Wizard, "and it lies in the direction we are going. Make straight for the forest, Sawhorse, and you're bound to go right."
So the wooden animal trotted on again and the meadow grass was so soft under the wheels that it made easy riding. But Dorothy was a little uneasy at losing the path, because now there was nothing to guide them.
No houses were to be seen at all, so they could not ask their way of any farmer; and although the Land of Oz was always beautiful, wherever one might go, this part of the country was strange to all the party.
"Perhaps we're lost," suggested Aunt Em, after they had proceeded quite a way in silence.
"Never mind," said the Shaggy Man; "I've been lost many a time—and so has Dorothy—and we've always been found again."
"But we may get hungry," remarked Omby Amby. "That is the worst of getting lost in a place where there are no houses near."
"We had a good dinner at the Fuddle town," said Uncle Henry, "and that will keep us from starving to death for a long time."