"Better take me along," said the Woozy. "My eyes can flash fire, you know, and I can growl—a little."
"I'm sure you'll be safer here," Ozma decided, and the Woozy made no further objection to the plan.
After consulting together they decided that Ojo and his party should leave the very next day to search for the gill of water from a dark well, so they now separated to make preparations for the journey.
Ozma gave the Munchkin boy a room in the palace for that night and the afternoon he passed with Dorothy—getting acquainted, as she said—and receiving advice from the Shaggy Man as to where they must go. The Shaggy Man had wandered in many parts of Oz, and so had Dorothy, for that matter, yet neither of them knew where a dark well was to be found.
"If such a thing is anywhere in the settled parts of Oz," said Dorothy, "we'd prob'ly have heard of it long ago. If it's in the wild parts of the country, no one there would need a dark well. P'raps there isn't such a thing."
"Oh, there must be!" returned Ojo, positively; "or else the recipe of Dr. Pipt wouldn't call for it."
"That's true," agreed Dorothy; "and, if it's anywhere in the Land of Oz, we're bound to find it."
"Well, we're bound to search for it, anyhow," said the Scarecrow. "As for finding it, we must trust to luck."
"Don't do that," begged Ojo, earnestly. "I'm called Ojo the Unlucky, you know."
