Percy mopped his brow and looked appealingly at the little girl.
“Be,” supplied Dorothy obligingly. “I’m sure I don’t know, but we can soon find out. You just come to the Emerald City with me and we’ll look in Ozma’s magic picture.”
“Why you are wise
As you are pretty;
Let’s hasten to
The Emerald City!”
Smiling all over because he had actually finished his own verse, the Forgetful Poet helped Dorothy to her feet and both started gaily down the lane, Dorothy telling the poet all about the interesting folk in the capitol and Percy Vere telling Dorothy all about the City of Gold on Maybe Mountain. Dorothy’s idea of looking in Ozma’s picture, like all of her other ideas, was a mighty good one, for this picture has a magical power enabling a person to see whomever he wishes, so that one look would disclose the whereabouts of the lost Princess of Perhaps City. But at every step, they were putting a longer distance between themselves and that look. For at every step, thanks to that little baconfly, they were going farther and farther away from the Emerald City of Oz.
They had eaten the lunch the Tin Woodman had thoughtfully put up for Dorothy, and now, as the afternoon shadows began to lengthen, the little girl looked anxiously ahead for familiar landmarks. But instead the lane—which should have led straight to the Scarecrow’s tower, which is halfway between the Tin Woodman’s Palace and the Emerald City—the lane suddenly came to a stop in a scraggly little woods.
“That’s funny!” mused Dorothy, looking around in surprise.
“Are we lost?” asked Percy, leaning wearily against a tree.
“Hello! Hello, why here’s a sign
Tacked up upon this prickly—prickly—”
Without bothering to finish the verse, Dorothy hurried over to the pine.
“Look out for the Runaway,” advised the sign, in large red letters.