"I beg to report a strange and sonorbious monster falling through the fog over Half Moon Lake."
"Are you sure it is not a Zoomer?" Throwing down the morning star which he had been reading, Strutoovious stared coldly at the messenger.
"Ho, no! Ho, NO!" Hippenscop shook his head positively. "It has wings and a tail, your Strajesty. Wings, a tail and seven eyes! But HARK!!" The menacing whirr and sputter following the messenger's speech made even the Ruler of all the Stratovanians leap off his throne. Striding rapidly after the terrified servitor, Strut, followed by half the inhabitants of his irradiant Tip-toposphere, reached the shores of Half Moon Lake.
"Skydragon!" he announced, after a brief glance at the gleaming shape drifting down through the fog. "Quick Hippen! Summon the Royal Blowmen! Back, stand back, you witless woffs! Do you wish to be crushed and eaten? Yon monster will alight on the North shore any moonite now!" At Strut's loud warning, half of his subjects took to their heels while the rest scurried round to the South side of the lake, every head turned up toward the mysterious dragon.
Only, of course, it was not a dragon. It was the silver-bodied Oztober—inside of which the agitation was almost as great as the alarm of the Airlanders below.
"How long have we? How long'll it be before we land?" gulped Jellia. Remembering the Wizard's instructions, she jerked out the box of air helmets and next made a dive under the navigator's table. "Here, take one—two—three. Oh, how many shall we take?" groaned the little Oz Maid, holding up the bottle of altitude pills. "'One, after each mile up,' but how many miles have we come?"
"One hundred and one thousand, eight hundred and sixty-seven feet!" mumbled the Soldier with Green Whiskers, reading the figures from a shining metal hypsometer clamped to the navigator's table. "All we have to do is figure how many feet in a mile."
"Fifty-two hundred and some," puffed Nick, working away desperately at his wheel and buttons to bring the Oztober down without crashing. "Oh, take twenty!" he directed sharply, as Jellia and the Soldier stood regarding him with open mouths. It was no time, as Jellia later told Ozma, to be doing long divisions. With trembling fingers she counted out twenty pills for the Soldier with Green Whiskers. Then, popping twenty into her own mouth and crunching them desperately between her teeth, she handed the bottle to Nick Chopper.
"No, No! None for me!" The Tin Woodman waved the bottle impatiently aside. "High altitude won't injure my metal, but keep this oil can handy, Jellia, and whatever happens, don't let me rust!" Choking on the pills which were dry and rather bitter, Jellia nodded earnestly. Tucking the oil can into the little bag that hung from her wrist, she began nervously dragging on her air helmet. Wantowin Battles already had adjusted his, and swallowed his pills. Now, peering out one of the round windows, he trembled so violently all his weapons rattled and clanked to the dismal tune of his fright.