"Good-bye!" called Bob Up shrilly, as they turned into a narrow rocky path and disappeared behind a small mountain.
"Good-bye!" roared the Cowardly Lion, bravely waving his tail in farewell.
So much had happened since their flight from Un that Notta had forgotten all about the time of day, but when he started up the mountain, he grew so faint, he had to sit down on a rock. Bob, too, looked pale and weary, and every few hops Nick would close his eyes and indulge in a tremulous snore.
"Great Elephants!" puffed Notta at last, squinting up at the sun. "It must be nearly five o'clock and we've had nothing to eat since morning. Have you still got those eggs, Bob Up?"
Bob felt hurriedly in his blouse and, with a triumphant smile, produced the eggs they had picked from the travelers' tree. They were somewhat squashed, but when the shells had been removed they tasted delicious to the famished travelers. Washed down with some water from a little spring, the food renewed their strength and courage for the journey ahead.
"I hope nothing happens to the Cowardly Lion," said Bob, as they started up the mountain again, "for I love him."
"So do I," croaked the Snorer, who was flying a little ahead, "and I shall miss him very much when we go to America to make our fortune. But, of course I could not leave that beautiful person." He rolled his eyes proudly at Notta, and the clown quite unconsciously sighed. Life in a circus would seem terribly tame after this marvelous trip through Oz.
"We ought to be home to-morrow, if everything works out," he remarked soberly, with an anxious glance at Bob. At the word "home" the little boy shivered slightly, for home to him meant a great, dreary institution where little boys whom nobody wanted were grudgingly sheltered and eternally shaken. In his heart he hoped the magic of this Wizard of Oz would not be strong enough to send them back. Notta was wondering to himself whether the managers of the home would trust a little boy's future to a clown and resolving darkly that, if they wouldn't, he'd take him anyhow. But he said nothing of this to Bob Up, and presently broke into such a comical song Bob forgot all about going back. This was the song:
"A goblin's ears are very long,
A goblin's nose goes wabble,