With a shout he came scrambling down. "There's a clearing just beyond, and I think I made out twenty on the tree in the center," puffed Notta. "Come on!" The clown was growing more interested in this strange country every minute. He could hardly wait to see what was going to happen next.
"Let me go first. My hide doesn't tear as easily as yours," said the Cowardly Lion, and he began pushing through the heavy thicket in the direction pointed out by Notta. Holding up their arms to protect their faces, the others followed and in almost no time had come out on a small clearing.
As they looked the clown clutched Bob, while the Cowardly Lion blinked with astonishment. The twentieth tree was knitting furiously, holding in its long fingers nearly a hundred gleaming needles, and bending its witchy head every once in a while to examine the great, cloudy net that flowed all around it. For some moments they watched in puzzled silence. Then Bob screamed, the Cowardly Lion roared and Notta gasped with alarm. For the net suddenly swooped down and scooped them up like a school of fish. The tree gave a disagreeable little laugh, quickly knitted the top of the net together and, lifting all its branches at once, tossed the luckless travelers high over its head.
Miraculously, as it struck the air, the big porous bag filled out like a balloon and went sailing upward at a terrible rate—the Cowardly Lion, Bob Up and Notta rolling over and over in the bottom and bumping and banging together in a most painful and unpleasant fashion.