"Send for the Wizard!" advised Betsy Bobbin, jumping up and down in her excitement. "Wait! I'll get him!"
"It's a goose quill," announced Sir Hokus, as Betsy ran off toward the palace. He had picked up the golden feather and was examining it carefully.
"A goose quill?" gasped Ozma. "Why what can that mean? Oh dear, I do wish Dorothy were back."
"My gooseness!" giggled Scraps. "No wonder it's a silly message. Do you know any geese?"
"None but you!" sniffed Trot, putting her arms about Ozma.
"Silence, wench!" commanded Sir Hokus, pushing Scraps aside and seating himself beside the Scarecrow. "Methinks dark deeds are brewing here. Hast thought of anything friend?"
"Not yet," sighed the Scarecrow, rubbing his forehead sadly with his wobbly finger. "Let me think some more."
All were silent until Betsy Bobbin came hurrying back, bringing with her the Wizard of Oz and Tik Tok. As everyone in Oz knows, Tik Tok is another great celebrity, a machine man of burnished copper who can talk, walk and even think when properly wound. Betsy was winding up his think key, as she ran along, for Tik Tok's brains, in spite of their wheels, worked quite as well as the Scarecrow's, and there certainly was a lot of thinking to be done.
"You say it was a golden goose feather?" panted the little Wizard of Oz, quickening his steps. "A goose feather! Humph!" Next instant he was bending over the strange inscription on the walk, while Ozma and Trot breathlessly explained just how and when it had all happened.
"To-morrow to-day!" murmured the Wizard, mopping his bald head with his green hanky. "Why that's impossible, there's some trick to it."