"Now, now, don't anticipate!" advised the Wizard, guiding the staff with one hand and opening his kit bag with the other. For several moments he had been anxiously regarding the Cowardly Lion. The buoyancy resulting from the wind pudding was at last subsiding, and the swelled and bloated appearance of the unfortunate beast was fast disappearing. At almost any time now, the lion would become a dead weight. His poundage--added to the Wizard's and the Soldier's--would be too much for the flying staff and they all would plunge like plummets to the earth. Feeling hurriedly around in the kit-bag, the Wizard pulled out a small, black bottle. Uncorking it with his teeth, he turned it upside down and held it out at arm's length until not a drop of its oily contents remained. "Now, don't be alarmed at a sudden bump!" he warned, as his companions watched him with surprise and curiosity! "Whatever happens--hold on to your staff!" Scarcely had the Wizard issued his warning when the air directly beneath them froze into a solid block of blue ice on which they landed with a series of bumps, and began sliding around in great confusion. "Nothing to worry about! Nothing to worry about!" panted the Wizard, keeping a firm hold on his flying stick and at the same time managing to extract a large envelope from the kit-bag. "Hold on to that stick, Jellia, and keep it down!" The Cowardly Lion, completely deflated by his smack against the ice, was sprawled flat as an animal skin in the center of the berg. Dismounting from his own staff, the Wizard scurried perilously round the edges of the rapidly falling block of ice scattering seeds from his envelope with a lavish hand. Instantly, or so it seemed to Dorothy, a thick green hedge sprang up, enclosing them snugly inside. "To keep us from tumbling off," explained the Wizard, sliding anxiously after Wantowin Battles, who was galloping round and round on his flying stick like a child on a merry-go-round. "Whoa, whoa!" cried Ozma's chief magician, grabbing the Soldier's coat-tails. "We need these sticks to act as brakes to stop our fall!" Unseating the Soldier, the Wizard lifted the flying stick and stuck it through the top branches of the hedge. Bidding the others dismount from their staff, he thrust it through the hedge on the opposite side. The wings of both staffs kept up their steady beating and, as the Wizard had predicted, acted as strong brakes on the plunging cake of ice. "I was afraid we'd lose the lion," explained the Wizard as the little company of adventurers gathered breathlessly round him. "I'd just as lief be lost as frozen!" Sneezing plaintively, the lion pulled himself to his feet and slid over to the hedge, bracing his back against its stouter branches. "It won't be long before we strike solid earth now, old fellow," the Wizard observed brightly. "Strike the earth!" roared the lion. "Well, good-bye, friends! I'll say it now--before I'm squashed and scattered to the four points of the compass!"