Seven magic words! No sooner were they uttered than the nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine lions were turned to so many stone statues--some just as they were about to spring, some half way in the air, so that they came clattering heavily down one on top of the other, and the poor Cowardly Lion at the bottom of the heap! "Somebody stop him!" gasped Ozma who was sitting exactly as she had fallen on a small sand dune. Sir Hokus of Pokes sprang bravely at Crunch, but his sword snapped at the first thrust, and the Stone Man, paying no more attention to the people from the Emerald City than if they had been so many flies, began bending out the iron bars of the lion enclosure. Mustafa, petrified with terror, might have been a statue himself, and the Mudger Guards had long since taken to their heels. "What have you done?" wailed Notta, trying to attract the Stone Man's attention. He seized an iron bar that Crouch had loosened and began valiantly belaboring Crunch about the shins. "Oh, hello!" rasped Crouch, glancing down at the clown. "Back again? Well, I've taken your advice, you see." "My advice!" groaned Notta. "Yes." Crunch, who had now broken an opening for himself, stepped into the enclosure. "I've helped the Cowardly Lion by changing him to stone. Now he will never feel cowardly again, and what's more, he belongs to me!" Leaning over, he began tossing Mustafa's lions aside as if they had been so many paper weights. "Oh, help!" screamed Snorer. "Aren't there any wizards here to stop this fellow? Are you going to sit like images while he runs off with the bravest lion in Oz?" "I must think!" groaned the Scarecrow, putting his white cotton glove to his head, while Dorothy and Bob ran close to the bars and looked anxiously for the first glimpse of their old friend. But Glinda and the Wizard of Oz already had their heads together. "First," whispered the little Wizard of Oz, "we will let him find the Cowardly Lion, for those statues would be too heavy for us to lift. Then, we will deprive him of all power to move." Tik Tok and Sir Hokus had followed the Stone Man into the enclosure, but a stone lion flung carelessly to one side, knocked Tik Tok head over heels, and Sir Hokus, deciding that flight was the better part of valor, retired to a safe distance, where he began threatening the Stone Man with every sort of destruction from hammering to hanging. But Crunch continued calmly tossing the lions about, and at last uncovered the Cowardly Lion himself. He recognized him at once, for his mane, a mass of stony waves, stood straight on end. The Cowardly Lion, you see, had been petrified in one of his most trying moments, and, while he was preparing to fight with all his might, he could not control his mane and hence looked as natural as possible.