"If you land too soon, you'll strike a dune," warned Dorothy with another yawn. And after a quick glance below, and convinced they were still over the Dooner's domain, Pigasus spread his wings a bit wider and swung along the coast looking carefully for a safe place to land and spend the rest of the night. He was so busy squinting downward that he never saw the long curious tube-like shadow shooting after him with incredible accuracy and speed. A terrific blast of air as it rushed by them on the right was his first warning of danger. Dorothy, too, caught unaware, gave a faint shriek as an immense snake-like body curved back and began to coil round and round them like some gigantic air serpent. "It is a snake!" thought poor Dorothy, as Pigasus hung helplessly in the little circle of air left in the center of its coils. Neither spoke, for truly there seemed nothing to say or do. Then just as the suspense grew too awful to be endured, the monster opened its mouth and Dorothy, backing as far along the pig's back as she possibly could, almost lost her balance. Instead of a tongue or long tusks, out popped the head and shoulders of a little old man no larger than Dorothy herself. "Pardon me," he murmured politely, "I was looking for a sea serpent." "Do I look like a sea serpent?" snorted Pigasus in a quivering voice, for he was still half choked from shock and fright. "If you and that monster you're riding are looking for a sea serpent, go ahead--look for one, but leave honest travelers alone!" "Monster?" exclaimed the little man in a hurt voice. "Oh, I say now, you have us all wrong. This is no monster, this is the long, strong, flexible, stretchable SHOOTING TOWER of my private castle, and I, myself, am Bitty Bit, the Seer of Some Summit." In the short silence that followed Bitty Bit's astonishing announcement, Dorothy, examining more closely the tube-like coils encircling herself and Pigasus, saw that they really were of stone with rubber-like sections between. What she had taken for a mouth was really a window. With his elbow resting on the ledge, Bitty Bit was regarding them fixedly. "Well, even if you are a seer and have a shooting tower," grunted Pigasus, gathering courage as he went along, "there is no reason for you to come towering over us this way!" "But a seer must be constantly looking for things," explained Bitty Bit, spreading his hands expansively, "that, you know, is his business. I am always looking for something and tonight it happens to be sea serpents." "Sorry to disappoint you," said Pigasus, more mildly, "but since we are not sea serpents, perhaps you'll be good enough to unwind your tower. As it happens, I have a little looking to do myself. As a matter of fact, when you and your tower overtook us I was searching for a safe place for this young Princess and myself to spend the night."