For a while the travelers were constantly losing their direction, for beyond the thistle fields they again found themselves upon the turning-lands, which swung them around in such a freakish manner that first they were headed one way and then another. But by keeping the City of Thi constantly behind them the adventurers finally passed the treacherous turning-lands and came upon a stony country where no grass grew at all. There were plenty of bushes, however, and although it was now almost dark the girls discovered some delicious yellow berries growing upon the bushes, one taste of which set them all to picking as many as they could find. The berries relieved their pangs of hunger, for a time, and as it now became too dark to see anything they camped where they were.
The three girls lay down upon one of the blankets --all in a row -- and then the Wizard covered them with the other blanket and tucked them in. Button-Bright crawled under the shelter of some bushes and was asleep in half a minute. The Wizard sat down with his back to a big stone and looked at the stars in the sky and thought gravely upon the dangerous adventure they had undertaken, wondering if they would ever be able to find their beloved Ozma again. The animals lay in a group by themselves, a little distance from the others.
"I've lost my growl!" said Toto, who had been very silent and sober all that day. "What do you suppose has become of it?""If you had asked me to keep track of your growl, Imight be able to tell you," remarked the Lion sleepily.
"But, frankly, Toto, I supposed you were taking care of it yourself.""It's an awful thing to lose one's growl," said Toto, wagging his tail disconsolately. "What if you lost your roar, Lion? Wouldn't you feel terrible?""My roar," replied the Lion, "is the fiercest thing about me. I depend on it to frighten my enemies so badly that they won't dare to fight me.""Once," said the Mule, "I lost my bray, so that Icouldn't call to Betsy to let her know I was hungry.
That was before I could talk, you know, for I had not yet come into the Land of Oz, and I found it was certainly very uncomfortable not to be able to make a noise.""You make enough noise now," declared Toto. "But none of you has answered my question: Where is my growl?""You may search me," said the Woozy. "I don't care for such things myself.""You snore terribly," asserted Toto.
"It may he," said the Woozy. "What one does when asleep one is not accountable for. I wish you would wake me up, some time when I'm snoring, and let me hear the sound. Then I can judge whether it is terrible or delightful.""It isn't pleasant, I assure you," said the Lion, yawning.
"To me it seems wholly unnecessary," declared Hank the Mule.
"You ought to break yourself of the habit," said the Sawhorse. "You never hear me snore, because I never sleep. I don't even whinny, as those puffy meat horses do. I wish that whoever stole Toto's growl had taken the Mule's bray and the Lion's roar and the Woozy's snore at the same time.""Do you think, then, that my growl was stolen?""You have never lost it before, have you?" inquired the Sawhorse.
"Only once, when I had a sore throat from barking too long at the moon.""Is your throat sore now?" asked the Woozy.
"No," replied the dog.
"I can't understand," said Hank, "why dogs bark at the moon, They can't scare the moon, and the moon doesn't pay any attention to the bark. So why do dogs do it?""Were you ever a dog?" asked Toto.
"No, indeed," replied Hank. "I am thankful to say Iwas created a mule -- the most beautiful of all beasts -- and have always remained one."The Woozy sat upon his square haunches to examine Hank with care.
