t, leaving only three of their number to guard the hill. These
curled themselves up like big dogs and pretended to go to sleep on the
sands; but neither Dorothy nor Billina were fooled by this trick, so
they remained in security among the rocks and paid no attention to
their cunning enemies.

Finally the hen, fluttering over the mound, exclaimed: "Why, here's a
path!"

So Dorothy at once clambered to where Billina sat, and there, sure
enough, was a smooth path cut between the rocks. It seemed to wind
around the mound from top to bottom, like a cork-screw, twisting here
and there between the rough boulders but always remaining level and
easy to walk upon.

Indeed, Dorothy wondered at first why the Wheelers did not roll up this
path; but when she followed it to the foot of the mound she found that
several big pieces of rock had been placed directly across the end of
the way, thus preventing any one outside from seeing it and also
preventing the Wheelers from using it to climb up the mound.

Then Dorothy walked back up the path, and followed it until she came to
the very top of the hill, where a solitary round rock stood that was
bigger than any of the others surrounding it. The path came to an end
just beside this great rock, and for a moment it puzzled the girl to
know why the path had been made at all. But the hen, who had been
gravely following her around and was now perched upon a point of rock
behind Dorothy, suddenly remarked:

"It looks something like a door, doesn't it?"

"What looks like a door?" enquired the child.

"Why, that crack in the rock, just facing you," replied Billina, whose
little round eyes were very sharp and seemed to see everything. "It
runs up one side and down the other, and across the top and the bottom."

"What does?"

"Why, the crack. So I think it must be a door of rock, although I do
not see any hinges."

"Oh, yes," said Dorothy, now observing for the first time the crack in
the rock. "And isn't this a key-hole, Billina?" pointing to a round,
deep hole at one side of the door.

"Of course. If we only had the key, now, we could unlock it and see
what is there," replied the yellow hen. "May be it's a treasure
chamber full of diamonds and rubies, or heaps of shining gold, or--"

"That reminds me," said Dorothy, "of the golden key I picked up on the
shore. Do you think that it would fit this key-hole, Billina?"

"Try it and see," suggested the hen.

So Dorothy searc