ever before acted. That is
why I left the forest and joined my friend the Cowardly Lion."

"But the Lion is not really cowardly," said Dorothy. "I have seen him
act as bravely as can be."

"All a mistake, my dear," protested the Lion gravely. "To others I may
have seemed brave, at times, but I have never been in any danger that I
was not afraid."

"Nor I," said Dorothy, truthfully. "But I must go and set free Billina,
and then I will see you again."

She ran around to the back yard of the palace and soon found the
chicken house, being guided to it by a loud cackling and crowing and a
distracting hubbub of sounds such as chickens make when they are
excited.

Something seemed to be wrong in the chicken house, and when Dorothy
looked through the slats in the door she saw a group of hens and
roosters huddled in one corner and watching what appeared to be a
whirling ball of feathers. It bounded here and there about the chicken
house, and at first Dorothy could not tell what it was, while the
screeching of the chickens nearly deafened her.

But suddenly the bunch of feathers stopped whirling, and then, to her
amazement, the girl saw Billina crouching upon the prostrate form of a
speckled rooster. For an instant they both remained motionless, and
then the yellow hen shook her wings to settle the feathers and walked
toward the door with a strut of proud defiance and a cluck of victory,
while the speckled rooster limped away to the group of other chickens,
trailing his crumpled plumage in the dust as he went.

"Why, Billina!" cried Dorothy, in a shocked voice; "have you been
fighting?"

"I really think I have," retorted Billina. "Do you think I'd let that
speckled villain of a rooster lord it over ME, and claim to run this
chicken house, as long as I'm able to peck and scratch? Not if my name
is Bill!"

"It isn't Bill, it's Billina; and you're talking slang, which is very
undig'n'fied," said Dorothy, reprovingly. "Come here, Billina, and
I'll let you out; for Ozma of Oz is here, and has set us free."

So the yellow hen came to the door, which Dorothy unlatched for her to
pass through, and the other chickens silently watched them from their
corner without offering to approach nearer.

The girl lifted her friend in her arms and exclaimed:

"Oh, Billina! how dreadful you look. You've lost a lot of feathers,
and one of your eyes is nearly pecked out, and your comb is bleeding!"

"That's nothing," said Bill