you," returned the
hen. "Look around, and see if you cannot find it again."

Dorothy looked, and the hen helped her, and by and by the girl
discovered the clock-key, which had fallen into a crack of the rock.

At once she wound up Tiktok's voice, taking care to give the key as many
turns as it would go around. She found this quite a task, as you may
imagine if you have ever tried to wind a clock, but the machine man's
first words were to assure Dorothy that he would now run for at least
twenty-four hours.

"You did not wind me much, at first," he calmly said, "and I told you
that long sto-ry a-bout King Ev-ol-do; so it is no won-der that I ran
down."

[Illustration]

She next rewound the action clock-work, and then Billina advised her to
carry the key to Tiktok in her pocket, so it would not get lost again.

"And now," said Dorothy, when all this was accomplished, "tell me what
you were going to say about the Wheelers."

"Why, they are noth-ing to be fright-en'd at," said the machine. "They
try to make folks be-lieve that they are ver-y ter-ri-ble, but as a
mat-ter of fact the Wheel-ers are harm-less e-nough to an-y one that
dares to fight them. They might try to hurt a lit-tle girl like you,
per-haps, be-cause they are ver-y mis-chiev-ous. But if I had a club
they would run a-way as soon as they saw me."

"Haven't you a club?" asked Dorothy.

"No," said Tiktok.

"And you won't find such a thing among these rocks, either," declared
the yellow hen.

"Then what shall we do?" asked the girl.

"Wind up my think-works tight-ly, and I will try to think of some oth-er
plan," said Tiktok.

So Dorothy rewound his thought machinery, and while he was thinking she
decided to eat her dinner. Billina was already pecking away at the
cracks in the rocks, to find something to eat, so Dorothy sat down and
opened her tin dinner-pail.

In the cover she found a small tank that was full of very nice lemonade.
It was covered by a cup, which might also, when removed, be used to
drink the lemonade from. Within the pail were three slices of turkey,
two slices of cold tongue, some lobster salad, four slices of bread and
butter, a small custard pie, an orange and nine large strawberries, and
some nuts and raisins. Singularly enough, the nuts in this dinner-pail
grew already cracked, so that Dorothy had no trouble in picking out
their meats to eat.

She spread the feast upon the rock beside her and began her dinner,
first offe