powerful friend who loves me because I own the Love Magnet, and
this friend surely will be able to help us."

"Who is your friend?" asked Dorothy.

"Johnny Dooit."

"What can Johnny do?"

"Anything," answered the shaggy man, with confidence.

"Ask him to come," she exclaimed, eagerly.

The shaggy man took the Love Magnet from his pocket and unwrapped the
paper that surrounded it. Holding the charm in the palm of his hand he
looked at it steadily and said these words:

"Dear Johnny Dooit, come to me.
I need you bad as bad can be."

"Well, here I am," said a cheery little voice; "but you shouldn't say
you need me bad, 'cause I'm always, ALWAYS, good."

At this they quickly whirled around to find a funny little man sitting
on a big copper chest, puffing smoke from a long pipe. His hair was
grey, his whiskers were grey; and these whiskers were so long that he
had wound the ends of them around his waist and tied them in a hard
knot underneath the leather apron that reached from his chin nearly to
his feet, and which was soiled and scratched as if it had been used a
long time. His nose was broad, and stuck up a little; but his eyes
were twinkling and merry. The little man's hands and arms were as hard
and tough as the leather in his apron, and Dorothy thought Johnny Dooit
looked as if he had done a lot of hard work in his lifetime.

"Good morning, Johnny," said the shaggy man. "Thank you for coming to
me so quickly."

"I never waste time," said the newcomer, promptly. "But what's
happened to you? Where did you get that donkey head? Really, I
wouldn't have known you at all, Shaggy Man, if I hadn't looked at your
feet."

The shaggy man introduced Johnny Dooit to Dorothy and Toto and
Button-Bright and the Rainbow's Daughter, and told him the story of
their adventures, adding that they were anxious now to reach the
Emerald City in the Land of Oz, where Dorothy had friends who would
take care of them and send them safe home again.

"But," said he, "we find that we can't cross this desert, which turns
all living flesh that touches it into dust; so I have asked you to come
and help us."

Johnny Dooit puffed his pipe and looked carefully at the dreadful
desert in front of them--stretching so far away they could not see its
end.

"You must ride," he said, briskly.

"What in?" asked the shaggy man.

"In a sand-boat, which has runners like a sled and sails like a ship.
The wind will blow you swiftl