“Well, this was a figure of a cat,” said Jim, “and she went down, anyhow, whether she climbed or crept.”

“Dear me! how careless Eureka is,” exclaimed the girl, much distressed.  “The Gurgles will get her, sure!”

“Ha, ha!” chuckled the old cab-horse; “they’re not ‘Gurgles,’ little maid; they’re Gargoyles.”

“Never mind; they’ll get Eureka, whatever they’re called.”

“No they won’t,” said the voice of the kitten, and Eureka herself crawled over the edge of the platform and sat down quietly upon the floor.

“Wherever have you been, Eureka?” asked Dorothy, sternly.

“Watching the wooden folks.  They’re too funny for anything, Dorothy.  Just now they are all going to bed, and—­what do you think?—­they unhook the hinges of their wings and put them in a corner until they wake up again.”

“What, the hinges?”

“No; the wings.”

“That,” said Zeb, “explains why this house is used by them for a prison.  If any of the Gargoyles act badly, and have to be put in jail, they are brought here and their wings unhooked and taken away from them until they promise to be good.”

The Wizard had listened intently to what Eureka had said.

“I wish we had some of those loose wings,” he said.

“Could we fly with them?” asked Dorothy.

“I think so.  If the Gargoyles can unhook the wings then the power to fly lies in the wings themselves, and not in the wooden bodies of the people who wear them.  So, if we had the wings, we could probably fly as well as they do—­as least while we are in their country and under the spell of its magic.”

“But how would it help us to be able to fly?” questioned the girl.

“Come here,” said the little man, and took her to one of the corners of the building.  “Do you see that big rock standing on the hillside yonder?” he continued, pointing with his finger.

“Yes; it’s a good way off, but I can see it,” she replied.

“Well, inside that rock, which reaches up into the clouds, is an archway very much like the one we entered when we climbed the spiral stairway from the Valley of Voe.  I’ll get my spy-glass, and then you can see it more plainly.”

He fetched a small but powerful telescope, which had been in his satchel, and by its aid the little girl clearly saw the opening.

“Where does it lead to?” she asked.

“That I cannot tell,” said the Wizard; “but we cannot now be far below the earth’s surface, and that entrance may lead to another stairway that will bring us on top of our world again, where we belong.  So, if we had the wings, and could escape the Gargoyles, we might fly to that rock and be saved.”

“I’ll get you the wings,” said Zeb, who had thoughtfully listened to all this.  “That is, if the kitten will show me where they are.”

“But how can you get down?” enquired the girl, wonderingly.