“I should think she would be,” agreed Dorothy.  Then, after a moment’s thought, she asked:  “Are we friends or enemies?  I mean, will you be good to us, or do you intend to eat us?”

“As for that, we dragonettes would love to eat you, my child; but unfortunately mother has tied all our tails around the rocks at the back of our individual caves, so that we can not crawl out to get you.  If you choose to come nearer we will make a mouthful of you in a wink; but unless you do you will remain quite safe.”

There was a regretful accent in the creature’s voice, and at the words all the other dragonettes sighed dismally.

Dorothy felt relieved.  Presently she asked: 

“Why did your mother tie your tails?”

“Oh, she is sometimes gone for several weeks on her hunting trips, and if we were not tied we would crawl all over the mountain and fight with each other and get into a lot of mischief.  Mother usually knows what she is about, but she made a mistake this time; for you are sure to escape us unless you come too near, and you probably won’t do that.”

“No, indeed!” said the little girl.  “We don’t wish to be eaten by such awful beasts.”

“Permit me to say,” returned the dragonette, “that you are rather impolite to call us names, knowing that we cannot resent your insults.  We consider ourselves very beautiful in appearance, for mother has told us so, and she knows.  And we are of an excellent family and have a pedigree that I challenge any humans to equal, as it extends back about twenty thousand years, to the time of the famous Green Dragon of Atlantis, who lived in a time when humans had not yet been created.  Can you match that pedigree, little girl?”

“Well,” said Dorothy, “I was born on a farm in Kansas, and I guess that’s being just as ’spectable and haughty as living in a cave with your tail tied to a rock.  If it isn’t I’ll have to stand it, that’s all.”

“Tastes differ,” murmured the dragonette, slowly drooping its scaley eyelids over its yellow eyes, until they looked like half-moons.

Being reassured by the fact that the creatures could not crawl out of their rock-pockets, the children and the Wizard now took time to examine them more closely.  The heads of the dragonettes were as big as barrels and covered with hard, greenish scales that glittered brightly under the light of the lanterns.  Their front legs, which grew just back of their heads, were also strong and big; but their bodies were smaller around than their heads, and dwindled away in a long line until their tails were slim as a shoe-string.  Dorothy thought, if it had taken them sixty-six years to grow to this size, that it would be fully a hundred years more before they could hope to call themselves dragons, and that seemed like a good while to wait to grow up.

“It occurs to me,” said the Wizard, “that we ought to get out of this place before the mother dragon comes back.”