When the Wicked With looked out again, and saw all her crows lying in a heap, she got into a terrible rage, and blew three times upon her silver whistle.
Forthwith there was heard a great buzzing in the air, and a swarm of black bees came flying toward her.
"Go to the strangers and sting them to death!" commanded the Witch, and the bees turned and flew repidly until they came to where Dorothy and her firends were walking.
The Woodman had been them coming, and the Scarecrow had decided what to do.
"Take out my straw and scatter it over the little girl and the dog and the Lion," and the bees cannot sting them."
This the Woodman did, and as Dorothy lay close beside the Lion and held Toto in her arms, the straw covered them entirely.
The bees came and found no one but the Woodman to siting, so they flew at him and broke off all their stings against the tin, without hurting the Woodman at all.
And as bees cannot live when their stings are broken that was the end of the black bees,
and they lay scattered thick about the Woodman, like little heaps of find coal.
Then Dorothy and the Lion got up, and the girl helped the Tin Woodman put the straw back into the Scarecrow again, until he was as good as ever.
So they started upon their journey once more.