when one is thinking of something!" Of something! Of what then had she been thinking? She turned it over in her mind, but she could not discover. Precisely she had been thinking of nothing in particular. Why then should she be so troubled by the string breaking just at that moment? She felt as though the sun had suddenly paled, and a cold wind were blowing over her; but not a leaf was stirring, and the icebound horizon glittered in the radiant sunlight. The shadow of a cloud had passed--within her--or without her? How could she tell?

Joseph meanwhile had finished relating his adventure, and had shown round the purse containing the forty florins paid by the Tyrolese government as the reward for shooting a bear, and there was no end to the handshakings and congratulations. Only Wally's father held sullenly aloof. It angered him that any one should accomplish a great and heroic deed; no one in the world had any right to be strong but himself and his daughter. During thirty years he had been esteemed, without dispute, the strongest man in the whole range of mountains, and he could not bear now to find himself growing old, and obliged to make way for a younger generation. When, however, someone said to Joseph that it was no wonder he should be such a strong fellow--he had it from his father who had been the best shot and the best wrestler in the whole place--then the old man could contain himself no longer, but broke in with a thundering "Oho! no need to bury a man before he's dead!"

Everyone fell back at the threatening voice. "It's Stromminger!" they said, half-frightened.

"Ay, it is Stromminger, who's alive still, and who never knew till this moment that Hagenbach had been the best wrestler in the place. With his tongue, if you like, but with nothing else!"

Joseph turned round like a wounded wild cat, glaring at Stromminger with flaming eyes. "Who says that my father was a boaster?"

"I say it, the head-peasant of the Sonnenplatte, and I know what I'm saying, for I've laid him flat a dozen times, like a sack."

"It is false," cried Joseph, "and no man shall blacken my father's name."

"Joseph, be quiet," the people whispered about him, "it's the head-peasant--thou mustn't make a quarrel with him."

"Head-peasant here, head-peasant there! If God in Heaven were to come down to blacken my father's name, I wouldn't put up with it. I know very well, my father and Stromminger had many a wrestling-bout together, because he was the only one who could stand up with Stromminger. And he threw Stromminger just as often as Stromminger threw him."

"It's not true!" shouted Stromminger, "thy father was a weak fool compared to me. If any of you old fellows have a spark of honour, you'll say so too--and thou, if thou doesn't believe it after that, I'll knock it into thee!" At the word "fool" Joseph had sprung like a madman, close up to Stromminger. "Take thy words back, or--"

"Heavens above us!" shrieked the women. "Let be, Joseph," said his mother soothingly, "he's an old man, thou mustn't lay hands on him."

"Oho!" cried Stromminger, purple with rage, "you'd make me out an old dotard, would you? Stromminger is none so old and weak yet but he can fight it out with a half-fledged stripling. Only come on, I'll soon show thee I've some marrow left in my bones. I'm not afraid of thee yet awhile, not if thou'd shot ten bears."

And like an enraged bull the strong old man threw himself on the young hunter, who in spite of himself gave way under the sudden and heavy spring. But he only staggered for a moment; his slender form was so firmly knit, was so supple in yielding, so elastic in rising again--like the lofty pines of his native soil, that grow with roots of iron in the naked rock, buffeted by all the winds of heaven and bearing up against their mountain-load of snow. As easily might Stromminger have uprooted one of these trees, as have flung Joseph to the ground. And in fact, after a short struggle, Joseph's arms closely clasped Stromminger, tightening round and almost choking him, till a deep groan came with his shortening breath, and he could not stir a hand. And now the young giant began to shake the old man, bending first on one side, then on the other, striving steadily, slowly but surely to force first one foot and then the other from under him, and so loosen his foothold by degrees. The bystanders hardly dared to breathe as they watched the strange scene--almost as though they dared not look on at the felling of so old a tree. Now--now Stromminger has lost his footing--now he must fall--but no; Joseph held him up, bore him in his strong arms to the nearest bench and set him down on it. Then he quietly took out his handkerchief and dried the beads of sweat from Stromminger's brow.

"See, Stromminger," he said, "I've got the better of thee, and I might have thrown thee; but God forbid that I should bring an old man to shame. And now we will be good friends again; we bear no malice, Stromminger?"

He held out his hand, smiling goodhumouredly, but Stromminger struck it back with an angry scowl. "The devil pay thee out--thou scoundrel," he cried. "And you, all you Söldeners who have amused yourselves with seeing Stromminger made a laughing-stock for the children--you shall learn by experience who Stromminger is. I'll have nothing more to do with you, and grant no more time for payments--not if half Sölden were to starve for it."

He went up to the tree, where Wally still sat as in a nightmare, and pulled her by the gown. "Come down," he said, "thou'll get no dinner there. Not a Söldener shall ever see another kreuzer of mine." But Wally, who had rather fallen than got down from the tree, stood as if spell-bound with her eyes fixed almost beseechingly on Joseph. She thought he must see how it pained her to go away; she felt as though he must take her hand in his, and say, "Only stay with me: thou belong'st to me, and I to thee, and to no other!" But he stood still in the midst of a knot of men who were whispering together in dismay, for many in the village owed money to Stromminger, whose wealth circulated in the very veins of the whole neighbourhood.

"Well--wilt thou go on?" said Stromminger, giving the girl a push, and she had to obey him whether for weal or woe; but her lips trembled, her breast heaved painfully; she flung a glance of powerless anger at her father; he drove her before him like a calf. So they went on for a few steps; then they heard some one following them, and turning round, there stood Joseph with a couple of peasants behind him.

"Stromminger," he said, "don't be so headstrong. You can never go, you and the girl, all that long way to the Sonnenplatte, without eating anything."

He stood close to Wally; she felt his breath as he spoke, his eyes rested on her, his hand lay compassionately on her shoulder; she knew not how it happened--he was so good, so dear--and she felt as she did when, taking the vulture's nest, the rushing sound of its wings suddenly filled her ears, and sight and hearing went from her. Even so, something overwhelming to her young heart, lay in his presence, in his touch. She had not trembled when the mighty bird hovered above her, darkening the sun with his broad pinions, she had known how to defend herself calmly and bravely; but now she trembled from head to foot, and stood bewildered and confused.

"Get off!" cried Stromminger, and clenched his fist at Joseph, "I'll hit thee in the face if thou doesn't let me be--I will, if it cost me my life."

"Well--if you won't, you won't, and so let it be,--but you're a fool, Stromminger," said Joseph calmly, and he turned round and went back with the others.

Now no one tried to detain them; they walked on unmolested,