CHAPTER THE LAST. 421 



" It was perhaps a year, or may be a year and a half, 

 after Meier had shot the poacher, that he and Probst and 

 Fuchs caught a couple of peasants out stalking on the 

 Schuss Kogel; and having taken away their rifles, and 

 bound their hands behind them, marched both off to 

 the Justice at Miesbach. On their way (it was a most 

 incautious thing to do, and I cannot conceive how they 

 could act so) they stopped to rest on some moss in the 

 wood. It was a glade-like place, some few yards in 

 extent, with trees all round. They were sitting here 

 with their prisoners, their rifles beside them, when sud- 

 denly a band of armed men rushed out of the wood : 

 they had followed the keepers through the forest, and 

 had stalked close up to them unobserved. What could 

 three men do against such a number, attacked too as 

 they were quite unawares? The poachers beat them 

 dreadfully, and only left them when they thought all were 

 killed. * 



" After a time Probst came to himself, and lifting his 

 head and looking round, saw the others covered with 

 blood, lying motionless on the ground. He got up and 

 tried to rouse them, but he found both were dead — 

 so at least he thought. He then, still bleeding and co- 

 vered with wounds, tottered homewards. After he was 

 gone, Fuchs recovered a little, and observed that Probst 

 was gone. He spoke to Meier, but found him dead. 

 Stunned and bewildered, and staggering, he still tried to 

 reach the nearest house, and made his way to Gmund, 

 which was about an hour and a half s walk distant. 

 Meier lived here, and Fuchs went straight to the cot- 

 tage to tell his wife what had befallen her husband, and 

 that he had been killed in the wood. Hardly had he fi- 

 nished his story when he fell forward, and dropped down 

 dead on the floor. The sudden change of temperature on 



