While Anthony Wallner and his sharpshooters occupied the mountain- gorges this side of Brixen on the road to Mittewald, Joseph Speckbacher and his men had penetrated far beyond Mittewald toward Sterzing, and had learned that the Saxons, under General Royer, were resting at Sterzing with the intention of advancing in the morning through the wild valley of the Eisach toward Brixen. "Well, if the Saxons are resting we must work in order to prepare eternal repose for them," said Joseph Speckbacher, gayly. "Now come, my brave lads, we must take the Saxons between two fires. They are miserable scoundrels and traitors. Ah, they do not shrink from serving the rapacious conqueror Bonaparte, and turning their arms against their German countrymen, merely because the French emperor orders them to do so, and because we refuse to submit to the foreign yoke. and are determined to preserve our German tongue and our German rights! How disgraceful it is that Germans should attack Germans at the bidding of the foreign oppressor! Therefore, we will punish the Saxons and Bavarians in the name of God and the Holy Virgin. We will let them advance down the defile, and attack them only after they are in it. They cannot retrace their steps, for we are behind them; nor can they advance very far, for Father Red-beard will meet them in front. Now come and let us make festive preparations, as it behooves those who are expecting distinguished guests. We will erect a few triumphal arches to them, and show them how avalanches roll down our mountains. Ah, we will build up for them artificial ruins which will excite their sincere admiration!" "Yes, yes, we will!" shouted the peasants, who went to work, singing and laughing. In the first place, they erected "triumphal arches" to the enemy; that is to say, they obstructed the road by raising a number of abatis, besmeared with pitch the wooden railing of the bridge built across the Eisach near the village of Pleis, loosened the planks of the bridge, and began to build "avalanches." They felled a considerable number of tall larches, tied ropes to both ends of them, lowered them half-way down the precipitous side of the mountain, and fastened the ropes above to the strong branches of trees firmly rooted in the soil of the crest. Then they threw huge masses of rock and heaps of rubbish on these hanging scaffolds; and after the "avalanches" had thus been completed, they withdrew cautiously and rapidly into the mountain-gorges. Only Zoppel, Joseph Speckbacher's servant, and an old peasant remained near the "avalanches." They stood on both sides of the ropes, hatchet in hand, casting fiery glances into the defile on the bank of the Eisach, and between overhanging wood-clad precipices.