They had gone on their way by this time, and reached a corner of the path where it turned abruptly in zig-zags round a great rocky precipice. Just as they drew abreast of it, and were passing the corner, a young man came suddenly on them from the opposite direction. He was a fiery young man, dressed in the native Tyrolese costume of real life; his hand held a rifle; his conical hat was gaily decked behind, like most of his countrymen’s, with a blackcock’s feather. The stranger’s mien was bold—nay, saucy and defiant. He looked every inch a typical Alpine jäger. As he confronted them he paused, and glared for a moment at Linnet. Next instant he raised his hat with half-sarcastic politeness; then, in a very rapid voice, he said something to their companion in a _patois_ so pronounced that Will Deverill himself, familiar as he was with land and people, could make nothing out of it. But Linnet, unabashed, answered him back once or twice in the same uncouth dialect. Their colloquy grew warm. The stranger seemed angry; he waved his hand toward the Englishmen, and appeared, as Will judged, to be asking their pretty guide what she did in such company. As for Linnet, her answers were evidently of the sort which turneth away wrath, though on this hot-headed young man they were ineffectually bestowed. He stamped his foot once or twice; then he turned to Will Deverill. “Who sent you out with the _sennerin_?” he asked, haughtily, in good German. Will answered him back with calm but cold politeness. “Herr Hausberger, our _wirth_,” he said, “asked the Fräulein to accompany us, as she knew the place where a certain fern I wished to find on the hills was growing.” “I know where it grows myself,” the _jäger_ replied, with a defiant air. “Let her go back to the inn; it is far for her to walk. I can show you the way to it.” “Certainly _not_,” Will retorted, in most decided tones. “The Fräulein has been good enough to accompany us thus far; I can’t allow her now to go back alone to the village.” “She’s used to it,” the man said, gruffly, with half a sneer, his fingers twitching. “That may be,” Will retorted, with quiet self-possession; “but _I’m_ not used to allowing her to do so.” For a minute the stranger put one sturdy foot forward, held his head haughtily, with his hat on one side, and half lifted his fist, as if inclined to rush forthwith upon the offending Englishman, and settle the question between them then and there by open violence. But Linnet, biting her lip and knitting her brow in suspense, rushed in to separate them. “Take care what you do,” she cried hurriedly in English to Will. “Don’t let him strike. Stand away of him. He’s a Robbler!” “A _what_?” Will replied, half smiling at her eagerness, for he was not at all alarmed himself by her truculent fellow-countryman.