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."