The whole valley of the Puster was filled with visitors, and not a single one, not even a Bergfax, had come to Tausens! Thoroughly vexed. Hansel blew the smoke from his pipe in short angry puffs; he swept the landscape far and wide with his glance, but it was deserted everywhere, not a traveller was to be seen. He turned away in disgust, and was about to enter the house, when suddenly the frown cleared away from his brow. He had accidentally overlooked the Schwarzenbach valley, thence, where he had least expected them, were coming the desired guests; his sharp eye recognized them in the distance. From his point of view he could see but a short stretch of the valley-road which followed the many windings of the rushing, gurgling Schwarzenbach, but walking along this very stretch he discovered three city-clad gentlemen, followed by two peasants. The gentlemen carried long alpenstocks, and were walking briskly down the valley towards the village,--the peasants were loaded with portmanteaus and plaids. From the point which the travellers had reached they had a glorious view of the valley of the Tausenser Aar and of the village. They paused, and one produced a glass and looked through it. For a while they stood drinking in the beauty around them, and then they strode onwards, vanishing in the Lerchenwald, through which the road ran. But Hansel had seen enough; he rubbed his hands gleefully, and called loudly into the house, "Nannerl! Nannerl!" The inn-maid, a fresh, buxom lass, came running at his call. From the tone of his voice she judged that strangers were to be received, and she gave her smooth hair a stroke and twitched down her blue apron as she ran. When however she found no one but Hansel himself, she said, peevishly, "Here I am. What are you shouting for? There's no one here!" "But they're coming,--three Bergfaxes on the way from Schwarzenbach,--they'll be here in a quarter of an hour!" And true enough, they did come in a quarter of an hour, the three Bergfaxes,--three broad-shouldered young men, whose city clothes, terribly dusty although it was, showed that they were gentlemen of good position. Hansel called out a lusty "God greet ye!" as they appeared, and offered his hand heartily to each in turn in sign of welcome. The one with a black beard shook it with great cordiality, and regarded the postmaster with a friendly smile. "Hail, beloved son of the Alps!" he said, with mock pathos. "Receive us weary wanderers beneath your hospitable roof; strengthen our famished and thirsty frames with food and drink. By Jove the eternal, I am so rejoiced to get out of that dark wood and to see your good, stupid face, that I could kiss it but for the stifling tobacco-smoke." "Do hush your nonsense, Paul!" one of his companions entreated him.