The task that Hofer and his companions set themselves was no easy one. The country swarmed not only with the soldiers of the Bavarian occupation force, but with spies who seem always to spring up whenever the price of treachery is worth earning. The punishment for men taking part in any such schemes as that in which Hofer, Speckbacher, and Haspinger and their faithful companions were engaged in was death. Death not only for the principals, but death for the humblest participant. Nevertheless the plan prospered. It is interesting to remember the very large and important part which was played in the organization of the peasants' uprising by the Tyrolese innkeepers, or _wirthe_, who were very dissimilar to the ordinary conception which English people have of men of their class. They were usually the most wealthy as well as the most solid members of the village communities in which they dwelt and kept their _Wirthshaus_, around which, indeed, much of the social as well as the municipal life of the village centred. They were better informed than many of their neighbours, for whatever travellers came to the villages found their way to their hospitable roofs; and what echoes of the outer world ever reached the secluded villages filtered its way, as it were, through them. It was in these men that Hofer found his greatest allies and ablest assistants. During the three years which succeeded the Bavarian occupation and the peasant rising, the innkeepers of Tyrol were busy gathering round them small bodies of trusted men, who, fired by a common desire to free their country, would, indeed, have suffered death rather than betray a single word of the secret arrangements of which they gradually became cognizant. When many of the preparations were completed Andreas Hofer commenced a correspondence with the Government in Vienna--which seemed so incapable and unwilling to assist the brave people it had seemingly abandoned in their struggle for freedom--in the person of the Archduke John. But although Hofer and his companions do not seem to have received very much definite or material encouragement from the Emperor or his advisers, they proceeded to Vienna, had several interviews with the Archduke, who appeared to be most favourably inclined to their scheme, and at these interviews the plan of campaign was definitely formulated. In the end Hofer returned to St. Leonard raised to the dignity of Commander-in-Chief of the national forces, and with full powers to do what he deemed best in the interests of the country.