their keen noses will scent at once what is going on, and they will
send, even before we reach the Tyrol, so many Bavarian and French
soldiers into your country, that you will be tied hand and foot, and
cannot raise your arms on the 9th of April to seize your rifles.
Therefore, I repeat it, keep your faces in check, and do not allow
yourselves to be seen in the streets of Vienna in the daytime. Your
beard, Andy, especially is a treacherous thing, and it would really
be best for the Barbone to shave off his long mourning-flag."

Andreas Hofer seized his beard with both his hands, almost in
terror, and drew it caressingly through his fingers.

"No," he said, "my friends and countrymen know me by my beard, and
the Barbone is a welcome guest in the Italian Tyrol. They would not
recognize me if I should appear among them with a smooth chin; and
they would doubt if it was Andreas Hofer who talked with them about
the great conspiracy and insurrection in case they did not see his
black beard."

"No, archduke," said Speckbacher, smiling and winking, "you must not
object to our Andy's beard, for it is the flag round which the
Tyrolese will rally, and with which the Tyrol will adorn itself on
the day of insurrection, as they put on their best clothes on the
day of Assumption. Moreover, Andreas Hofer must not be ungrateful;
and he would be ungrateful if he should cut off his beard and throw
it away, for his beard gained him one day a couple of fat oxen."

"Is that true, Andy?" asked John, laughing.

"It is," said Andreas Hofer, gravely. "My beard did gain me two