THE HARDEST TUG OF ALL.

A BAVARIAN STORY.

BY DAVID KER.

The sun was just beginning to sink over the beautiful hills of Southern Bavaria. A big red-bearded man, with arms bare to the elbow, stood at the door of a little mountain inn upon one of the higher slopes, watching, with his broad brown hand arched over his eyes, a group of five men who had just issued from the mass of dark green pines that covered the crest of the opposite ridge.

"One, two, three, four, five," counted the landlord. "They're all there but Hermann; but they've found no game, I can see. Where can Hermann be, I wonder? He won't come back empty-handed, I'll be bound."

"Hermann's late," said one of the foresters, "but I warrant he'll be ready for his supper when he does come."

"And well he may, if he has found any game, for I can tell you, lads, that to carry a quarter of venison from the Riesenberg to my door, on a roasting day like this, would be a job for Strong Schalk himself."

"And who may Strong Schalk be?" asked a sunburned peddler who was sitting beside the window.

"Who?" echoed the landlord, staring; "why, brother, you must be a stranger in these parts to ask that. But if you want to know about him, all you've got to do is to go down to Kreuzweg town yonder and ask any man, woman, or child you may meet about 'Strong Schalk,' and they'll tell you something that'll astonish you."

"And if that's not enough," struck in one of the hunters, with a grin, "let him go into Schalk's shop and challenge him to wrestle, and he'll be astonished still more—eh, Father Baum?"

"Ugh! don't talk of it!" grunted the landlord, making a wry face; "you make my fingers ache with the very recollection."

"Why, he must be a perfect giant!" cried the peddler, who had been listening open-mouthed.

"No, that's the strangest part of it. He's no bigger than another man—rather smaller, in fact—and a tailor into the bargain; and yet he can do feats worthy of Hans Stronghand in the story."

"Of whom are you speaking?" asked a deep voice from the door.

"Of Strong Schalk, the tailor of Kreuzweg, Friend Hermann," answered the landlord, shaking hands with the new-comer, a powerful young fellow, with an air which showed that he had no small idea of his own importance.

"The mischief take Strong Schalk!" cried Hermann, angrily. "I'm sick of his very name;" and with the full power of his mighty voice he rolled out the song:

"There were a host of tailors, Brave fellows one and all; Then drank they, all the ninety, Ay, nine times nine-and-ninety, Out of a thimble small. "And when this draught had quenched their thirst, Then weigh themselves would they; Yet could not all the ninety, Ay, nine times nine-and-ninety, A single goat upweigh. "Then homeward trudged they all—but lo! The door was locked within; Then hopped they, all the ninety, Ay, nine times nine-and-ninety, Right through the key-hole, in."

The boisterous chorus had hardly died away, when a quiet but unmistakably firm voice was heard to say:

"Stop there! enough of this!"

All turned with a start, and saw that the silent stranger near the door had risen from his seat.

"Gentlemen," he continued, amid the universal hush of amazement, "I must tell you that I am a tailor, and that I object to hear any man speak ill of my trade."

"Do you, really?" cried Hermann, with a laugh. "Well, then, I must tell you that you will either keep a civil tongue in your head, or I'll have to show you the difference between an honest forester and a fellow who lives on cloth clippings and ends of thread."

"Better live on them than on stolen game," retorted the unknown, with biting contempt.

At this last insinuation, honest Hermann—who certainly was said to be not overparticular whether the deer that he shot belonged to the park or to the forest—lost patience altogether, and laid his hand upon his long hunting-knife. But instantly the landlord thrust himself between them.

"Halt there, lad—no bare blades in my house, if you please. I'll tell you a better way to settle it than that. You know our old Bavarian fashion; when two young fellows want to try each other's strength, they join hands and see which can tug the other across the line. Clear a space there, and let us see which is the best man."

The tables and benches were pushed back, a line chalked on the floor, and Hermann and the stranger, seizing each other's hands in a strong grasp, stood foot to foot, awaiting the signal.

Now for the first time it broke upon the foresters that their champion might not have such an easy victory after all, for the supple vigor of the stranger's movements, and the firmness with which he planted his feet, showed that Hermann had his work cut out for him. Hermann himself, feeling the iron grasp of the unknown's long bony fingers, began to think so too; but could any man, much less a tailor, be a match for him? Absurd! And he began with a pull that ought to have ended the whole business at once; but somehow it didn't.

Then, stimulated by his comrades' shouts, Hermann put forth all his strength, tugging as if he were uprooting a tree, till the sweat hung in big drops on his forehead, and the veins of his hands stood out like cords. But though the unknown was sorely shaken, across the line he would not come; and at length Hermann paused, exhausted.

Then the watching eyes around saw the stranger's arms stiffen suddenly, and Hermann's huge frame bend slowly forward. Frantically he struggled, but his strength was spent, and forward he slid, inch by inch. Just on the chalk line he made a final effort, and stood firm for an instant; but now the stranger exerted all his force in turn, and pulled him over the line with such a tremendous tug that they both rolled on the floor together.

"Comrade!" shouted the hunters, crowding round the conqueror, "you've done what none of us could ever do. Tell us your name, that we may remember it."

"My parents named me Ferdinand," answered the stranger, with a queer little mocking smile, "but of late folks have taken to calling me Strong Schalk!"

"Strong Schalk!" echoed Hermann, starting from the seat upon which he had sunk dejectedly. "Shake hands, lad; it would have broken my heart to be beaten by a tailor, but I don't mind a bit being beaten by you. Come, let us be friends!"

And from that day forth the two men were the best friends imaginable.