For many minutes the fight raged furiously round the pole, and the earth shook beneath the iron boots of Friesshardt and Leuthold as they rushed about, striking out right and left with their fists and the flats of their pikes. Seppi the cowboy (an ancestor, by the way, of Bill) went down before a tremendous blow by Friesshardt, and Leuthold knocked Klaus von der Flue head over heels.  
"What you want" said Arnold of Sewa, who had seen the beginning of the fight from the window of his cottage and had hurried to join it, and, as usual, to give advice to everybody--"what you want here is . That's what you want--guile, cunning. Not force, mind you. It's no good rushing at a man in and hitting him. He only hits you back. You should employ guile. Thus. Observe."
 
He had said these words on the of the crowd. He now grasped his cudgel and began to steal slowly towards Friesshardt, who had just given Werni the huntsman such a hit with his pike that the sound of it was still echoing in the mountains, and was now busily engaged in disposing of Jost Weiler. Arnold of Sewa crept stealthily behind him, and was just about to bring his cudgel down on his head, when Leuthold, sight of him, saved his comrade by driving his pike with all his force into Arnold's side. Arnold said afterwards that it completely took his breath away. He rolled over, and after being trodden on by everybody for some minutes, got up and limped back to his cottage, where he went straight to bed, and did not get up for two days.
 
All this time Tell had been standing a little way off with his arms folded, looking on. While it was a quarrel simply between himself and Friesshardt he did not mind fighting. But when the crowd joined in he felt that it was not fair to help so many men attack one, however badly that one might have behaved.
 
He now saw that the time had come to put an end to the . He drew an arrow from his quiver, placed it in his crossbow, and it at the hat. Friesshardt, seeing what he intended to do, uttered a shout of horror and rushed to stop him. But at that moment somebody in the crowd hit him so hard with a spade that his helmet was knocked over his eyes, and before he could raise it again the deed was done. Through the cap and through the pole and out at the other side sped the arrow. And the first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was Tell standing beside him twirling his moustache, while all around the crowd danced and shouted and threw their caps into the air with joy.
 
"A trifle," said Tell modestly.
 
The crowd cheered again and again.
 
Friesshardt and Leuthold lay on the ground beside the pole, feeling v............