William Tell ran a hay ranche near Bergelen, about 580 years ago. Tell had lived in the mountains all his life, and shot chamois and chipmunks with a cross-gun, till he was a bad man to stir up.

At that time Switzerland was run principally by a lot of carpet-baggers from Austria, and Tell got down on them about the year 1307. It seems that Tell wanted the government contract to furnish hay, at $45 a ton, for the Year 1306, and Gessler, who was controlling the patronage of Switzerland, let the contract to an Austrian who had a big lot of condemned hay, farther up the gulch.

One day Gessler put his plug hat up on a telegraph pole, and issued order 236, regular series, to the effect that every snoozer who passed down the toll road should bow to it.

Gessler happened to be in behind the brush when Tell Went by, and he noticed that Bill said "Shoot the hat," and didn't salute it; so he told his men to gather Mr. Tell in, and put him in the refrigerator.

Gessler told him that if he Would shoot a crab-apple from the head of his only son at 200 yards, with a cross-gun, he would give him his liberty.

Tell consented, and knocked the apple higher than Gilroy's kite. Old Gessler, however, noticed another arrow sticking in William's girdle, and he asked what kind of a flowery break that was.

Tell told him that if he had killed the kid instead of busting the apple, he intended to drill a hole through the stomach of Mr. Gessler. This made Gessler mad again, and he took Tell on a picnic up the river, in irons.

Tell jumped off when he got a good chance, and cut across a bend in the river, and when the picnic party came down, he shot Gessler deader than a mackeral.

This opened the ball for freedom, and weakened the Austrian government so much that in the following November they elected Tell to fill the long term, and a half-breed for the short term.

After that, Tell was recognized by the ruling power, and he could get most any contract that he wanted to. He got the service on the stage line up into the Alps increased to a daily, and had the contracts in the name of his son Albert.

The appropriation was increased $150,000 per year, and he had a good thing.

Tell lived many years after this, and was loved by the Swiss people because he had freed their land.

Whenever he felt lonesome, he would take his crossgun and go out and kill a tyrant. He had tyrant on toast most every day till Switzerland was free, and the peasants blessed him as their deliverer.

When Tell got to be an old man he would go out into the mountains and apostrophize them in these memorable words:

"Ye crags and peaks, I'm with you once again. I hold to you the hands I held to you on previous occasions, to show you they are free. The tyrant's crust is busted, so to speak. His race is run, and he himself hath scooted up the flume. Sic semper McGinnis, terra Anna, nux vomica, Schweitzer lease, Timbuctoo, erysipelas, e pluribus unum, sciataca, multum in parvo, vox populi, vox snockomonthegob."