Act I. At the target range. _Kilian_, the peasant, has defeated _Max_,

the forester, at a prize shooting, a Schützenfest, maybe. _Max_, of course, should have won. Being a forester, accustomed to the use of fire-arms, it is disgraceful for him to have been defeated by a mere peasant.

_Kilian_ "rubs it in" by mocking him in song and the men and girls of the village join in the mocking chorus--a clever bit of teasing in music and establishing at the very start the originality in melody, style, and character of the opera.

The hereditary forester, _Cuno_, is worried over the poor showing _Max_ has made not only on that day, but for some time past. There is to be a "shoot" on the morrow before _Prince Ottokar_. In order to win the hand in marriage of _Agathe_, _Cuno's_ daughter, and the eventual succession as hereditary forester, _Max_ must carry off the honours in the competition now so near at hand. He himself is in despair. Life will be worthless to him without _Agathe_. Yet he seems to have lost all his cunning as a shot.

It is now, when the others have gone, that another forester, _Kaspar_, a man of dark visage and of morose and forbidding character, approaches him. He hands him his gun, points to an eagle circling far on high, and tells him to fire at it. _Max_ shoots. From its dizzy height the bird falls dead at his feet. It is a wonderful shot. _Kaspar_ explains to him that he has shot with a "free," or charmed bullet; that such bullets always hit what the marksman wills them to; and that if _Max_ will meet him in the Wolf's Glen at midnight, they will mould bullets with one of which, on the morrow, he easily can win _Agathe's_ hand and the hereditary office of forester. _Max_, to whom victory means all that is dear to him, consents.