class="x-ebookmaker-pageno" title="[Pg 49]"/> but the three poles of the cattle wells. We are close to the herd."

They halted at the acacias, and there agreed to await the doctor who was to come jogging along from the Mata puszta, in his one-horse trap. Meanwhile the painter made notes in his sketch-book, falling from ecstasy to ecstasy. "What subjects! What motives!" In vain his companions urged him to draw a fine solitary acacia, rather than a group of nasty old thistles! At last appeared the doctor and his gig, coming up from a slanting direction, but he did not stop, only shouted "Good morning" from the box, and then, "Hurry, hurry! before the daylight comes!" So after a long enough drive they reached "the great herd." This is the pride of the Hortobágy puszta—one thousand five hundred cattle all in one mass. Now all lay silent, but whether sleeping or not, who could tell? No one has ever seen cattle with closed eyes and heads resting on the ground, and to them Hamlet's soliloquy, "To sleep, perchance to dream," in no wise applies.

"What a picture!" cried the painter, enchanted. "A forest of uplifted horns, and there in the middle the old bull himself with his sooty head and his wrinkled neck. The jet black litter surrounded by green pasture, the grey mist in the background, and, far away, the light of a shepherd's fire! This must be perpetuated!"

Thereupon he sprang from the carriage, saying, "Please follow the others. I see the shelter, and will meet you there." So, taking his paint-box and camp-stool, and laying his sketch-book on his knees, he began rapidly jotting down the scene, while the carriage with the farmer drove on.

All at once, the two watch dogs of the herd, observing this strange figure on the puszta, rushed towards him, barking loudly. It was, however, not the painter's way to be frightened. The dogs, moreover, with their white coats and black noses, fell into the scheme of colour. Nor did they attack the man, peacefully squatting there, but when quite close to him, stood still. "What could he be?" Sitting down, they poked out their heads inquisitively at the sketch-book. "What was this?" The painter pursued the joke, for he daubed the cheek of the one with green, and the other with pink; and these attentions they seemed to find flattering, but when they by-and-by saw each other's pink or green face, they fancied it was that of a strange dog, and took to fighting.

Luckily the "taligás," or wheel-barrow boy, came up at that moment. The taligás is the youngest boy on the place, and his duty is to follow the cattle with his wheel-barrow, and scrape up the "poor man's peat" which they leave on the meadow. This serves as fuel on the puszta, and its smoke is alike grateful to the nose of man and beast.

The taligás rushed his barrow between the fighting dogs, separated and pursued them, shouting, "Get away there!" For the puszta watch-dog does not fear the stick, but of the wheel-barrow he is in terror.

The taligás was a very smart little lad, in his blue shirt and linen breeches worked with scarlet. He delivered the message entrusted to him by the gentlemen, very clearly. It was "that the painter should join them at the shelter, where there was much to sketch." But the striking picture of the herd was not yet completed.

"Can you run me along in your barrow?" asked the painter, "for this silver piece?"

"Oh, sir!" said the lad, "I've wheeled a much heavier calf than you! Please step in, sir."

So utilising this clever idea, the painter gained both his ends. He got to the "karám," seated in the barrow, and managed to finish his characteristic sketch by the way.

Meanwhile the others had left their carriages, and were introducing the Vienna cattle buyer to the herdsman in charge. This man was an exceptionally fine example of the Hungarian puszta-dweller. A tall, strong fellow, with hair beginning to turn grey, and a curled and waxed moustache. His face was bronzed from exposure to hard weather, and his eyebrows drawn together from constant gazing into the sun.

By "Karám" is understood on the puszta that whole arrangement which serves as shelter against wind and storm for both man and beast. Wind is the great enemy. Rain, heat, and cold the herdsman ignores. He turns his fur-lined cloak inside out, pulls down his cap, and faces it, but against wind he needs protection, for wind is a great power on the plains. Should the whirlwind catch the herd on the pastures, it will, unless there be some wood to check them, drive them straight to the Theiss. So the shelter is formed of a planking of thick boards, with three extended wings into the corners of which the cattle can withdraw.

The herdsmen's dwelling is a little hut, its walls plastered like a swallow's nest. It is not meant for sleeping in, there is not room enough, but is only a place where the men keep their furs and their "bank." This is just a small calf's skin with the feet left on, and a lock in place of the head. It holds their tobacco, red pepper, even their papers. Round the walls hang their cloaks, the embroidered "szür" for summer, for winter the fur-lined bunda. These are the herdsman's coverings, and in them he sleeps beneath God's sky. Only the overseer reposes under the projecting eaves, on a wooden bench for bedstead, above his head the shelf with the big round loaves, and the tub that holds the week's provisions. His wife, who lives in the town, brings them every Sunday afternoon.

Before the hut stands a small circular erection woven out of reeds, with a brick-paved flooring and no roof. This is the kitchen, the "vásalo," and here the herdsman's stew, "gulyáshús" and meal porridge are cooked in a big pot hung on a forked stick. The taligás does the cooking. A row of long-handled tin spoons are stuck in the reed wall.

"But where did the gentlemen leave the cowboy?" asked the overseer.

"He had some small account to settle with the innkeeper's daughter," answered the farmer. His name was Sajgató.

"Well, if he comes home drunk the betyár!"

"Betyár," interrupted the painter, delighted at hearing the word. "Is our cowboy a betyár?"

"I only used the expression as a compliment," the overseer explained.

"Ah!" sighed the painter, "I should so like to see a real betyár, to put him in my sketch-book!"

"Well, the gentleman won't find one here, we don't care for thieves. If one comes roaming around we soon kick him out."

"So there are no betyárs left on the Hortobágy puszta?"

"There's no saying! Certainly there are plenty of thieves among the shepherds, and some of the swineherds turn brigands, and it does sometimes happen that when a csikós gets silly and loses his head, he sinks to a vagabond betyár, but no one can ever remember a cowboy having taken to robbery."

"How is that?"

"Because the cowboy works among quiet, sensible beasts. He never sits drinking with shepherds and swineherds."

"Then the cowherd is the aristocrat of the puszta?" remarked the manager of the stables.

"That's it, exactly. Just as counts and barons are among grand folk, so are csikós and cowboys among the other herdsmen."

"So there is no equality on the puszta?"

"As long as men are on the earth, there will never be equality," said the overseer. "He who is born a gentleman will remain one, even in a peasant's coat. He will never steal his neighbour's cow or horse, even if he find it straying, but will drive it back to its owner. But whether he won't try a little cheating at the market, that I am not prepared to say."

"For gentlemen to take in each