"How glad we should be now to see Gregory Boksa, our ox-herd, with his fifty head of cattle!" exclaimed Ödön; and a patrol was sent out to search for the man, who, it was thought, might have found a place of safety for himself and his charge. But the search, which was continued until late in the evening, proved fruitless. At length, however, Boksa made his appearance, but without his oxen, and leading his horse behind him. Evidently he had dismounted to show how grievously lame he was. He groaned and sighed piteously as he came limping into camp, using his pole-axe for a crutch, and appearing utterly exhausted.
"Boksa, what has happened to you?" asked Ödön.
"Ah, sir," moaned the ox-driver, "you may well ask what has happened to me. A good deal has happened to me. I am all done up. I shall never again be the man I was. Oh, oh! my backbone is broken. That cursed cannon-ball! A big forty-pounder hit me."
Mausmann and his comrades burst into a loud laugh at this.
"But where is our herd of oxen?" was the question from every side.
"Ah, if I only knew! Just as the fight was beginning, I took my knife out of my boot-leg and opened my knapsack to get my bread and bacon, and have a quiet little lunch, when all at once the Germans began to blaze away at me, so that I dropped knife, bread, and bacon, and thought for sure my last hour had come. Whiz! a ball grazed by me, and it was a twenty-eight pounder, as sure as I'm alive. It was a chain-shot, too, a couple of twenty-eight pounders joined together."
"You ran away," said Ödön, interrupting the narrative, "we understand that. But where are the oxen?"
"How should I know, with cannon-balls singing about my ears so that I couldn't look around without losing my head?"
"Look here, brother," interposed Richard, addressing Ödön, "that isn't the way to handle this case. Let me try my hand. Now, you cowardly rascal, the long and short of it is, you ran away at the first shot, and left your herd in the enemy's hands. Here, corporal, fetch out the flogging-bench and give him fifty with the strap."
At these words Gregory Boksa changed his limping, broken-backed attitude and suddenly straightened up. Holding his head high and smiting his chest with his clenched fist, he burst out haughtily: