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!"