"So Ferko Lacza is at home again?"
"Yes, but a little more and the overseer would have killed him outright! No, I never heard the overseer curse and swear as he did that evening when the herd came rushing over the puszta, Ferko bácsi at their heels. The foam dripped off the horse, and the bull's nose was bleeding. The air was just thick with 'devils,' and 'damns,' and 'gallows-trees!' He raised his stick twice to strike the cowboy too, and it swished through the air. 'Tis a marvel he did not beat him."
"Nothing much, only that he couldn't help it, if the beasts chose to go mad.
"'You have bewitched them, you devil!' said the overseer.
"'Why should I do that?' says Ferko bácsi.
"'Why? Because you've been bewitched yourself first. That "Yellow Rose" has given you a charm as she did to Sándor Decsi.'
"Then they began talking about you, Sándor bácsi, but what I could not hear, because they sent me off with a box on the ears, and 'pray what was I listening for? It was none of my business.'"
"So they spoke about me, did they? And about the 'Yellow Rose'?"
"As if I knew or cared about their 'Yellow Rose'! But this I do know, that last Friday when they drove off the cows, Ferko bácsi went into the shanty to fetch his knapsack, and there he pulled out a coloured kerchief from his sleeve, and in it a yellow rose was wrapped up. He snuffed at it, and pressed it to his lips till I thought he was going to eat it! Then he unpicked the lining of his cap, pushed in the rose and put it on his head again. Perhaps that was the charm?"