Camp Fire Yarns of the Lost Legion

by G. Hamilton-Browne

It may not seem much to the man who has never been out of Britain, but a Colonial will appreciate the job at its true value.

We left the camp from the north side, and made a wide detour to the north-east, before we struck to the south-west, to touch the lake. The enemy had retreated almost due south, through a number of rough pumice-stone gullies, and it was more than likely that a sly old bird like Te Kooti would leave an ambush on his spoor to cut off any scouts that might be sent after him, or, in case a strong party followed him, to give him news of their movements. I did not want to fall into that ambush. I had been in a few before, and did not like them; and so went round to try and cut his spoor a good way south of where we had abandoned it on the previous day.

All that day we tramped across deep gullies and through manuka scrub, very often having to head off our road to examine the ground on either side of us, and to take bearings to our rear as well as to our front.

A good scout should always do this, as he may have to return a sight faster than he went; and he must remember which way he came; he has no time to think much when a war party is after him.

Well, as night fell we came to a range of mountains covered with bush, and I reckoned that, with our detour, we had made quite ten miles to the south of Opepe, and were well on our way. It had rained all day, except when it sleeted, and of course we were wet through, yet we dare not light a fire. For all we knew we might have been spotted and followed; so we entered the bush, and as soon as it was quite dark moved carefully a mile away and, eating a small handful of biscuits, wrapped ourselves in our shawls and blankets and slept as well as we could.

It froze hard that night and the cold was intense; in the morning we were up as soon as a glimmer of day came, and started to cross the range of mountains. The bush was a regular New Zealand one, composed of trees of gigantic size, and with a dense undergrowth that nothing but a pig or an elephant could get through. We therefore had to take to the bed of a creek and follow it up to the ridge. The water was icy cold, and the cold drip from the trees and bushes wet us through, although it did not rain. With nothing but a few bits of flint-like biscuit to chew, up we went, and came to the top of the range, and there we rested and got a view of the country.

To our west was the lake, and to the south was the cone of Tongeriro and the three peaks of Ruapehu; between us and them was range after range of hills, below us lay a deep valley, and, tough as we were, I almost feared the job was too tough for us. To despond is one of the last things a scout should do; so after more biscuit off we went again, and, striking another creek, we descended the bed of it till we came to the river that ran through the valley and entered the lake at the foot of it. I determined to descend the bed of this river, as I thought I might cut Te Kooti’s spoor on the beach of the lake, which I determined to examine next morning. I feared to do so that evening, as they might have ambushed the drift, and there was also the dread of the ambuscade he most likely had left behind to watch our camp.

This party, after they had watched the column move away, would most likely, provided they had not seen us, be on the march to catch up Te Kooti.

We therefore hid on a fern ridge with the drift in view of us, and fortunate it was for us we did so.

We had not been there long when we saw coming from the north, along the beach, a party of twelve natives; and I felt much relieved, for I knew at once that they had not seen us, or they would have been after us, and that I had been quite right to make the detour I had done.