"E tika ana," said the young King Country Maori. "That's right. We won't give him up to the Government head-hunters."
"Let me tell you now, friend," said Bent, "that I have had suspicions for some days that Hiroki has been in hiding near our village. One morning lately, when I went to look in my pataka (store-house) across the river, where I keep my seed-potatoes for the new season's planting, I found that some of them had been taken. Then half a mile up the river the next day I saw a place where some stranger had been fishing for eels, for there were heads of the eels lying there where he had cut them off. There was a fire there, and some of my seed-potatoes had been roasted in it. I told old Hakopa and no one else about it."
The two men descended the bank to the river. Just where the track entered the slow-moving, muddy stream they saw the fresh prints of naked feet. Wading across, they quickly mounted the opposite bank and set out at a noiseless, easy lope, their bare feet making hardly a sound, along the trail that wound into the glooms of the bush.
Suddenly, at a turn in the track, they came upon Hiroki.
The fugitive was standing there, waiting, for the low growling of his dog, a white, savage-looking animal, had given him warning of pursuit. The hunted man menacingly presented a short-barrelled gun at the pakeha and his companion. He was a fellow of middle stature, lean, as his name implied, but strong and hard-limbed, with a dark determined face and a short black beard.
"Where are you going?" cried Hiroki.
"Oh, nowhere in particular," Bent replied; "just strolling along" ("ki te haereere").
The Maori looked puzzled and suspicious, and kept his gun at the ready.
"Listen to me, friend," said Bent quickly; "you are in danger. There are six Government Maoris close behind you, and they want you dead or alive. Now, go on, and go quickly. And don't venture back, lest you die!"