"And then, from close beside me, rose Tama's shrill coo-ee. Louder and louder it rang out into the still night, till answers came pealing from the camps on the ranges around us. After a little we saw the other watchers coming to us from their various posts on the run, until presently all were collected together, a silent wondering group—a hundred Maoris, and Karl and I. Then Tama spoke. What he said I do not know. It was some vague relation of what we had seen, together with frequent references to the 'tahipo'—devil—and some 'kararehe tahipo'—demon dog. But the wild excitement of the chief, the deadly terror that possessed him, soon infected all the others. They gathered round him in an eager cluster, and the deep 'Ai,' and 'kuia' that broke from one and another, testified their earnest attention and concurrence.
"Then they knelt down, there on the grass around the dead wether. It was a curious group we made in the moonlight on the hill-side, just beyond the shadows of the bush. And Tama lifted up his voice—literally so—and prayed. He prayed through the Lord's Prayer, and the Creed, and through half the questions and answers of the Catechism beside. Being agitated, no doubt, he scarcely knew exactly what he was saying. And then it seemed to me, as well as I could follow the Maori, that he indulged in an extempore delivery, half prayer, half incantation, to meet the special requirements of the case.
"When this performance, so grotesque yet so simply serious, was over, these half-savage Christians rose and began to take leave of us. They could not stay to fight devils, they said; God and his angels could alone do that, and they had prayed that it might be so. Many blubbered as they shook hands with us; they would have willingly fought for us with anything of flesh and blood, but terror of the unseen had now overmastered their sympathy. They hurried away over the range and down to the beach where their canoes lay, and so, flying from haunted Hapuakohe, they left us two alone.
"All this could not fail to have its effect on one's mind. I felt very uncomfortable, but Karl seemed to take everything as though he had expected it. When daylight came, and I was able to reason more calmly about the mystery, I thought I saw a possible solution. It was evident there could not be several dogs, or we must have seen them, or traces of them. Probably there was only one, for, great as was the havoc that had been wrought, I did not think it was impossible for a single ferocious beast to have caused it. And then I reflected that a dog might look so like a sheep in the moonlight, as not to be readily detected among a flock. Why, I remembered that a shaggy, grayish-yellow cur, such as Brail's dog had been, for instance, was positively indistinguishable amid a flock of sheep at night, especially when the moon was shining. But the extraordinary cunning and careful scheming that seemed apparent in this case were, I confess, beyond my powers to fathom; nor have I been able to account for them to this day.
"We did what we could, we two, while we waited for the promised help from the settlements. You might think we could have shepherded the flock near the shanty, and guarded them with our dogs; but that we had found to be impossible. First, grass was scarce there, and we had, of course, no other feed to give them. Then, they had got so wild with the constant chasing, that we must have been continually worrying them with our own dogs, which would only have made matters worse. There was literally nothing to be done, but to watch for and kill the dingo.
"Oh! it was a piteous sight to see the dead sheep lying scattered about the clearings. And among the survivors there were so many hurt that must die, so many more that were injured so as to be practically valueless; for the chasing on the rough, stump-covered hill-sides had done more damage than the actual fangs of the wild dog. I was myself a sufferer, but my loss was as nothing to poor Karl's. He, I saw, was ruined, if not irretrievably, at least for some years to come. But this made his marriage impossible now, unless the lady's parents took a very different view of things. Surely, I thought, the news must by this time have got to Auckland. Perhaps the father had already resolved to break off the match in consequence. I was only a plain, simple bush-farmer, and it seemed to me that if this girl were true in her love for Karl, she would certainly leave her father and come to him in his trouble. I thought I would myself write and tell her to do so, for, you see, I feared that he would go melancholy mad for loss of her. But the end of it was come."
Again Old Colonial paused, and gazed intently into the fire, with a sad, grave expression shadowing over his usually jolly, sunburnt face.
"I left my camp one morning and strolled across the run to the place where Karl had been watching. He had selected the top of a steep bluff that jutted out into the river and that, on the landward side, overlooked a great extent of the run. As I climbed up the range I shouted to him repeatedly, but, as there was no answer, I concluded he was sleeping, and so walked quietly on till I came out on the top. There were the smouldering remains of his fire, the billy in which he had boiled his tea, his blanket lying as he had left it, but Karl himself was not there. I shouted again and looked about me, and then something made me start.