As I said before, on the evening of the 10th he found himself in the open country, and struck out for the drift across the flooded Waingongora River. He remembered reaching it, then lost recollection. How he crossed that drift, a very bad one even for a strong and healthy man to tackle alone, is more than a miracle; but he always asserted he was fired on while doing so, and fainted on reaching the bank. Here he was only two miles from the camp; but his mind became a blank, for he wandered about till the evening of the 12th, when he was discovered by a patrol, coming out of a clump of bush, and he was brought into camp. Now, just consider for a moment what this man Dore went through, and what awful dangers he escaped. Badly wounded and found by the most savage fanatics on the earth, yet, against their custom, they neither tomahawk nor mutilate him. Then he wanders for over five days, through bitter frost and cold, with an open and untended wound; he escapes the notice of the enemy, crosses, while weak from the loss of blood, starvation and pain, a most dangerous river, and yet, when brought into camp, his wound heals long before those of men who are not nearly so badly hurt, and who have not been through his awful experiences. You may call it luck. I maintain it was the work of that sweet little cherub, who, for his own reasons, "bossed up the whole show!" In many of my yarns I have mentioned the massacre at Poverty Bay that was engineered by that arch-devil, Te Kooti, and his gang of fiends, called Hau Haus. On 10th July 1868 Te Kooti and some 200 Hau Haus landed at Whare-onga-onga, having escaped from the Chatham Islands. They had overpowered the guard there, seized the schooner _Rifleman_, forced the crew to sail them to Poverty Bay, and had landed some fifteen miles south of the white settlements. Owing to the criminal negligence of the Government, who, because they wished for peace, persuaded themselves they had got it, the defence force had been disbanded, and even the arms and ammunition removed from the adjacent districts, so that the settlers were almost helpless, while Te Kooti was soon joined by all the restless fanatics in the country.