Te Kooti and his gang remained in the settlement till the morning of the 14th--mark the date--plundering and murdering all the women and children who had escaped the night of the 9th, and whom his men found in hiding. On the afternoon of the 16th a small patrol from Tauranganui visited the blood-stained settlement and found little James Wilson hidden with a dog in his arms. The boy told them how he was trying to get to Tauranganui to bring help for his mother, who was lying wounded in an outhouse at their late home, but he had lost his way. As well as he could, poor child, he also described his miraculous escape. He had hid in the scrub, but next day came back to the spot where his family had been murdered. Here he found the bodies of his father, his brothers, his sister and Moran, but not that of his mother. He had then wandered back to his old home, hiding whenever he saw anyone, and there, in an outhouse, had found his mother lying dreadfully wounded. The patrol went on to the house and found the poor lady in a dreadful state, but quite conscious. She told them that after the murder of her husband and children she had been most brutally ill-treated and then left for dead. When she came to herself she struggled back to what had been her home, and had taken refuge in an outhouse, where she had been found by her little son, who had kept her alive by scouting for hens' eggs or anything else he could find. Now I call the escape of that child miraculous. For a helpless youngster to get away in the first place is wonderful; but that he should have been successful in evading the Maori search, of five days, for stragglers, and after finding his mother, to have been able to feed himself and her for seven days, with the food he scouted for, is a bit more than miraculous, and I put it down entirely to that sweet little cherub who sits up aloft. Mrs Wilson and her son were removed to Tauranganui and afterwards to Napier. For nine days after she had been found it was hoped she might recover, but her injuries were too great, and she died shortly after she reached the latter place. The above short and very incomplete yarn may give you some idea of the reason why we, members of the Lost Legion, so cheerfully underwent the great hardships we did to revenge the Poverty Bay massacre of November 1868. FOLLY, PLUCK AND ENDURANCE It is wonderful what a great number of good scouts and men have jeopardised and even lost their lives and the valuable information they have obtained, by a small act of folly, or by refusing to endure hardships for a few hours longer, when by doing so they might have won through safely and have brought to their O.C. the information he so badly wanted.