At eleven o'clock next morning the enemy advanced and the action began; but the Wairoa chief, with fifty of his men, again bolted at the first shot. Captain Richardson with the remainder held the position until four in the afternoon, when the ammunition being almost exhausted, he retired quietly. The force fell back to Wairoa, where it was reorganized and increased to two hundred men. In the meantime Colonel Whitmore had been toiling on over a terrible country in Te Kooti's rear, having with him in all about two hundred men, as he had been joined by Major Fraser with fifty of the No. 1 Division Armed Constabulary. But when they arrived at the boundary of the Poverty Bay district the settlers belonging to it, who had not recovered from their indignation at Colonel Whitmore's unfortunate remarks, refused to go further, saying that the militia regulations only obliged them to defend their own district. Colonel Whitmore, therefore, with a hundred and thirty men, of whom but a handful were whites, marched on to attack two hundred and twenty Hau-Haus posted in a very strong position in the gorge of a river. Twelve of the little party from the Mohaka River still remained with the column, one had been killed, four wounded, while five had remained behind completely knocked up by the fatigues they had encountered. Mr. Atherton had not gone on with them after the arrival of Colonel Whitmore. "It is of no use, my dear lad," he said to Wilfrid. "I know Colonel Whitmore well by reputation, and the way in which he blew us up this morning because, exhausted as we were, we were physically unable to set out for a fresh march, confirms what I have heard of him. He is a most gallant officer, and is capable of undergoing the greatest fatigue and hardships, and is of opinion that everyone else is as tireless and energetic as he is. He will drive you along over mountain, through rivers, with food or without food, until you come up to Te Kooti, and then he will fight, regardless of odds or position, or anything else. It isn't the fighting I object to; but I never could keep up with the column on such a march. It would be a physical impossibility, and I am not going to attempt it. I shall take a week to recover from my fatigues of last night, and shall go down and stay quietly at the settlement. If Te Kooti takes it into his head to come down there, I shall have great pleasure in doing my best towards putting a stop to his rampaging over the country. If he does not come down I shall, as they say, await developments, and shall find plenty to do in the way of botanizing."