Back to the west went the energetic Colonel Whitmore, taking measures to deal with Titokowaru as he had dealt with Te Kooti, and found that the Rev. Mr. Whitely, Lieutenant and Mrs. Gascoigne and their three children had been murdered by Wetere and his Ngati-Maniapoto at White Cliffs, north of Taranaki. This was an entirely purposeless crime, and the Hauhau declared that it had been committed at the instigation of the king, Tawhaio. After several skirmishes it was believed that the district close to Whanganui had been swept clear of the Hauhau; but tragic proof to the contrary was given on the 18th of February, in the neighbourhood of the Karaka camp, by the Waitotara river. For many years past troops had marched and countermarched in the Whanganui district, and the soldiers, moving up or down the rivers, often amused themselves by throwing at objects on the shore the stones of the numberless peaches they ate. The banks of more than one stream were in consequence lined with peach trees, wild, perhaps, but producing fruit not to be rejected by campaigners. How little thought the soldiers in their careless play, that they were sowing the seed not only of peach-trees, but of a tragedy which was to come to full fruit ten years later. Yet so it was. On the afternoon of the 18th of February several field officers, visiting the camp, expressed a desire for some of the peaches which were growing in profusion on the opposite side of the Waitotara, and Sergeant Menzies, overhearing their talk, volunteered to go and get some of the fruit. Colonel McDonnell made no objection, and Menzies, taking with him nine men as a matter of precaution, crossed the river and set to work to fill a number of baskets with the ripe peaches. Suddenly they were fired upon. The volley was so very heavy, so near and so totally unexpected, that the men were startled into bolting for their canoe instead of taking cover, and thus offered a fair mark to seventy Hauhau, who stood upon the bank and shot them down with ease, all save three, who succeeded in escaping. Their comrades, hearing the firing so close at hand, came up at the double, but too late to do more than receive the few survivors and discover some of the dead. So the Hauhau scored once more; but a month later the scales dropped again, and Titokowaru, who was really a formidable leader, was beaten at Otauto and forced to ignominious flight. Another blow or two completely smashed this powerful chief and bold warrior, and then the pendulum of war swung sullenly back to the east, where Te Kooti had again shown his teeth and, wolf-like, worried his own kind as well as those of another colour.