The Government Maoris, the _Kupapas_, under the celebrated Kepa, advancing from tree to tree round the edge of the clearing, came to close quarters with the Hauhaus. One of Titokowaru's veteran warriors performed a deed here which is still told and retold with loving admiration by the old Taranaki Hauhaus. He was the old man Hakopa (Jacob) te Matauawa, the Maori who had taken a friendly interest in Kimble Bent at Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu, and saved the white man from the two savages who stalked him there, as narrated in a previous chapter. Hakopa was a tall, athletic man, of spare frame, and well tattooed. He was about seventy years of age, a true type of the olden Maori _toa_--the hero of the war-trail, the brave. He was a curious figure, in his military cap, tunic, and trousers--stripped from a dead Constabulary man after the fight at Papa-tihakehake. Hakopa dodged from tree to tree out on the flanks of the clearing, making good use of a recently captured carbine. In the uncertain light it was difficult for the Government men to tell friend from foe, and Hakopa's _pakeha_ uniform seems to have completely deceived some of the _Kupapas_. As he leaped from tree to tree and stump to stump, he shouted "_Raunatia! Raunatia!_" ("Surround it!") to induce the belief that he was one of the Government force. At last all Hakopa's cartridges but two were gone. A prudent warrior would have retired at this stage--but not Hakopa. He did not like the idea of retreat while he had a shot in his locker, and he determined to bag something in the way of a _Kupapa_ or a _pakeha_ with his last charges. He waited until the leading men of Kepa's party were within close "potting" distance, and, as one of them unsuspectingly approached him, he quickly threw up his gun and put a bullet into his enemy, then turned and bounded into cover, and rejoined his comrades in the defile, unhurt, hugely delighted with his exploit. "You young men waste your cartridges," he said reprovingly, after the fight, to some of the youthful braves of Ngati-Ruanui. "Look at me! I know the worth of good powder and lead too well to fire them away for nothing. For every cartridge I used I hit a man!" It was a determined, plucky stand, that defence of the Otautu clearing by Titokowaru's warriors. Every minute they held out, they knew, was giving their women and children and old people a better chance of safety. At last the fog lifted, swept away from the clearing by the morning breeze, and the sun shone out. Now for the first time the Government soldiers saw the village. The bugle sounded the "Advance" again, and at the double the A.C.'s swarmed into the empty _kainga_, to find, to their astonishment, that it was neither rifle-pitted nor parapeted.