To this day the Maoris of the Patea tell stories of Hiroki's solitary and savage life in the bush. One place in particular--at Orangimura, between three and four miles above Rukumoana--is pointed out as a hiding-place of the refugee. Here a large, hollow _rata_-tree grew near the top of a high bank; the Patea River flowed below. Hiroki had camped here in order to get wild honey from a hive in the hollow tree, and after he had filled a couple of calabashes with the honey he lit his nightly fire and went to sleep close to the cliff-top, first tying his dog up to a bush with a flax rope. In the night the dog bit through the flax that held him, and jumping on his master so startled him that he forgot he was so near the verge of the cliff, over which he promptly rolled in the darkness; he fell with a mighty splash in the river below, together with his astonished dog. The spot where this night adventure occurred is called by the Maoris Te Pari-o-Hiroki, which means "Hiroki's Precipice." CHAPTER XXVIII OUT OF EXILE Canoeing on the Patea--The voyage to Hukatéré--The white man's world again--Bent the medicine-man--_Makutu_, or the Black Art--Bent's later days--The end. All was ready for the voyage, and the _pakeha_-Maori and his companions loaded their canoe and embarked for Hukatéré--thirty miles down-stream, not far from the sea-coast. The Patea was a very winding stream, flowing between high forest-covered banks; its course was impeded by frequent rocky shoals and accumulations of sunken logs, which formed rapids. Aboard the canoe, besides Bent, were Rupé, Hakopa and his niece, and a man named Te Rii, who was an _urukehu_, or "fair hair." The white man and his Maori companions paddled along merrily for seven or eight miles, lightening their labours with canoe-songs. Then, in shooting a rapid, the canoe struck a rock, swung broadside on to the swift current, and immediately capsized. The crew reached the shore safely, and hauled the canoe up on to a shingly bank. Fortunately all the cargo--the baskets of dried eels and the calabashes filled with honey--had been made fast to the thwarts, as a precaution against such an accident, and so was saved; but old Hakopa lost a little kit--his bush savings-bank--containing a sum of money which he had acquired at the Waitara. On the bank a fire was kindled by means of flint and steel--commonly used amongst the Maoris in those days, and still occasionally seen in use in remote forest districts, such as the Urewera Country. By the blaze of the great fire the wrecked canoeists dried themselves and their garments, and they camped there that night. At daylight next morning they embarked again, and another day and a half at the paddles took them down to the Hukatéré _kainga_, a large settlement of _raupo_-thatched houses, standing on the left bank of the Patea, in a beautiful bend, with the lofty, forest-fringed cliffs of Pariroa jutting out abruptly on the opposite shore.