Scrambling along, stooping low to avoid being hit, the _pakeha_-Maori went down the creek until he came to a large hollow _mahoé_-tree standing by the side of the watercourse. He squeezed into the hollow trunk of the tree, and there he remained for a few minutes listening to the cracking of the rifles and the loud reports of the Hauhau smooth-bores and the yells of the combatants. Soon the firing came nearer, and bullets began to zip through the leaves and come plunk into the _mahoé_, in whose hollow heart the white man hid. "The bullets are finding me out," said Bent to himself. "I'm in a fix still; anyhow, here goes," and he cautiously crept out from his place of concealment and took to the jungle-fringed creek again. Following down the creek, crawling, scrambling, running, he presently began to feel his head more secure on his shoulders, for the sound of the firing grew fainter. He left the creek, and, striking through the bush, found a familiar track which led him to the little nook in the forest where old Te Waka and the anxious women and terrified children were camped. There he remained that night. From Te Waka's people he heard the account of the morning's work. The Government Maori forces, Kepa's men, came upon the camp of refugees and killed two children; one of these, a boy of about nine years of age, was the son of the Hauhau warrior, Kātené Tu-Whakaruru. The other child, a little girl, they most cruelly slew by throwing her up into the air and spitting her on a bayonet as she fell. Another child, a little boy, was captured, but was saved by a Whanganui Maori, who carried him out of the forest on his back. He was a son of Te Karere-o-Mahuru ("The Messenger of Spring"). This boy became a protégé of Sir William Fox, who had him educated, and he is to-day a well-known and gifted representative Taranaki man; his name is Pokiha (Fox) O-Mahuru. When the camp was surprised a woman ran away into the forest in terror; as she was never again heard of, it is believed that the soldiers shot her. * * * * * For the rest of the story of that battle in the bush, from the Maori side, my chief authorities are Tutangé Waionui, who gave me his narrative in 1908, and Whakawhiria, of Taranaki. Of the disaster from the European side there are numerous accounts, no two of which agree. The truth is, it was a lamentably bungled affair, redeemed by numerous acts of personal heroism, and particularly by the gallant rear-guard action fought by a portion of the column under the brave young Captain Roberts during the terrible retreat which followed the repulse of the troops.