"Here we are!" he said, as Warwick sprang up and stood by his side. "I shouldn't care, though, to go _down_ the same way, especially if they had crossed our track and decided to wait there for our return." "They would find an officer and thirty men there," said Warwick. "Our Von always takes care to leave a place open for retreat. Catch him napping!" Dawn found them in a deserted village, recently occupied, however, as the fires were still alight. Pushing on across a gorge, smoke was seen rising, and on the summit of the ridge a large clearing was sighted, with a number of whares at the other end. "There they are!" said Massinger. "Those whares are only temporary," explained Warwick--"used by the natives to put in a crop or take it up. I can see Maoris; they don't see us, however." The order came at that moment to extend in line along the forest edge, behind a barricade of dead timber, thrown aside from the clearing. This they climbed, but were immediately seen by the natives, who fired a volley, mortally wounding a young officer and one of the Rangers. The senior officer, next to Von Tempsky, was also hit. The attempt to dislodge the enemy from some fallen timber, under cover of which they were able to hold the attacking force in check, failed, owing to their right resting on a cliff, not previously noticed. A smart skirmish took place, however, in which the enemy was routed, leaving three dead on the ground. "Had the best of it," said Mr. Slyde after supper. "Not a glorious victory, though, by any means. Two to one--bad exchange against natives. Poor young Stansfield, too! Took me and Warwick all we knew to get him down that beastly ladder." "Poor chap!" said Massinger. "What spirits he was in when we started! Stark and cold now. Fortune of war, I suppose." "Bush-fighting not all beer and skittles," remarked his companion. "Better luck next time." One of the really "stunning engagements" (as Mr. Slyde phrased it) in which Massinger and his two comrades took active part, was the fight before Paterangi. The enemy's works were about three miles distant from the headquarters' camp at Te Rore. The sailors, under Lieutenant Hill, H.M.S. _Curaçoa_, had their camp close to the landing-place, to which the _Avon_, with stores, made daily trips. The tars, to relieve the monotony of camp life, had got hold of cricketing materials, and on fine afternoons the stumps were set up and play carried on, _secundum artem_, as unconcernedly as if there was no such thing as a Maori foe within a few hundred yards of them.