In a moment Tim and myself halted and faced about; the party who had been actually in pursuit of us had also halted, taking cover; and, looking in the direction from which the yell had come, I saw the settler staggering through the fern, closely pursued by a Maori, who just overhauled him, and was in the act of tomahawking him, as I fired; which took effect first, lead or steel, I knew not, but they both went down together. In the first glance I had seen, a few yards in rear of this pair, another warrior, who, waving in the air a blood-stained tomahawk, yelled again the same triumphant cry, “I have caught the first man,” and at the same moment I heard Tim’s vengeful cuss: “Have ye, ye blaggard? Thin go to hell wid him.” The two carbines rang out nearly simultaneously, and through the smoke I caught a momentary glimpse of the triumphant figure let fall his weapon and collapse. Before either of us could speak a word a small party of horsemen reached us, while, in rear of them, advancing at the double, came two divisions of the Armed Constabulary, who, passing us with a cheer, swept forward and quickly drove the retreating Hau Haus back to the bush. We now went up to where the settler and M’Kenzie were lying; the former we found alive, though badly wounded, but the latter, poor fellow, had lost the number of his mess; as for the two Maoris, they were past conversion. It had been indeed a stroke of luck our flushing the Hau Haus as we did, although I could not take any credit to myself for the way I had engineered the contract, as we quickly discovered they had planned a most artful ambuscade in such a manner that, had the column entered the gorge in the ordinary way, it must have been cut to pieces. Poor M’Kenzie’s tumble, however, had been too much for the nerves of some of the younger warriors, so they let rip, and thereby gave away the whole show. The Colonel, without losing a single moment, took advantage of the retreat of the Hau Haus, for troth! the little fiend, with all his faults, was a splendid soldier, always ready for a fight, so, without giving the enemy a single minute to gather together, he immediately rushed four divisions through the gorge, and took up a strong position some two miles on the other side of it. Here he remained for a couple of days, gathering together all his available forces, and then, on the 2nd of February, advanced to attack Titokowaru in his new stronghold of Tauranga-a-Hika, in which, he well knew, the main body of the rebel Hau Haus were massed.