Mr Roach picked the camp ground and pointed out the places where each four men were to make down their mi-mis (beds). This was done so that in case of an alarm a man had only to turn on his face, as each man slept with his carbine under his blanket, and be ready to repel an attack. It was wonderful to see the rapidity with which the bivouac was formed and the mi-mis made down. “Here, Egan,” quoth Hutton, “take this water-bag and fill it. Jack, you get the fern. Burke, out tomahawk and help me to clear the ground.” In a moment we were all at work, Hutton and myself chopping down the tough manuka bushes and tearing up the roots so as to make a soft lying-down place. Tim soon returned with the water and then helped Jack to bring in huge armfuls of dry fern, which they deposited on the ground we had by this time cleared, while the fire we had already lighted had burned down to red embers, in which we quickly placed our pannikins filled with water. These did not take long to boil, and when they did so, tea and sugar mixed, according to taste, were added, our haversacks opened and we piped to dinner. “Gord,” growled Jack, “I’d give some’ut for a tot this morning, but s’pose it’s not to be come by.” “Don’t be so sure of that,” I chipped in, handing him my silver flask. “Here you are, drink hearty.” He took the flask in his huge discoloured hand, it lay in his palm like a new half-crown on a fire shovel, although it held a pint, and turned it over and over as if he had never seen such a thing before, then handed it back and growled out: “Yer don’t think I’m agoin’ to take yer last sup, and you a ruddy new chum and a blankity blank soft swell, do yer? ’Tain’t likely, is it, mates?” But I pacified the grousing old buccaneer and persuaded him there was enough to go all round, and as Smith and Buck had completed their mi-mi next to ours and joined us, we all had a wet, and I had won a corner in the ancient pirate’s rugged old heart for ever. Directly the meal was over, which, primitive as it was, I had thoroughly enjoyed, old Jack fetched more fern and made the mi-mi down scientifically. Tim brought another bagful of water and then insisted on taking my boots off, examined my feet carefully, and made me put on a dry pair of clean socks as a preventive to blisters, then, as the bed was finished, and, if properly prepared, there is no more comfortable bed in the world than New Zealand fern, we all lay down, booted and belted, to get some sleep, for, as old Jack truthfully remarked, it was as well to rest when we got the chance, as no man in the Rangers ever knew when the watches on deck might be doubled, and the watch below be a forgotten luxury.