A Camp-fire Council.

So, giving the camp time to get through its tea, Sam convened a gathering by dint of a joyful noise on a frying-pan and a loudly-bawled invitation to roll up, roll up, and hear the news of battle.

Forty or fifty diggers strolled up presently, in ones and twos and threes, to the cheery blaze of a fire Von Tempsky had set going on a terrace above the Kapanga; they squatted around, smoking, free and easy, and waited in silence.

Von Tempsky stood in the circle of firelight, read the martial invitation, and without any more preamble called for volunteers. He was a soldier; he would offer the services of a company of his own to the Government if he obtained fifty recruits.

“How do we know that you can lead a company?” asked one young digger. “We've only your word for that.”

“Don't you make any mistake, mine friend,” said Von Tempsky in his quick sharp way. “I was schooled in the best soldiering school in the world”–he pronounced it with a “v”—“and what is more, I have fought against good bush fighters and have beaten them. You can take it from me I am able to lead men and teach them what war is. Now, my friend who asked this question, I will take you on at anything you like. What is it—sword, revolver” (he pronounced it “refolfer”), “rifle, bowieknife, long-handled tomahawk, shorthandled tomahawk? Take your choice, and we'll have a set-to.”

There was a general laugh. The critic said no more.

“Come on, gentlemen,” Von Tempsky began again, “this is the great opportunity. If you don't volunteer, you'll

The late Louis Von Tempsky, of Hawaii, son of Major Von Tempsky.

be drafted into the Militia, mind that, and you'll curse it. We'll have better standing in the volunteers, we won't have to turn to and build redoubts and make roads for the troops. Oh, come along, I know what I am talking about! Fighting was my trade before the gold page 51 fever got me. Now, who's with me to make up a company and tackle the Maoris at their own game?”

“Oh,” said one old digger after a while, “that's all very well for you, Von, you're one of them fire-eating chaps frothing to take a pot at anything. But the Maoris ain't a bad sort. We've got no quarrel with them. Why, there's Maoris here on the diggings, pegging in like any white man.”

“Yes,” said a miner, whose jungle of whiskers belied his youth, “I don't want no quarrel with the Macris. That's the Government's job. It wants the Maori land and doesn't care how it gets it. It makes all the mess, let it clean it up itself. None of this gun and tomahawk business for me.”

“By Jove, though, where are the Maori diggers?” This speaker looked around the camp. “Not one about tonight; and I don't think I have seen one all day.”

“Where do you think they are?” asked Von Tempsky impatiently. “They're off like Deerfoot to the fighting. They must have sloped before sun-up this morning. They didn't wait to talk all round it like you fellows.”

“Mein Gott!” exclaimed a big sailorlylooking man that the others called Dutchy. “That explains it! My doublebarrel gun's gone, but I didn't put it down to the Maoris when I missed it this morning. Mein Gott, it was a bully gun—one barrel rifled, the other smooth. I paid fifteen pound for it, I did that! I bet there's more than one gun gone from the camp.”

“I sleep with my weapons in the blankets with me,” said Von Tempsky. “Force of habit. Now I'm going to turn in, gentlemen, and let you talk it over.”

(Rly. Publicity photo.)
A scene in Queen's Gardens, Nelson.

When he had gone to his tent the group sat smoking in silence. Presently one digger growled out his opinion.

“Blessed furriner! Does he think Englishmen will serve under him? Danged if I will, Militia or no Militia.”

“Same here, Bill,” said another. “Why should we butt in to this silly war, and leave our claims to be jumped, all because this Prooshian or Rooshian or whatever he is wants the glory of it? These ‘Vons’ and ‘Schneider how you vas,’ and all dot! If we must go on the war-path and shoulder one of them long Enfields let's do it under a British officer—and that's bad enough, Heaven knows.”

Now the Forty-niner had his say for the first time. “Von Tempsky's my mate,” said Sam, “and, of course, I'll stick by him. I know the stuff he's made of, and let me tell you he's as good as any British man and a darned sight better than most. He's fought the Spanish in Central America for the British. I'm leaving it to him, and I'm quite ready to chuck my claim. It's panned out nothing so far but a bout of rheumatics for me.”

But Sam's voice was the only one raised for Von Tempsky. The speaker before him seemed to have expressed the general opinion. It was tolerably certain that no “furriner” would be able to enlist a company in that camp.

[Note.—This is the first episode in Von Tampsky's efforts to form a forest-ranging corps for the Maori War. The diggers did not know what an experienced bush-fighter they had among them. He had given good service to Britain in expeditions in Central America against Spanish stockades. As to nationality, there was more of the Pole than the Prussian in his ancestry and character. Further incidents in his New Zealand career will be given from narratives of his old Forest Rangers to the author.—J.C.]