A Despatch Carrier's Fate.

It was probably the intercepting of despatches from Fort Galatea that first put Te Kooti on the track of the troopers at Opepe. Very soon after Colonel St. John's party had left Galatea for Taupo, information was brought in to the redoubt by Mair's scouts that Te Kooti was at Heruiwi waiting to descend on the plains and make for Taupo, and as it was feared that St. John's small detachment would be attacked and cut up despatches were written by Mair and others and sent on to overtake him. The bearer of the letters was Trooper Donald McDonald, who was accompanied by Trooper Alexander Black. The two troopers when near the Tieke clump of bush, on the east side of the Rangitaiki (following the Runanga track) were seen from the hills by some of Te Kooti's mounted men, who hurried to intercept them.

Peita Kotuku and another Hauhau, Makarini, were the two who actually cut the troopers off. Peita shot McDonald, and the other man, coming up as he lay on the ground with a gunshot in his hip, cut off his head with a butcher's knife. Makarini was actuated by the spirit of revenge; he took utu for the killing of his brother in the retreat from Ngatapa in January, 1869. Black abandoned his horse and carbine and rushed down towards the Wheao River, and after hiding in the fern escaped to Fort Galatea. Peita took the letters which he found on McDonald to Te Kooti, who, after having them translated to him, hurried off his men on the trail of St. John's troopers.

This was narrated to me by old Peita at Taringamutu in the King Country. He, like his comrade Te Rangi-Tahau, had escaped from Chatham Island with Te Kooti in the schooner Rifleman in 1868; and for three desperate years he followed the fortunes of his great war-chief.