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Rifle and Tomahawk

Chapter VIII — Ron and Isbel Share a Secret

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Chapter VIII
Ron and Isbel Share a Secret

When, in after years, Ron thought over that first fight, it seemed to him to be utterly unreal. The whole thing came about with such startling suddenness. A moment before he had been marching along, proud to be of such a gallant company as Captain Barry's Rangers, dreaming of the brave deeds that he would accomplish when the pursuit of Te Kooti should begin in earnest. And then, crashing into his thoughts, came that volley of musketry, those hideous yells, and oh, horror! the figure of his sister dashing madly down the road, but a few yards, it seemed, in front of those murderous tomahawks!

And then he found himself running like one possessed, charging, with Jock beside him, into the sharp mêlée that followed; when the Hauhaus, finding themselves in their turn pursued, fought like rats at bay, until, pressed at last between the two bodies of pakehas, they scattered, and fled into the bush, leaving their dead and their wounded on the road.

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The Rangers would have pursued them, but this Captain Barry would not permit. A trained bush-fighter himself, he was aware that very few of his men were used to the tactics of bush-fighting; and he did not wish to have any further casualties on his hands for the present. One of his men lay dead, and there were several who showed nasty wounds, while the ranks of the Turanganui men had suffered correspondingly.

So, while the dead and the wounded were carried to one side of the road, he warmly greeted the leader of the Turanganui men, an old friend of his, by name Major Blair, and the two exchanged notes and planned their movements of the immediate future.

Meanwhile, Ron pushed his way through the circle of men that surrounded his sister, plying her with questions. She seemed utterly dazed, and clutched Hughie fiercely, as though terrified that some one would attempt to take him from her.

"Ron!" she shrieked, as she caught sight of her brother. "Oh, Ron, I thought you must have been killed!" and she fairly launched herself into his arms.

Ron held her and patted her comfortingly until she grew calmer. Then, motioning to the men to allow them to pass, he drew her to the side of the page 102road, hoping that an intervening patch of manuka would prevent her from seeing the still figures of those who had found quick death in the fight.

Then he had to relate all his adventures. When he told her the good news about Mrs Johnston she gave a little cry of delight.

"I was so unhappy about her and that poor little Tom," she exclaimed. "I think I worried more about them than I did about you, for from the time that I first met him Hori kept telling me that he was sure you were safe."

"And now tell me about Hori and how he came to find you," Ron requested. "And mind, Miss Muffet, don't you miss out a single thing!"

So Isbel told him everything, and missed out not one of her experiences.

"But where is Hori now?" Ron asked. "And however did he come to let you go out alone on to the road?"

Isbel hung her head. "It was all my own fault," she confessed. "Hori said I was to wait until he gave me the word to go, but I got so excited when I saw the soldiers coming that I just forgot everything and ran out to meet them."

"You poor kid," said Ron sympathetically. "I don't wonder that you lost your head after the rough time you had been through."

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Isbel sighed. "I wouldn't have minded it so much if it hadn't been for Hughie. Oh, Ron, I never thought I'd live to see that day when I'd think him a nuisance; but really, when he got lost I nearly died of fright, and then he kept getting hungry, and when I wanted him to walk he wanted to be carried, and when I thought I could get on quicker if I carried him he insisted on walking. Just look at him now, the angel! He's making friends with the soldiers."

Hughie had toddled off, and was gravely responding to the advances of friendship made by the men who were not otherwise engaged; and Isbel looked after him, her whole loving, honest heart in her eyes.

"I wonder what happened to Hori," Ron speculated.

"I s'pose he got back into the scrub somewhere," Isbel answered. "Do you know, Ron, he made me promise not to tell anyone but you that he had saved me. Why would he do that? And just think, he said he was one of Te Kooti's messengers. What do you think he's up to?"

"Just what I thought when I heard that he'd got that message about you into Roro in such a queer way," Ron declared. "He doesn't want anyone to know that he is friendly to the pakehas. page 104Hori has told me a lot of his dreams. He hopes some day to be a leader of his tribe and his people and to guide them into our ways of living and thinking. And you see, he couldn't expect to do that if they should ever come to hear that he did not stick to them in this war. I'm doubly glad now that I didn't betray his name to Captain Barry. In gratitude to Hori we must both hold our tongues, and not say a word to anyone, even to Dad or Mother."

Major Blair and Captain Barry had by this time finished their conversation and were approaching the brother and sister. The children stood up, and Ron saluted respectfully.

"So this is the young lady who added a dozen grey hairs to my head this morning," laughed Major Blair, and Captain Barry, with a smile, followed him in shaking hands with Isbel.

"And George Barry is proud to shake the hand of such a little heroine!" he said in a courtly manner.

Whereat Isbel blushed, and Major Blair laughed his jolly laugh again.

"Well, now, young woman, suppose you give an account of yourself!" he exclaimed. "I am just the slightest bit curious to know how you came to be running along the road with a pack of yelling natives after you!"

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Here was a poser for Isbel. Above all she could not mention Hori. So she began somewhat lamely: "I was hiding in the scrub——" and stopped dead. Deceit of any kind was utterly foreign to her nature.

Captain Barry looked quizzically at Ron.

"She was hiding in the scrub," Ron accordingly commenced, "and when she saw you coming she ran out to meet you——"

"I did not know there were any Hauhaus about," Isbel finished.

"Evidently not," agreed Major Blair. "How they didn't contrive to shoot you is yet a mystery to me. But how did you manage to get this far, in the first place? And how long have you been hiding about here? And what have you been doing in the meantime?"

"Finding food for Hughie," answered Isbel simply; and Major Blair went off into roars of laughter.

Observing that Isbel was getting uncomfortable under Major Blair's questioning, Captain Barry came to her rescue, much to Ron's relief and delight.

"Major," he said, "we must remember that this young lady has been under a terrible strain for the past few days and nights. So, I think, if you page 106are agreeable, sir, we will defer hearing her story until she is more fully recovered." And bowing to Isbel, he led Major Blair away.

But he returned alone a few minutes later, and heard from Ron a great deal of what had befallen the girl. And he asked no questions, apparently being quite content with so much as Ron told him. Nevertheless, all the time his keen brain was working busily, and as he left the children again he said to himself: "I was right in enlisting that lad. He is going to be of enormous use to me. In the first place he knows how to hold his tongue. I must somehow obtain his father's permission to keep the boy by me. I feel, too, that this mysterious Maori friend of his is also going to be of value. He will probably see to it that Ronald Cameron is not allowed to walk into any ambush."

By this time the wounded had been attended to and were being placed in two carts which had made their appearance from the direction of Turanganui, and Jock Abler, who had been making himself useful in fashioning rough splints, now came up, carrying Hughie shoulder high. He was warmly greeted by Isbel.

"I hear that it has been arranged that you two and the babe are to be taken to your parents," he informed them.

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Isbel clapped her hands joyously. "Hurrah! We'll be able to see Mother and Dad, Ron!"

But Ron's brow clouded. "Are all the Rangers going?" he demanded.

"Only Private Jock Abler, as far as I know," answered the bushman.

"But Captain Barry promised that I could go with him and hunt for Te Kooti!" cried Ron, bitterly disappointed.

"And what do you think I'm going with you for if it isn't to carry a message from Captain Barry begging your father to allow you to come to him as his special scout?" laughed Jock. "The Captain means to have you, lad, but he wants your father's word that he can have you."

"That's fine!" Ron exclaimed delightedly. "I think I can persuade Dad. I was afraid when I heard that I was to go to Turanganui that Captain Barry was putting me on the shelf!"

"Oh," cried Isbel, "do you think he'd let me come and fight Te Kooti, too?"

"That he would not!" rejoined Jock, with great decision; and some of the men who were standing near by laughed, and cheered the girl.

At Captain Barry's invitation they cheered her again before she left with the wounded and an adequate guard for Turanganui. The wounded page 108men cheered her as loudly as any, and forgot their pain for the moment as they tried to obtain a glimpse of the girl whose life they had helped save. And Captain Barry said in farewell: "I hope to be able to arrange that you, Ronald, and you too, Abler, may rejoin me in a week's time."

It was a wonderful, a triumphal, journey for Isbel, that march into Turanganui. The men of the guard fought for the privilege of carrying Hughie, who, with the perversity of which Isbel had complained to Ron, kept maintaining stoutly that he preferred to walk. As for Isbel, she was treated like a queen, and Ron felt a clean pride in the men's recognition of his sister's courage. If they only knew all that he knew! But he told them little, and none of her adventures in which Hori te Whiti figured.

Now and again a silence fell upon the party as they passed the ruins of what had been smiling homesteads. It was the same tale everywhere; people caught unawares and cruelly massacred, homes burned, cattle driven off, all horses seized. And then, invariably, the talk would drift round to Te Kooti and his black deeds, and Ron was told things that sent an involuntary shudder through him.

It appeared, from the tales of the men, that page 109Te Kooti had long threatened to attack Turanganui as utu 1 for his imprisonment at the Chatham Islands. When he landed in New Zealand he had made his escape into the Urewera country, and, according to all accounts, so mighty was his influence with the natives that recruits had come in rapidly to him.

Major Biggs, who was in command of the Turanganui district at the time, had placed nine men under lieutenant Gasgoine to watch the Te Reinga path—the main track into the wild Urewera lands.

"I shall have twenty-four hours' notice before anything further can happen," Major Biggs had said, in answer to the warning of an old settler that the Hauhaus were in the Patutahi Valley.

But the wily Te Kooti, apparently, had advanced by an old track, overgrown with fern and scrub, and for this reason not considered worthy of watching; and thus it was that, without any warning, he had been able to fall upon the settlers. And Major Biggs and his wife and child had been among the first to fall before the tomahawks of the Hauhaus.

"And beside tomahawks and bayonets they've got rifles and carbines, and heaps of ammunition," page 110one of the men said. "They seized everything of that description that there was on the Chathams."

Of hairbreadth escapes there had been dozens. One woman with her family of eight children had been occupying a barn near to one of the settler's houses. She had heard shots in the dark, and looking out, had seen enough to convince her that the Hauhaus were in the Bay. So behaving with admirable coolness, she had collected her children, and dropping them down into the bed of a creek, had made them crawl along for more than a mile until they reached the shelter of the scrub, and eventually found safety. And there was a man who had ridden hither and thither to warn his fellow-settlers, and who must have passed right through the midst of the enemy. He had been instrumental in saving many lives.

Naturally, there were all sorts of wild rumours afloat, to some of which, although they related them, members of the guard themselves gave small credence. But one fact seemed already clearly established, and that was that the friendly Maoris would come to the help of the pakehas in quashing the rising. And then it was that Ron heard, for the first time, a name that afterward was sufficient to thrill him—Ropata, chief of the Ngatiporou tribe. The men seemed to think that page 111Ropata would be certain to take up arms against Te Kooti.

"And may the powers of darkness help the murdering varmint if the Ngatiporou get to chasing him!" exclaimed Jock. "For a better set of men for bush-fighting you'd go far to see."

"They say they are very like the Ghurkas," one of the men volunteered. "All made of wire and indiarubber, so to speak."

"That they are, my lad," answered Jock. "I'd think it an honour, any time, to fight alongside one of the Ngatiporou!"

"They live up Bay of Plenty way, don't they?" Ron asked. "Have you been there, Jock?"

"There, and other places," answered the bushman; and assumed the expression that invariably came over his face when questioned as to any of his doings before he came to the Turanganui district.

"There's some mystery about Jock," thought Ron. "It's not that I'm very curious, but I'd like to find out some time just where he's been and what he did before I knew him. One thing I'm sure of—he hasn't been a bushman all his life. For one thing, he has had a good education, wherever he got it. It must have been at those 'other places' he spoke of just now."

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But speculations as to Jock's origin were banished from Ron's brain by the fact that they were now approaching Turanganui. And soon they were actually marching up to the blockhouse itself.

What a wonderful reunion was that of the Cameron family!

"All safe, thank God, thank God!" cried Mrs Cameron, as she tried to enfold her three children in her arms, all at the same time. And then, over Hughie's curly little head, she burst into wild sobbing, and cried as she had not cried during the two days and nights of terrible anxiety through which she had passed.

And John Cameron, clasping Ron's hand, said but three words: "Well done, Ron!"

But he sighed as he spoke. For he saw that his son's boyhood was over, and that the experiences that he had undergone had thrust manhood on him ahead of his years.

1 Revenge.