It was at once boot and saddle, and before nightfall we had marched to Opepe.
Colonel St John had reached the spot before us, in fact the men cut up belonged to his column, and he had only left them the morning of the massacre to rest themselves and horses, while he went on to visit a Maori chief about ten miles away.
Next morning we were on the spoor, and followed it through rough pumice-stone gullies for some miles, in pouring rain and sleet, then lost all trace of them in a dense scrub of manuka bush, so we returned to Opepe for the night.
The following day it was determined to send scouts out to find where the enemy had retreated to.
We had followed Te Kooti since July 1868, when he had escaped with 160 fighting men from Chatham Islands, had landed at Whare-onga-onga, close to Poverty Bay, and had gathered all the disaffected Maoris in the country to him. He had sacked Poverty Bay, murdering about ninety helpless settlers. He had fought us twice at Makaretu and innumerable other places, had captured a convoy of ammunition, had fortified himself at Ngatapa, where he had repulsed, with heavy loss, two assaults and had only evacuated the pah when starved out for want of food and water. And although we had, in the pursuit, captured and killed 136 of his men, yet he himself escaped and reached the fastnesses of the Uriwera country.
In April 1869 he had swooped down on the Mohaka settlement and had murdered in cold blood seventy whites and friendly natives, and then retreated to Taupo country with us at his heels.
In fact he had kept us lively for a year, and was going to prevent us getting rusty for two more, until, having lost nearly all his men, he retired into the King country, where we could not follow him; and he lived there quietly for twenty years, and at last died in the odour of sanctity, highly respected by all who knew him. For nearly four years we were on his track: his escapes were numerous and miraculous, we destroyed band after band of the desperate savages who joined him, but although he was wounded twice we never got him.
Bad luck to it, I'm off the spoor. To get back.
It was determined to send out scouts to locate Te Kooti, and I was chosen with two men to do the job. It was a big contract to handle. One glance at the map will show you Lake Taupo. We were at the north-east corner, about ten miles from the semi-friendly pah at Tapuacharuru (Sounding Footsteps), our base was at Opotiki, eighty miles away, on the Bay of Plenty coast. There were at that time no roads, no bridle-tracks, no paths; no game existed in New Zealand, and there was no food to be procured for man, and but little for horses.