CHAPTER IX
A FOREST ADVENTURE
The two eel-fishers—Bivouac in the bush—A murderous attack—The Waikato's tomahawk—"Ringiringi's" escape.
Far away to the east and north of the great Hauhau council-camp stretched the forest, clothing hill and valley with one endless wavy garment of unvarying green. For weeks one might tramp through these vast, jungly woods and not see or hear sign of man, or of any living thing but the twittering birds in the tree-tops and a stray wild pig rooting in the soft, fern-matted earth or scampering away through the thickets. The free, unspoiled wilderness of Tane-Mahuta.
Climbing to the wooded crest of some of the steep little hills that rose from the gently undulating plain, one might here and there, through the gaps between the towering tiers of foliage, catch narrow glimpses of the surrounding country; and perhaps far away to the nor'-west see between the branches, set like a picture in its forest-frame, the pure white snow-cone of tent-shaped Taranaki.
Deep in these bush solitudes one day, when the
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