CHAPTER XI.
THE LOST TRAIL.
An ocean of trees, by the west wind stirred,
Rolled, ever rolled, to the great cliff’s base:
And its sound like the noise of waves was heard
’Mid the rocks and the caves of that lonely place.
Our time was fast coming to an end. There was but one more expedition before us: to find Mr. Macpherson’s trail, made nine years ago, up the eastern Matukituki—for he had once great ideas and believed these lonely valleys would one day vie with the Otira in drawing strangers hither. So he cut a trail and built a hut, but no one came, and the all-covering bush very soon took charge of his clearings, and sowed them plentifully with strong young saplings; and in process of time the hut became a ruin.
The air was sharp with frost; our smoke curled up blue against the dark of the beeches as I prepared breakfast early, and we sat in the sun to warm ourselves as we ate it. We had brought home a tin packed with eggs the night before, and all but two got broken, so I put the whole of them into the frying-pan; and if it were not an omelette, it was an exceedingly good breakfast. And then we saw our Highlander coming across the flat, leading a spare horse. This was for me; we had decided Tom must stay at home, or his shoeless hoof would not stand the long drive to Pembroke next day. She was just like a table, this horse of Macpherson’s, with a thin neck stuck on at one end, and a very large and heavy head; her paces consisted of a jog-trot and a walk, and she had no regard for bit, bridle, or rider. Macpherson himself was on the oddest beast I have ever seen: his pigeon-toes turned in till the knee-joints bent outwards; he appeared to have four hind legs, so that, like Mephilbosheth, he was lame on both his feet. But it was wonderful what that animal went over; indeed, he appeared to be able to climb anything, though his temper was testy, and he occasionally refused absolutely to proceed. Then would begin a battle between them, his rider emitting strange sounds of wrath with awful Gaelic threatenings, and they would twist and turn on the edge of some declivity where his poor, malformed legs were like to be broken; till, with a sudden plunge, a slide, and Macpherson’s heels playing a tune on his ribs, they arrived safely at the bottom.
The larks were singing as we rode over the dewy flat and reached the first ford—the mountains were clear of mist and very pure and sharp, and the bunnies were having high-jinks. On looking back we saw old Tom hurrying after us, greatly alarmed at being left behind, and there was nothing for it but to let him come. Plunging into the flood with a splash he raced after us, and indeed, as it happened, we should not have got back that night without him. Our guide led us along the river, first by glades and open bush where the magnificent southern beeches[1] towered up seventy and eighty feet.
There are several varieties of this noble tree, which attains in these southern forests to huge dimensions; Menzie’s beech and Solander’s beech may reach even a hundred feet. No more beautiful forest can be imagined than this beech-forest, with the long vistas down stately isles between their silvery boles, the branches spreading high overhead, covered with the small, dark green leaves no bigger than boxwood, and exceedingly feathery and graceful in shape. The settlers call them all “birch,” and merely distinguish them as “white,” “black,” or “red,” according to the wood.
At first the going was good enough, and there was but little undergrowth, and the old scars on the trunks were plain; but this did not last, and we came to boggy places and gullies, which severely tried Mephibosheth’s legs; then a tangle of slender young trees and huge rotting trunks, with here and there a fine red beech among the lesser growths. The horses broke their way through easily enough, but with no regard for their riders, and we sat ready to slip off first one side and then the other, and our feet were constantly in danger of being crushed. Thus we progressed through several little gullies, and then found the track quite suddenly; Mr. Macpherson had tried for it in many directions, and kept up a constant running fire of exclamations as to its total disappearance. From this onwards the marks on the trees were clearly visible, and all went well till we essayed a narrow ledge above the river, and here we found an impasse, where a fallen tree completely blocked it. In a moment he turned the cavalcade and went skipping down a water-course, with Mephibosheth stumbling and slipping behind him, into the riverbed, in among a lot of boulders, and across a bare ledge of rock by a deep pool. My unwieldly animal refused to budge, and chewed stolidly at some toe-toe grass, and it was a long time ere I could wake her up; then I saw Tom hurry, scrambling after the Scorpion, and missing the place where the others had sidled along the rocky ledge above the deep water, he went swimming across the pool, At last we all arrived at a point where two rivers met, both tumultuous torrents, and in the V between them stood the hut. It was roughly built of river stones, and looked for all the world like another Highland shieling. Alas, it failed to tempt the tourist as its builder hoped, and it was now roofless and a ruin, and Duncan shook his head ruefully over it.
The river beside it comes through a narrow gorge, the nearer view being blocked with trees; and above them another view of Mount Aspiring presented itself, a terrific mass of precipices and glaciers. No Silver Cone against the blue here; black and grey walls of sheer rock like a crater rim held two glaciers, which ended in falls over perpendicular rocks—an unclimbable mountain as seen from here.
The track beyond this is quite lost for either man or beast—so we made a fire and had lunch, and leaving the men to smoke, I climbed up beside a waterfall to a bower of moss and ferns, where the little green and grey wrens, no bigger than mice, were daintily hopping about among the branches.
As I came back slowly to the little flat, no horses were in sight. There sat Transome, solitary on a stone, smoking.
“They are all gone away,” he remarked. “We’ll have to wait till they are caught.” Then he proceeded to explain that the Scorpion and Mephibosheth had made off, the latter trailing a twenty-foot rope, and they were only in time to catch old Tom at the fording-place and bring him back to be saddled. Duncan rode after the truants, but they had had a good start, with faces towards home. We sat watching for some time, devoured by sandflies and speculating as to how we should pass the night: there were still some crusts and a little cocoa and a bar of chocolate in the knapsack, but not even an oilskin to cover us. The valley was all in shadow now, and a night up here did not seem an attractive programme. Then from below the junction of the river I saw the mare I had ridden come slowly out of the bush, and cross the shingle-spit with Mephibosheth following; then came Duncan on Tom, with the Scorpion, looking full of mischief, behind.
Three of them crossed the river, but Mephibosheth elected to remain in mid-stream, and turning to escape, got his twenty-foot rope round a stone, and became anchored. Duncan’s temper had evidently been greatly tried: he made a dash into the water and began dragging the beast backwards with the rope between its legs; but it was too strong for him, and he had to let go, and off went Mephibosheth as fast as his crooked legs could carry him. A second pursuit on Tom followed, and he was secured this time. After all these excursions and alarms, we deemed it time to go home, feeling really grateful to Tom for his persistency in following us that day.
Arrived at the Old Homestead, I made tea for our Highlander, and regaled him on herrings and apricots; and then into an old sack we put various tins, plates, and oddments to take home, and bade him good-night, quite sorry to part, he promising to see us over the ford in the morning.
Our last night was celebrated by a great feast, after which Transome composed the following and nailed it up over the mantelpiece:
NOTICE.
To all those who hereafter inhabit this dwelling, commonly called “The Cave of Æolus”:
Don't break up the house or furniture for firewood. Don’t forget to sweep and leave clean for the next-comer.
Don’t forget the chimney draws down instead of up.
Don’t lose your temper when it smokes.
Don’t lose your temper with the sand-flies; they know no better. (Signed) T. & M.
- ↑ Nothofagus.