last. For the life of me I could not. I remembered going to the safe and locking it up but nothing more. I got up, struck a light, searched the saddle-bags, but no key could I find. Next morning I gave a man £1 to go to the Greenstone to see if I had dropped it at Tracy’s. He returned in the evening without it. I was in a nice fix; my safe at Taramakau, myself a prisoner at the Hohuna, where I was likely to be for days, and my key lost. In this state of suspense I remained until Wednesday evening, when, by good luck, a Maori, in a canoe, called in on his way to Taramakau. The river was anything but safe. However, I was in such a state of mind that I would not lose the chance of getting down, so left Nobby to be sent after me. Off we went. I did not relish the trip, but I sat down in the bottom of the canoe and remained perfectly steady, and trusted entirely to my Maori friend. I did not even ask to get out at the ‘Devil’s Elbow’ and in less than half an hour I was safely landed at the Taramakau township. I paid the Maori his fare—£1—and marched up to the store. Here I saw McGregor, and after a while said, ‘By the way, did I leave a key here?’ ‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘Dan found it on the table immediately after you left on Friday; he did not know whose it was and hung it up inside’ (pointing to the bedroom). I went in, and sure enough, there was the missing key. I opened the safe, which, as I said before, was a small one, in which I had left
