Page:Letters from New Zealand (Harper).djvu/314

282 with the thermometer at zero, would allow. Next day, at noon, arriving at Craigieburn, where the coach usually changes horses, the groom informed us that the road ahead was impossible for wheels, and that he had had a message by wire from the driver of the Christchurch coach that he had forced his way on horseback to a hotel about six miles distant, where we might join him and return to Christchurch.

Saddling a couple of horses, with another for the baggage, Campbell suggested to me that I might go on, and he would follow: "You know the track as well as I do, and so does the horse, but go slow, and be careful of the sidings." My steed stood over sixteen hands; the saddle with but one girth, and that an old one; a poor chance for me, should we fall and break it, of getting on his back again. So I went warily. It is a curious piece of country, which has been tumbled about, probably in the days when ice-fields covered it, in such a fashion that it was no easy matter to make a coach road through it. The principal stream which drains it has the appropriate name of the "Broken River." In summer, most picturesque, but,—smothered in snow! I left it chiefly to the horse. Feeling his way every step of it; slithering on frozen surfaces; plunging deep in drifts; recovering himself cleverly when almost losing foothold, "Major" carried me bravely. No sign of Campbell following. After nearly five hours of it, from the top of a terrace I saw the hotel below, and some men watching my progress.

"Couldn't make you out; why, it's the Archdeacon! No man ought to travel alone in such weather!"

I explained the situation. Just as it grew dark