Page:Mannering - With axe and rope in the New Zealand Alps.djvu/54

30 in seven hours and a quarter from the Ball Glacier camp.

On returning from the Hermitage we thought, by crossing the Tasman River and driving down the opposite bank, to avoid driving round Lake Pukaki, and so to save thirty miles of travelling. As a rule the river is not crossable in the summer months, but on this occasion we were assured of the practicability of getting over; and leaving the track at Birch Hill Station, we drove out into the great expanse of shingle which forms the river bed.

We had crossed all the streams but the last, and were within a few yards of the farther bank of that, when our horse, poor old Nipper, sank in a quicksand, and as soon as the current caught his body we saw it was all up. The horse and buggy got broadside on to the current, and quick as thought we jumped for it, just as the conveyance was turning over for the first time, Fox down-stream and I up.

The first thing I knew was that I was being washed into the bottom parts of the buggy, then sideways up, but struggling out and gaining a footing, the first impulse was to whip out my pocket-knife and cut the horse free, and, in my haste, both blades were broken before a stitch of the harness was cut. Fox, in the meanwhile, recovered his feet, and was holding Nipper's head above water as we all moved gradually downstream with the force of the current, the horse and buggy rolling over and over. With Fox's knife I was more successful, and cut the horse free. Fortunately we were being washed into shallower water on a spit of shingle, and we were able to wade out with the horse,