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Rh this; it was told to me by a half-caste and it is exceedingly probable.

“Despite what I had been told I decided to stand my ground, and the Maoris promised to help me if interfered with. Next day the whole crowd came down and camped near the store, cursing and swearing at me. There was a Dutchman who had most to say and who stole a case of gin that night. This man came into the store and said I was wanted outside. He had been round the diggers’ tents trying to incite them against me, and although the case had assumed a serious aspect I could hardly refrain from laughing at the horrible attempt at the English language made by this man, especially owing to the state of excitement into which he had worked himself, imagining he was a deeply injured individual. I had neither arms nor ammunition of any kind, for up to that time they were not wanted on the West Coast.

“I went to the fire, a large one, which by the way, was fed with coal which Matthew Batty and his Maoris had brought down the river from the Brunner seam for the Nelson Provincial Government. It was rather an exciting moment, as stepping outside the store, the thought struck me that my life hung on a thread—that the weight of a feather would probably turn the scale either way. I was there standing accused, though wrongly, of having wilfully brought a number of my fellow