Page:Through South Westland.djvu/183

Rh where her great strength had carried her far ahead of lighter horses. Now she was his willing slave. She would stand all day where he left her. She loved to snuff at his tobacco smoke, and if he stood talking on the track, her big velvet nose was continually poking him in the back, demanding attention.

“Don’t you ever shoe the horses?” I asked.

“They’re better without shoes—those of yours will be about worn off by the time we get through, and this mare’s hoofs are as hard as iron. They run in the river-bed all the time when they’re foals,” Ted answered.

The going, when we got out of the swamps and among the foot-hills, was of the worst: a constant succession of sudden dips into peaty bottoms full of interwoven roots, up stony, steep ascent—always under the dark, heavy bush canopy. For a short way the track would be fairly dry and even, then more ups and downs, and a sudden plunge into the river-bed below. Sometimes this gave us half a mile of good going on sand or grass, but more often the long grass grew rank, and the horses forced their way through it breast high. We passed"“Mosquito Hill” on the opposite shore, heavily covered with trees; it was somewhere below that we had tried conclusions with the Haast. Looking back now from the entrance to the gorge it looked a beautiful, fertile valley some miles wide, and little sign of the cruel river that has taken more toll of wayfarers than almost any other on the Coast.