Page:Through South Westland.djvu/223

Rh The colouring grew more weird and strange every minute. Behind Omarama the hills turned to reddish violet, the Ohau range hung like a dark wall in front, and over it the snow peaks peeped, flaming orange as the sun touched them. The nearer hills faded from blue to black, and when we left the plain and entered the river valley, dusk was falling. After a few miles we turned into the gorge of the Lindis and passed a desolate-looking station where there had been a great muster of sheep. Thousands were penned in paddocks waiting for the shearers. The air was filled with the long-drawn baa’s from those many throats, the dogs kept up an incessant barking and yapping, and the hands stood about smoking, or finishing penning the last batch. Just beyond this busy scene we rode up to what looked like a troop of horses that scattered in sudden flight dashing up the hills, and we saw they were red deer; beautiful creatures with heads half grown and bodies round and fat as heifers.

Then the dark fell, and the purple night closed us softly round, and we could just see the track winding up among dark hills with a strip of starlit sky above us. All detail vanished, the wind dropped, and not a sound broke the stillness but the beat of the horses’ feet and the tinkle of a little stream beside the path. We had been told of a flat some two hours up the pass, where good English grass and clover grew. In the starlight it was difficult to discover, and Transome got down