DEADMAN'S RIVER.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVI, Issue 31, 8 December 1898, Page 29

DEADMAN'S RIVER.

IS- - ' The sound rang out clear mid sharp Ja / /^\-'\\ ■ through the quiet bush. The echo of the "Of lw»» ",tS v '~ "" traveller's voice came back to him mock- "** \l^©¥s M| "' V' "^ n^ v out °^ *^ c sna< iow of the great giant Im MllnCT' iV^*. rataß an(^ pi nes tnafc grew around. Forty <^WuW^^o)'lo^ miles had he tramped that day, and here he was afc nightfall 'stuck up ' — unable to pro"^^^^StKff^i^T^iW ceed any further, his progress barred by a great sheet of water rolling past at his feet. Ned Langdon threw the swag off his back with a sigh of relief and sat down on it. 'So this is Deadman's River, is it 1 ' he said to himself. ' H— m, yes. The name seems to suit it pretty

well. It does look very weird and strange and ghostly — to-night, anyway.' Then his eyes wandered out over the water and along its green banks. Langdon was young, but he was a fairly wellexperienced digger ; for had he not worked for some time as a goldminer in Victoria, New South Wales, and other parts of Australia ? The marvellous finds on the West Coast of Maoriland had, like a loadstone, attracted him thither with so many others. And this is ho* we come to find him at nightfall by the brink of Deadman's River, pursuing his lonely way to Barry town. He was a Catholic young fellow — one of the old type of miners that were to be found risking life and limb and braving the dangers which swarmed around them in the times they still love to remember as ' the good old days.' Langdon was a good deal above the average height, strongly -built