the reward of his patience. One day she spoke to him. She was hiding behind a tree, pretty close, and no doubt Jim could have caught her if he'd put his mind to it. But by this time Jim, though he'd probably not have been able to say it in so many words, had kind of got to idealising her. So he was content just to talk to her and mighty thrilled to do so, at that. He found out that her name was Hine-mokai. Later she told him she got the name from the fact that she'd been taken captive, as a baby, in the muru raid. He asked her, point-blank, if she'd been sent to the bush and she admitted that she had. But she wouldn't tell him why. By and by she got less cautious and even came to the edge of his clearing and spoke to him in full sight. Jim was so excited he went forward to meet her, naturally, but as soon as he moved she backed into the bush and disappeared. The old lady told me that Jim always claimed that she was hine-piwari, a beautiful girl. I gather she was in her early twenties, and I have it in my mind, I don't know why, that she wore a long shapeless dress made out of an old blanket. In the end she came right out and met him. They'd have midday kai together and she'd talk to him for longer and longer periods. She was always shy and nervous, though not so much of Jim himself. Every now and then she'd slip off into the bush and scout around in case anyone was near. By now Jim was fair and square in love with her. He wanted her to go back at night to his camp and live with him. But she wouldn't. Even though she got friendly to sit with him, and let him hold her hands after they'd finished the midday meal she wouldn't let him go any further. Jim had an idea it wasn't through any moral scruples, and he thought she liked him well enough. She probably did, he was a handsome well-set-up chap likely to capture any girl's fancy, Maori or pakeha. In the end she told him why. She'd been exiled to the bush on a charge of puremu (adultery). Jim never asked her if the charge was true. He didn't care much, he was so gone on her and, anyway, he'd hardly expect her to tell him. It wasn't long before she shyly confessed she was in love with him, too. But she wouldn't give in, or go to his whare. ‘Kahore, Hemi,’ she always said. In the end she told him that she was sure the Maoris from her kainga knew she was meeting him. She told him she was taking a risk in doing so. She never actually saw them but she knew it was their custom to keep a distant watch on persons sent to the bush. If she went to his whare and lived with him, she said, they'd find the tracks going to and from the whare and that would put them both in danger. She didn't go into particulars of what would happen. Anyway, Jim knew enough Maori customs to know her fears were well founded. She had had a special tapu put on her and it would be bad for both of them if she broke it openly at any rate. Jim could have taken her on the leaves of the bush, anytime, without dire consequences, for that would have been treating her as a taurekareka, or slave. It would have been regarded by her people as an insult to her, treating her with merited contempt, and so part of her punishment. Anyway, that wasn't what Jim wanted. He was wild enough in some ways, but not loose. If she'd gone back to his whare and lived with him he'd have regarded her if not as his wife, pakeha-fashion, at least as his woman, pakeha-Maori fashion. When he got back to town he I have married her and the whole matter would have been accepted and condoned, if not entirely regarded as respectable, by both their peoples. Except for the matter of that tapu. In the end they surrendered to the love that drove them. He'd go back to camp alone each night. When he got to his earlier workings, not far from camp and where he had a pile of split shingles stacked, he'd lay a trail of shingles from there to his whare. Hine-mokai would follow him, after dark, walking carefully on the shingles so as not to leave tracks. Next morning, before first light, she'd disappear. When Jim left the whare he'd pick up the shingles and re-stack them on their original pile. They lived together, this way, for the rest of the time his contract lasted, which was about three months. By that time he'd used up all the suitable trees within working distance and he'd have to go to another bush, miles away, for his next contract. Hine-mokai knew she was with child and Jim was frantic at the idea of leaving her. He pleaded with her to come out with him to his people's place and they'd get married, fair and square, pakeha fashion. She was broken-hearted, but she wouldn't. She daren't, she told him. She held out a faint hope. If he could get the kaumatua, the elders, of her kainga to forgive her, and agree to have the tohunga lift the tapu from her, then she'd marry him and be glad to do so. Otherwise she'd wait until he had a new camp. Then she'd come and live with him as before, even though she knew that, sooner or later, her people would find out and nemesis would descend on her. Well, that's the way he had to leave it. They parted in tears and sorrow, with despair on her side and with grim determination for a reunion on Jim's. He never saw her again. The old men of her village listened kindly and patiently to Jim's pleadings but they shook their heads at any suggestion that they should revoke the sentence of banishment they had placed on her. For years after, through camp after camp, Jim lived in the