In an instant’s thought I decided to get clear of him, then kicking my feet, as I thought, out of the stirrups, I sprang off.  I remembered nothing more till I woke up, two hours later, in a cot in the hut, with an aching head and stiff back.  The others said I could not have cleared both feet from the stirrups when I jumped, for it seemed to them that I was dragged for an instant.  At any rate, I struck the ground on the back of my head and shoulders, and lay stunned; they first thought me lifeless.  The huts were near, and I was carried up and resuscitated.  The following day I was sufficiently recovered to give the gelding a lesson in running away he had cause to remember.

CHAPTER XVI.

     START ON AN EXPLORING EXPEDITION TO THE WANAKA LAKE.

We had just now capital pig-hunting.  The severity of the snow sent the animals into the flats, where we shot them down, riding being impracticable.

My visit being ended and the weather favourable, I proceeded to Christchurch preparatory to resuming work.  I was accompanied by a young man named Evans, a stockrider from one of the Ashburton stations, and on arriving at the Rakaia, being in a hurry, we foolishly tried to ford the river without a guide, as I had frequently done at other times.  The river was quite fordable, but the streams were fairly deep, taking the horses some way above the girths.  We had nearly crossed the largest when my horse suddenly went down, and in an instant we were swimming in a swift current nearly to the waist.  Evans’s horse followed the other’s example.  They were both good swimmers, and took us out safely on the side from which we entered, some 300 yards down stream.  Another try under the forder’s guidance was successful, but the accident detained us at the north bank accommodation house for the night.

In addition to the completion of the Ashburton gorge road, I obtained a contract from a wealthy runholder in the neighbourhood to put up many miles of wire fencing, then just coming into use for dividing the runs, and also for the erection of several outstation buildings, all of which I had completed before the middle of the summer season, and I was in treaty for further work when I received an offer from Mr. T. Moorhouse, at whose station I had been so ill, to accompany him on an exploring trip to the head of the Wanaka Lake, in Otago Province.  He had taken up (or imagined he had done so) some sheep country there, and the expedition was for the purpose of inspecting his newly acquired possessions.  Nobody had yet seen this country, or at any rate, been on it.

The journey would be about 300 miles, in addition to the voyage up the lake by boat, about twenty miles.  It would be a new experience for me, and I was delighted with the offer, the more so that I would receive a good return for my time with all expenses paid, and I was glad to have an opportunity of again visiting the Lindis and the country far beyond my late travels, during the summer, when all would look its best and camping out be a real pleasure.