It seemed like magic, but the good fairies in this case had been the two guests to whom I have alluded as having arrived just as we were starting for our picnic life.

They were both "old chums," and understood the situation instantly.

Whilst we were questioning Pepper (you can hear every word all over a New Zealand house), they had jumped up, huddled on their clothes, and gone over the brow of the hill to look for the horses.

By great good fortune the whole mob was found quietly camping in the sheltered valley full of sweet grass, on its further side.

To walk up to my pretty bay mare Helen, and lay hold of her mane, and then, vaulting on her back, ride the rest of the mob back into the stockyard, was, even in the deep darkness of a midsummer night, no difficult task for eyes so practised to catching horses under all circumstances.