A few weeks before those arrested were discharged, some of our spies, or, as we used to call them, "agents," gave me information that the Kellys had procured some dynamite and intended blowing up the train out of revenge for our locking up these persons. I took no notice of the report. On one Monday night the telegraph operator at Benalla informed me that for some reason the wires would not act between Beechworth and Benalla. The break was somewhere between Wangaratta and Beechworth, and the stoppage occurred about nine o'clock. The following morning the lines were found to be working all right again. The same thing occurred on Tuesday, and on Wednesday night telegraph repairers from Melbourne were sent along the line, but could find nothing wrong. Still, each evening, exactly at nine o'clock, no messages could be sent, and sometimes the line stopped working in the middle of a message. Thursday night the same thing occurred, and yet the line was not broken. One of the operators told me he believed the break was due to some one putting a piece of wire over the telegraph line and so making a ground connection. However, the cause was not discovered. Friday night came, and we were just starting for Beechworth by the passenger train at about eight o'clock, when the operator at Benalla sent a message to me at the platform, telling me that the wire had stopped at about seven-thirty o'clock that night. I remembered then the information I had received about the line being blown up with dynamite. The officer in charge of the district and myself held a short consultation as to whether we should stop the train and inform the passengers of the danger impending. We, however, decided to get into the train and say nothing until we got to Wangaratta, when we could decide on the best course to adopt. We got into a carriage with two Roman Catholic priests who were chaffing us all the way up about not catching the Kellys. Still we said nothing about the information we received. At Wangaratta we decided to go on to Tarrawingee, as it was between that station and Beechworth the break in the line was known to be. When I got to Tarrawingee I went to the station-master and told him to stop the train until I gave him permission to start. He said he had no authority to stop the train. I then took a constable to the engine-driver and told the driver he was on no account to start without my permission, telling him at the same time of my suspicions. The officer in charge of the district and myself then called the telegraph operator whom we had in the carriage, and asked him if he could tell in any way whether the line was open between that station and Beechworth, as there was no telegraph office at Tarrawingee. The operator said if he could get up the pole and take the wire between his teeth he could tell. The difficulty was to get him up the pole, but we got a long spar and shoved him up, and he discovered connection was open again to Beechworth.