The Last of the Bushrangers: An Account of the Capture of the Kelly GangHare, Francis Augustus
History
The Last of the Bushrangers: An Account of the Capture of the Kelly Gang
Hare, Francis Augustus
Brigands and robbers -- Australia; Kelly, Ned, 1855-1880
The officer in charge of the district and myself then
decided that we would let the train go on and say nothing at all to the
passengers, who, during the detention at Tarrawingee, were calling out
and grumbling at our keeping the train all that time. We got into the
train and arrived safely at Beechworth, without the passengers knowing
anything about the danger they had been in.
The feeling of alarm over the Kelly gang was so strong at this time,
that had we raised an alarm the passenger traffic on the line would
have been entirely stopped. I have often thought what a terrible thing
it would have been if that train had been blown up, especially going
over some of the steep embankments on the line to Beechworth. For
months afterwards the Government placed men on watch to prevent the
line being interfered with by the Kellys. I remember distinctly saying
to my brother officers, "Well, whatever happens, we shall be in the
thick of it, so they cannot blame us." I also remember the feeling of
relief we both experienced when the train arrived safely at Beechworth.
It was a terrible responsibility on our shoulders, and we had very
little time to decide the best course to adopt, but fortunately
the course we adopted turned out all right. A few days after this
occurrence I was told by one of our "agents" that arrangements had been
made that night to blow up the train with dynamite, but the outlaws did
not know how to use the cartridges that they had been supplied with,
and they were afraid to make the attempt and fail, and so resolved to
defer the dynamite business to some future occasion.
After leaving the cave party, as it was called, I went to Benalla and
organized several search parties, took charge of one of them myself,
and had no end of adventures. My principal place of searching was
the Warby Ranges, and many a hard day have I spent in them. We were
trying to keep a constant watch over the relatives of the outlaws, more
especially over Kelly's sister, whose place was near Greta, within four
or five miles of Glenrowan. The Warby Ranges run just to the back of
Glenrowan. The constables used to watch the house to see if any one
arrived or left during the night. Mrs. Skillian and Katie were aware
they were being watched, and nearly every night before they went to
bed they would take their dogs and hunt round the bush within several
hundred yards of their house. Very often the dogs discovered the police
lying on the ground, and then commenced barking at them until the
women came up. It appeared as if the dogs knew the police were their
natural enemies. At first I used to make one of my men in the search
party carry a lot of poisoned baits, and every now and then drop a bait
in a likely place, but afterwards all the dogs went about day and night
with muzzles on, which were only taken off when they were being fed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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