"The pilot went back, and I hastened home, and found Mrs. Curnow had been almost insane while I was stopping the train, and had been made worse by the whistling of the pilot engine. She would not leave the house after I had stopped the train, and we blew out the lights to seem to be in bed. My sister hid the red scarf and my wet clothes, and we were going to deny that it was I who had stopped the train, if one of the outlaws came down to us. "After the first volleys had been fired, I, with an old man who lived opposite me, went up to Jones's to ascertain who were victorious, but we were ordered back by the police, and we returned home. While I was away my sister and wife had a terrible fright through Mr. Rawlings, who had accompanied the police, coming down to the school. They thought that he was Ned Kelly when he asked for the door to be opened. When I reached home I found Mr. Rawlings there. He asked me to draw a plan of Mrs. Jones's house, which I partly did; but, on hearing the train returning from Benalla, he hurried out, and stopping it, he got into it. During the Sunday afternoon I had heard Mr. Stanistreet ask Ned Kelly to allow the rails torn up to be replaced, and he pointed out to Ned Kelly the sacrifice of innocent lives which would ensue if the Monday morning's passenger train was wrecked. The outlaw refused to allow it to be done. In speaking of and to one another the outlaws had assumed names. "In the _Argus_ report (May 16th) of James Reardon's evidence, given before the Police Commission at Glenrowan, it is stated that James Reardon said he told me that 'the line was broken,' and that he also told me 'how the train could be stopped.' Mr. Reardon is labouring under a wrong impression. I am positive that he did not tell me how the train could be stopped. Stopping the train, nor how to stop it, was not mentioned to me by any one. Of this I am absolutely certain. I have been informed that an impression prevails that it was in my power, before the outlaws stuck up Glenrowan, to have furnished information to the authorities relating to the Kelly gang or their friends. Others assert that I was employed by the authorities to obtain information. I desire to emphatically state that this impression and assertion are both false. "The outlaws were perfectly sober. One of them, I think Byrne, lay down on the bed about twelve o'clock in the day, and had a sleep, but the others were quite sober." CHAPTER XI. The Attack on the Hotel--Wounded.