The origin of the bushranging outbreak was the shooting at a young constable named Fitzpatrick in April 1878. He had been sent to arrest Dan Kelly at his mother's house near Greta. He was invited into Mrs. Kelly's hut and there set on by a number of people, and in the scuffle Ned Kelly shot him in the wrist. Mrs. Kelly, the mother of Ned and Dan, with two or three others, was subsequently arrested, tried, and convicted for aiding in the shooting of Fitzpatrick, and received long sentences. Warrants were then issued, and a reward of £100 offered for the arrest of Ned and Dan Kelly. For some months nothing was heard of them; they were doubtless in the district, but the police could not lay their hands on them, although every effort was made to capture them. In October 1878, search parties were organized of three or four men, and were sent to search the mountains. The party in charge of Sergeant Kennedy, one of the best men in the force, comprised also Constables Lonergan, Scanlan, and M'Intyre. They had orders to scour the Wombat Ranges. They left Mansfield on the 25th of October, 1878, with pack-horses and provisions to last them some days. Sergeant Kennedy was a shrewd, intelligent man, and there is every reason to believe he had received information of a most positive nature as to where the Kellys were to be found, the information being supplied by a man whom I must call P----, a well-educated fellow, who had held various responsible positions in the district, on the promise from Kennedy that if he arrested the offenders, the reward offered by the Government for their apprehension should be paid to him. It is also stated, that no sooner had P---- given this information to Kennedy and seen the police started in search of the bushrangers, than he went straight to the Kellys and told them that Kennedy was to camp in a certain spot in the Wombat Ranges. Kennedy never for a moment thought the Kellys would attack him; such an idea never entered his head, and he camped for the night in a spot he had selected in the Stringy Bark Ranges, about twenty miles from Mansfield; the country was almost impassable from the impenetrable scrub.