DAN KELLY, Outlaw.

Auckland Star, Volume XLII, Issue 191, 12 August 1911, Page 17

DAN KELLY, Outlaw.

CEIXG THE MEMOIRS OF DANIEL KEI-LY (BBOTHEB OP' EDWARD KSLI.I', LEADER OF THE KELLY GANG OF BUSHRANGERS). SUFI'OsED TO HAVE BEEN SLAIN IN TUB FAMOUS FIGHT AT GLENROWAN.

Edited by AMBROSE PRATT. CHAPTER XXV. WOOLSHED. £n Immediate result of the Jerlldcrle affair was another raising of the Govern aiciit reward. The authorities of New South W ales and Victoria combined their resources, and issued a proclamation offering il-fiO for each of our heads, or for information that would lead to our capture, glivt- or dead. They might have spared Uieu-scives the trouble at that time, our friends were faithful. Our pockets bulged with money. Aarou Sherritt seemed, just Lhi-u. cur only danger. Ned was for shooting him on sight, but Byrne begged so iard tor his old schoolfellow's life that he was "I length permitted to see Aaron and give him a chance of redeeming himself. The idea was scarcely sane, but it was kindly conceived, and it lengthened Aaron's days. On being confronted with proofs of his attempted treachery, he affected sincere repentance, and swore, if we would forgive him, to have no more to do with the police. Joe, Steve, and Ned freely pardoned him. but 1 could not, and I never spoke to him from that day to the end, because I felt in my very bones that the man was built on crooked lines, and soon or lute wouid try to -work our ruin. What shall I say of the next fifteen months that Is not matter of history? Every Australian knows that from March 13TD until June 18SO the entire police force of Victoria strove to capture us in vain. The authorities brought troops of black trackers from Queensland to help them in their quest; every few months fresh commanders were uppotiited— fresu plans of campaign were invented and fresh methods essayed. But It was all one. The records frankly confess that in all that long period the police were never nnce even reasonably certain of our wherenbouts, never once came In sight of us, and never once succeeded in putting us to the necessity of a gallop to evade arrest. Their sole triumph was that their ceaseless, furious activity, and the tremendous precautions which they took for the protection of the bank towns in the district, prevented ns from making further raids on the Euroa and Jerllderie model. It has to be admitted, nevertheless, that the triumph in question, although of barren seeming at the moment, carried consequences In Its train most serious to us. Obliged to be idle and to refrain from robberies, our money gradually dwindled. We were as safe In our mountain fastnesses as we should have been dwelling in another planet, for aught the police could do to lay their hands upon us; but we soon became poor, and, with our growing poverty, came misery unspeakable. Our Increasing inability to reward the services of our friends bred in us distrust and suspicion of our friends. We began to watch them for signs of treachery and to spy in secret upon their going and coming. By turns me all fell sick. We recovered, but not from the anxieties which sickness had Intensified. Before the year ended we were Tour gaunt, wild-eyed wolves. Dife was the only treasure left to us. We had worn out the patience of the majority of our Intimates. Only our nearest relatives retained our confidence or cared to come near os. Vet wo craved most hungrily for the society of our fellows, even of those we feared and distrusted most, and, driven by this craving, we spent our days hanging about the confines of the settlement, our nights In paying risky visits to houses we dared not venture near by day. It was our deepest punishment to realise little by little that even our mothers, brothers and •Isters, splendidly loyal as they were, felt the strain we put upon their loyalty, and secretly appraised the end. One sad day Joe Byrne's mother advised him to surrender to the police, even though he should he hanged. Better death, she said, than the evil life he led and the dog's life to which he had- dragged his flesh and blood. On another day I found Kate weeping, and her reason broke my heart —a gallows dream with Ned upon the drop. On still another day Steve Hart's brother entreated him to save his neck by turning Queen's evidence against the gang. Fifty times a week we assured each other that at all hazards we must make another raid Immediately or we should be most certainly betrayed by one or more amongst our old-time dearest friends. The reward wqb there—£Booo—and any one of some three or four hundred persons could have earned It w-lith trouble, any one of three or four score without. It was clearly only n question of time for inaction to generate defeat, or so It appeared to us. Yet we delayed! Why? I cannot tell. We were under a sort of spell. We were harassed and anxious, most wretched, and horribly afraid. We wished, but dared not move. We made a dozen score of plans, and, when the times arrived to put them Into execntlon, one by one we gave them np. At whiles we procured spirit from various of our relatives and tried to drown our sorrows thus. But never were there gloomier carousals. Ned's girl upbraided him constantly by letter and by word, calling him a coward more th.-in once. Joe Byrne's sweetheart fled the district to marry a man on the Gippsland side. Steve Hart's sweetheart died. I went twice by night in peril of my life to try and get a word with Norah Clancy. Her mother drove me on etiih occasion with curses from the door. Days there were when we climbed I high peaks, and surveyed the country with I a counterfeited shadow of determination; ! but we would mark the smoke of the . patrol fires and despondently descend. We were hemmed In on every side. The mountains alone were free to us, yet not entirely, long. I'olice parties Invaded Hie pusses a<- of daily habit, once the new year broke, carrying their operations from the I War!.;- :i> the limits of Strnthbogle. Near j Mr- ynto's house a strong camp was' esi: he.! from April onwards in order to I cut .'. -ii,. visits of her unhappy son: and | On-'. -. ..line the home of a considerable : dc 1 - ..... •!>; o: mounted troopers. Our closest fri. and iclatives were kept under the . Btt -. espionage, and. In the fullest seuse. we ,-. :-:-c besieged. My sisters were angels] i' . ..t.-y. and their kindness and courage' km -,'. no bounds. But clever as they were, they .-mid not always deceive and elude the vigilance of the police to carry us provisions, and at times we wanted food for nights and days. It would be impossible to exaggerate, yet it is ditilcult to describe, the sufferings that we endured. The policy of the police was to isolate, starve us, and moke us so desperate that we might be j drlvm to commit some act of suicidal folly , that would place us in their power. Not i content with shutting us up in the inoun- | tains and standing on sentinel over our near reintioiis, they wooed our friends to their aide and circulated reports in every direction that their success on this head •was greater Chan the truth. Our old-time depeodonta and hangera-on, and "bush MleSTODha" disappeared completely from

our ken. We came to regard most of them lis traitors and police ngeutß, and It is doubtful If we erred. Certainly, my sisters thoroughly believed them false. It is true that we contrived continually, in spite of all the police could do, to visit our old homes and snatch occasional interviews with our families; but we had t» «al;e these excursions singly, in diKgul**. and unarmed, save for concealed revolves*. And smh visits were rather a torture than n pleasure. They taught us the anguish of the wolf hiding In a den begirt with hounds. They brought us to a bitter knowledge of our true estate—hunted murderers —execrated by the world, for whose blood a whole race thirsted. At every little unwonted sound we started to our feet prepared t.i tfKlit like wild beasts for our lives; and tiie distant echo of a hoof-beat wouid send us slinking into covert like terrorstricken shades. It was not until the closing toils pressed hard upon our flesh that we awakened from our nervous sloth. The Queensland aborigines aroused us. These black trackers for several months had served the police but ill. The reason was, they feared xik, being cowards, and they had never dared to lead the constables within reach of our rifles. But our long abstention from crimes of violence gradually destroyed our dreadful reputations in their eyes. They became emboldened, and began to harry us, bringing the police closer and closer to our strongholds, and sometimes forcing us to flit before their coming. Death stared us in the face. We mocked the spectre, taking courage from d^espair.

A council was called, the first time for many days, and four men took part in it. We determined on a deed to startle all Australia. The police must be taught to hold us iu respect. They had sought our heads too long without retaliation. We must hunt them in our turn. We left that conference, our minds relentlessly resolved on wholesale murder, and with a plan to execute our mission in absolute personal security. We would make us suits of armour, bullet proof. Two days later we stole several plough shears and mould-boards from certain farms in the Oiley neighbourhood, and carried the parts to a smith and engineer, oue of the few friends left whom we were sure that we could trust. This man (who shall be nameless for his chilren's sake) made us, In the course of twelve days, four heavy suits of quarter Inch plate mall, weighing 100 lbs apiece, to cover our heads and bodies, and capable of defying a rifle bullet filed at point blank range. Onr next need was a confederate. To such mean proportions had our list of helpers dwindled, that we were forced to have recourse to Aaron Sherritt. Some time earlier he had married his Beechworth sweetheait (after revenging himself on Miss Byrne for jilting him by stealing her best horse), ahd he was then living at Woolshed. An appointment was made, nnd a rendezvous fixed at his house. Somehow or another Kate Kelly (my sister) heard it (we did not tell her), and so deeply did she distrust Aaron that she spied upon and shadowed him. Her suspicions weie justified. He went to Mr Hare with the whole story, and on the evening of the rendezvous an inner room of his house was filled with police. We watched them enter from our hiding in the scrub, and there and then we sentenced the traitor to death. Joe Byrne demanded to be his executioner. The request was granted, Ned only stipulating that the killing or Aaron should be part and parcel of his larger design against the police. And now to describe his design, as It was perfected on that spot. Here it is In a few plain words. Some forty miles from Woolshed is the small village of Glenrowan, situated right übieast of the railway line. On the Wangaratta side of Glenrowan the railway takes a curve so sharp that the line beyond is quite hidden from an approaching engine. It was proposed that the gang should separate on a fixed day. Ned and Steve should go to Glenrowan, seize and hold the town; Joe and I should go to Woolshed and kill Aaron Sherritt, then ride across country to join onr companions at Glenrowan. The news of the murder would, of course, be telegraphed Immediately to the police headquarters at Benalla. Equally, of course, a big body of troopers would be immediately entrained and dispatched to the scene of the murder. That train would have to pass through Glenrowan. We would prepare for It by tearing up the rails beyond the cuive I have already mentioned. The train would be wrecked and many of the troopers killed. Those who escaped would fail before our pistols, and we, firing upon them as they struggled from the wreckage, would run no risk of hurt because protected by our armour. Such In brief was the desperate and diabolical Bcheme by means of which we hoped to strike such terror through the country, that we might win for ourselves a period of peace. I must now relate the history of Its prosecution, nnd those who read these lines will for the first time be presented with the truth unvarnished by the speculations nnd Inventions of the many current chroniclers of the event whose writings have passed hitherto unchallenged. On the morning of June 2oth, 1880, Ned Kelly, Joe Byrne, Steve Hart, nnd I mounted our horses on the ledge of Number Seven, and after shaking hands all round, we set out In two parties in nearly opposite directions. Byrne and I rode north. At nightfall we camped beside n tiny waterfall and rested there, until the following afternoon, when we mounted again and pursued our journey. We reached the environs of Woolshed by dusk, nnd reconnoitred the place on foot. Aaron Sherritt's little house was. of course, the chief object of onr scrutiny. He had for company that evening his wife's ■mother, Mrs Barry, nnd fonr constables. Forty would scarcely have saved him from our vengeance. When we grasped the odds J we had to face a stiatagem seemed essential. The devil befriended us. Hardly had we returned to our horses when we saw a German miner named Anton Wlckes coming along the road. We knew the man well, and be was no friend. We promptly resolved to use him as a decoy and shield. In n moment be was our handcuffed prisoner. Menaced with Instant death for disobedience, he served us well. We forced him to pioceed before us to Sherritt's house nnd knock upon the door. The dark had fallen, those within were having tea. Aaron's voice shouted: "Who Is there?" Joe Byrne, standing flat against-the wall, pressed the muzzle of his rifle agfllnst the German's cheek. Wlckes replied: "It's me, I've lost my way."

Mrs Sherritt thereupon opened the door and said: "It's Anton Wlckes. He has lost his way," and she drew back. A second or two afterwards Aaron stepped to '.he threshold, saying: "Lost your way? What nonsense, man!" They were his last words. P.yrne's rifle spoke, and Aaron staggered back into the house, falling mortally wounded to the floor. The women screamed and rushed to bis aid. The four constables darted panic-stricken into the bedroom. Byrne crossed 'he threshold of the outer door and firrd again Into the body of the dying man. Then he called upon the police to come out and fight him, and I hurried to his side. The police for answer crept under the beds in the chamber, where they skulked, and when a moment later Mr» Harry and Mrs Sherritt, who were aimlessly running about and screaming distractedly, went Into the room, the miserable cowards actually pulled the women under the beds as shields to save their own wretched skins. We peered Into the room and could hardly believe the evidence of our senses. For a while we stood and taunted the poltroons, increasing their terror by flrtof off

our pieces and threatening to burn the house; but at length, overmastered with disgust, we departed from the house of deali, and set off at top speed for Glenrowan. We arrived there in the early afternoon of the next day, and reported to Ned, who was in lull possession of the village. (Concluded Next Saturday.)