SENSATION OF THE BUSH

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume XXIII, 17 May 1922, Page 1

SENSATION OF THE BUSH

BOY BUSHRANGER. The career of Henry Maple, the overgrown boy desperado and bushranger, was brought to a violent termination at 2 o’clock on Monday afternoon, says a Melbourne paper on March 28. Hunted like a wild dog day and night, he was finally brought to bay in a mass of fern that fringes the bush of Glen Nayook. Lying m the fern, he turned his pea rifle on the two parties of attackers. A dozen service rifles spat a reply, and Maple fell with a bullet through his temple. Thus ended the career of one whose incipient criminality threatened development that nobody could contemplate. Ihe day will long live in the memories of the people of Neerim. The young bushranger’s daring, his evidences of crack marksmanship, and the continued inability of the finest bushmen in the district to hunt him down with police assistance, were raising throughout a wide tract of country a state of nervous apprehension. Air Pratt, a farmer, among others, found when he arrived home on Monday morning that his wife and daughters were packing up to come into Neerim Junction. Alaple, the women folk alleged, had passed by early, and pointed a gun at theni, and they would nqt stay in the house an hour longer. “What about the cows’ demanded the farmer, but the /neither and daughters replied in terms more forcible than polite, and Mr Pratt had to hitch his waggon to his horses, and drive the whole family into Neerim Junction.

Unfortunately for Alaple, he did not realise the results of the commotion he was creating, and his gaunt and famished figure passed many a homestead where he had but to knock to secure unchallenged possession. But, of course, there were other homes where the boy’s reception would have been vitally different. Maple knew that, and erred on the side of caution. The general knowledge that Alaple believed he had shot Constable Bartils, and George Woolstencroft dead, and that therefore he would be reckless, made people the more fearful.

Among the local civilian parties were two known as McCarty’s party and Robert’s party, the first in police charge of Constable Lucas, of Richmond, and the second in charge of Constable Roberts. For the most part they comprised farmer bushmen and returned sdldiers, and they looked sternly formidable as, with rifles across their kuees, they swung out in cars toward Glen Nayook; which about two miles to the west of Neerim Junction. Glen Nayook, as its name implies, is a wooded glen at the foot of two sets of rolling hills, thickly timbered, and carpeted at its edge with fern standing about five feet high. It was hereabouts that the boy bushranger was last seen when he eluded the encircling movement of his pursuers in the gathering dusk of the previous evening.

All was still in the bush of Glen Nayook when McCarty’s and Roberts’ parties arrived. The men of Roberts’ party, who arrived first, advanced cautiously, and caught a glimpse of what they imagined to be the figure of a man lying in the ferns. Realising that their quarry must come out into the open if he wanted to get clear, they spread themselves out, and signalled to McCarty’s party to close in. In absolute stillness, McCarty’s bushmen obeyed, and converting themselves into flanking parties, they encircled and closed in upon the spot where they supposed their human quarry to be. Every rifle was cocked. There was no further sign of the quarry for a while, but suddenly one of McCarty’s men pointed to a long stump of a dead tree. From behind it slowly rose the head and shoulders of the boy. There was no doubt it was Maple taking a view of the country. In half an hour he had crawled just 20 feet on his stomach. Instantly, on sighting and locating his attackers, Alaple dropped behind cover. That settled him. Skilful bushman though he might be, the young desperado had his match in craft and marksmanship in the grim circle of bush farmers and soldiers surrounding him. The odds were hopelessly against him. Even as he dropped from view behind one end of the long, dead log, McCarty and the Mill brothers, grizzled, half-shaven bushmen, sprang across the intervening ground and took cover. Along the other end of the log Constable Roberts accompanied them. Thus was staged the final scene of this grim and sad tragedy. On one side of the log, atrthe north end, lay the desperadd/fiis fingers on the trigger of his rifle. On the other side of the log, at the south O od, lay the bushmen and con-

stable, with service rifles cocked, and .303 i bullets ready to fly at sight. Despite the desperate position the men decided to give the boy a chance to come out. “Alaple, give it up,’’ commanded Constable Roberts, raising himself. Ping! The constable fell back, a pea-rifle bullet missing his shoulder by inches. One more chance the men gave the desperate boy. “Come out, Hany ci you’ll be dead meat,” said McCarty, from his side of the log. But there was no answer. At a sign then, McCarty and the Mill brothers sprang updn the log, and pointed their rifles toward the fern at the far end of the log, where a figure i just moved. Ping! The report was I instantaneous, and a second pea-rifle i bullet from the stubborn boy passed beI tween the heads of the Mills brothers. That was the finish. The rifles on the log spat bullets all round the circle. Spit! Spit! Spit! and the deadly.3o3 bullets crashed into the mass of fern. There was a convulsive movement in the fern, and ! then silence. 1 They carried the wounded boy out of | the glen and up the hillside, across the | ploughed paddocks, and laid him down lon the hilltop. The bullet wound over ; his left eye told its own story. It was > the only wound—a lucky shot among that mass of fire directed at the moving figure in the bush. The boy was not dead, though his eyes were closed. When he arrived in the motor-car at Neerim Junction, supported by arms that a few minutes earlier had carried rifles to shoot him, he was still breathing quite regularly. On the way to Warragul, however, whitner he was i immediately conveyed from Neerim Junction, he began to sink, and shortly after I admission to the Warragul Hospital, he ’ died.

The bush telegraph is a wonderful instrument. Within an hour after the termination of the terrible man hunt, Neerim was emptying itself of its surplus life. The Pratt womenfolk were on their way back home, and a sense of security, which this young desperado With a pea-rifle hud so completely disturbed, reigned once more in Neerim.