N O T U R I N G B A C K N O W
The four young men, were now enjoying what they thought to be the perfect lives away from the police, judges and basically the law.
That all changed on October 26th 1878, when Dan Kelly told Ned that he had seen tracks leading across Stringy bark creek. Ned on investigation followed the tracks of whom who lead to a camp of looked to be of only two policemen.
Ned's plan was to ' bail them up ' take their fire arms, and let them go free in the morning.
Ned told Byrne and Hart to stay where they were Ned said it was Dan Kelly's and Ned's problem not their problem Byrne and Hart refused and came with them.
They crouched low in the long sear-grass, Ned shot up and bellowed " Bail up "
“I was compelled to shoot them, or lie down and let them shoot me it would not be wilful murder if they packed our remains in, shattered into a mass of gore to Mansfield, they would have got great praise and credit as well as promotion but I am reckoned a horrid brute because I had not been cowardly enough to lie down for them under such trying insults to my people certainly their wives and children are to be pitied but they must remember those men came into the bush with the intention of scattering pieces of me and my brother all over the bush...” from Ned Kelly's Jerilderie Letter
Lonigan shot up, revolver in hand, Kelly quickly opened fire on Lonigan, killing him instantly.
McIntyre surrender immediately. McIntyre told Ned there were two more troopers returning from down the creek. Ned informed McIntyre to force them to surrender.
Once Scanlon and Kennedy returned from searching off track for the Kelly Gang, Kelly called on them to
" Bail up "
Scanlon opened fire with his Spencer repeating rifle almost hitting Dan Kelly, Ned fired, Scanlon was thrown backwards.
Kennedy dodged from tree to tree firing the occasional shot. In Ned's own words:
“Kennedy kept firing from behind the tree my brother Dan advanced and Kennedy ran. I followed him he stopped behind another tree and fired again. I shot him in the armpit and he dropped his revolver and ran I fired again with the gun as he slewed around to surrender. I did not know that he had dropped his revolver, the bullet passed through the right side of his chest and he could not live or I would have let him go...”
In the in-shilling battle, McIntyre leapt on Kennedy's horse who bolted through the camp at full pace. McIntyre escaped to Mansfield to tell of the supposed " Cowardly " act put forward by the Kelly gang.
Ned covered up Kennedy's body and admitted he was the bravest man he had ever met. The gang rode off back to Bullock creek hut in which Ned tried to burn the hut down.
