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see them. I couldn’t tell how many horses, but it could easily have been four. We followed them for over an hour over some open country. Even when we crossed a rocky outcrop the trackers didn’t lose the trail for a minute. The tracks led into some dense scrub. I could see the hoof prints disappearing into the trees. The trackers stopped dead and started jabbering to each other again. Then they suddenly turned away from the scrub and headed off down a slope to the east.
    “Where are they going?” I shouted out, though it wasn’t my place to say anything. “The trail leads into the scrub. They’re following a different set of tracks.”
    The natives tried to pretend they couldn’t understand me, though they both looked sheepish.
    Superintendent Nicolson looked at the thick scrub nervously. “These men know what they’re doing,” he said. “We’re in their hands.”
    I stared into the scrub myself. The gums and tea-tree were dense and it was impossible to see more than a few feet into it, but I had a definite feeling that I was being watched. It made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. The Kellys were hiding in that scrub, I was certain. I tried to protest and got threatened with reduced pay if I didn’t mind my own business. I reluctantly followed the search party.
    We came to a billabong. The trackers began shaking their heads and saying they’d lost the trail. Sure enough there were so many tracks around the waterhole no one could make sense of them. It looked like every cow, kangaroo and brumby from miles around had come there to drink.
    “Right then,” said Superintendent Sadleir, looking at his pocket watch. “It must be time for lunch.”
    Superintendent Nicolson nodded, ordering me to unpack the picnic baskets.
    I reckon we got within spitting distance of the Kellys today. Those natives knew they’d be first in line if we walked into an ambush. They led us astray. Sadleir and Nicolson were no better. When it came down to it, they were more interested in saving their skins than catching the Kellys.
    Senior Constable Charles Johnson, Violet Town

     
    In Fear
    Ned could have chosen to head to New South Wales, even to try to get out of the country, perhaps to make a new life in America, but he didn’t. While his mother was in jail, Ned still had a job to do. He wouldn’t be going anywhere until she was freed. Most of the time that the gang was on the run, they were no more than 50 kilometres from the Kelly home at Greta.
    After the Stringybark Creek killings, Ned and his mates were no doubt expecting to be hounded down by a vengeful police force and outraged public. Yet the police force in Victoria, along with most of the general population, were terrified of the Kelly Gang. Though the number of police in North Eastern Victoria was almost doubled, they showed a definite reluctance to go anywhere near places the gang was suspected of being.
    Close Shave
    The Kelly Gang was very lucky. In the early hours of the morning, 36 hours after the killings, the gang was seen trying to find a way across the flooded Ovens River by Constable Bracken, who knew the Kellys. News of the killings hadn’t yet reached the constable. He waited until the telegraph office opened the next morning before he reported the sighting. By the time troopers arrived, the gang had slipped away.
    This wasn’t the only close call. Four days later, local police were hot on the outlaws’ trail. As torrential rain continued to fall and the floodwaters rose, the gang continually found their way blocked by lagoons. With the police right on their tail, the waters had cut them off and they were trapped on an island surrounded by flooded land. The gang were forced to dismount and let their horses go, while they themselves waded into the water to hide in some reeds. Standing up to their necks in water, with their guns wet and useless, they held their breath as the unsuspecting group of policemen rode by. The gang then rounded up