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their horses and as darkness fell, they risked lighting a small fire to dry themselves and their guns.
    They eventually crossed the flooded Ovens River, but this involved a daring dash through the town of Wangaratta in the dead of night. Little did they know that 22 troopers, brought in for the search and due to start searching the following day, were sleeping in a local hotel. Once again, the gang were seen, this time by local farmers. From the direction they were heading in, it looked like they were planning to take cover in the Warby Ranges.
    Top Brass
    “… a parcel of big ugly fat-necked wombat headed big bellied magpie legged narrow hipped splaw-footed sons of Irish Bailiffs or English landlords which is better known as Officers of Justice or Victorian Police…”
    Ned’s opinion of the police, Jerilderie Letter
    So far Ned and his friends had had luck on their side. But as police officers moved in from around Victoria, they also had something else on their side—the unintentional help of incompetent and cowardly senior police officers.
    Top-ranking policemen were sent to head the hunt for the Kelly Gang. Superintendent Nicolson had been put in charge of the search. Superintendent Sadleir, head of the North Eastern Victoria police district, joined him. The Chief Commissioner of Police, Captain Standish, came up from Melbourne to take part in the search. Inspector Brooke Smith from Beechworth was also called in.
    Brooke Smith was one of the policemen who had been sleeping in the hotel when the gang crept through Wangaratta. The next morning, when an excited constable told him the news of a Kelly Gang sighting right in Wangaratta, Inspector Brooke Smith didn’t see any need to rush off immediately. In fact it was two days before the inspector and his party were ready to set out after the gang. Even then they didn’t head for the Warby Ranges, but further north.
    Inspector Brooke Smith was never in a hurry to get after the Kelly Gang. He didn’t like getting up early in the morning. It sometimes took his men more than four hours to get him out of bed. At other times they’d leave without him and he’d catch up with them after lunch. He didn’t like camping out in the bush either. Even when, by pure luck, they came across fresh tracks, he insisted on going back to his comfortable hotel in Wangaratta for the night. By the time they rode back to the tracks the following morning, the Kellys were long gone.
    “…that article that reminds me of a poodle dog half clipped in the lion fashion, called Brooke E. Smith Superintendent of Police he knows as much about commanding Police as Captain Standish does about mustering mosquitoes and boiling them down for their fat…”
    Ned’s opinion of Brooke Smith, Jerilderie Letter
    Rats’ Castle Fiasco
    Superintendents Sadleir and Nicolson didn’t do much better. Information had been received from a man who was “not quite sober” that the Kellys were hiding in hills near Beechworth. Even though this information was unreliable and five days old, a search of the rocky area, known locally as Rats’ Castle, was planned.
    Neither Sadleir nor Nicolson wanted to take charge of the raid and each led separate groups of men. They had no firm plan, but thought that the Kellys might be sleeping in a hut in the area and if they struck before dawn they could capture them.
    The police assembled in the dark. The Chief Commissioner, Captain Standish, joined the company. He had emigrated to Australia using a false name to escape gambling debts in England. He continued to be addicted to gambling in the colonies. He once lost six months salary in one night.
    Standish and other enthusiastic local men were all keen to go down in history as the men who caught the Kellys. Some newspaper reporters from Melbourne also joined the search party which by now was nearly 50 strong.
    Under cover of darkness, they raided three huts, but the noise of so many horses could be heard for miles around. Even if