The Argus at KellyGang 22/11/1879 (2)
Captain Moonlite
The doors, windows, and furniture all bear testimony to the outrageous conduct of the gang. The prisoners in the dining room complained of a want of air, and Moonlite thereupon smashed in the three upper panes of the window with the butt of his rifle. A handsome chiffonnier was torn open. A large quantity of china and glassware was destroyed, and the storerooms were ransacked and defiled. They found a number of firearms and a quantity of ammunition on the premises, but not a sufficiency, and Moonlite, with the boy Wernecke, therefore proceeded on the Sunday to the old station and the public house in search of more, and were successful. At the same time, it will be remembered, they ran in a number of additional prisoners. One of the weapons he found at the old house was a Whitworth rifle, for which the owner had never obtained any ammunition, and with his unloaded gun the boy Wernecke guarded some 20 men in the dining room for several hours.
The owner was amongst the prisoners, and knew that the gun was useless as ammunition to suit it was not to be found. He laughed within himself at the idea, but could not see his way clear to seize the boy. The groom of the station, a young married man named M'Miles, was kept busy on Sunday morning manufacturing boxes to hold powder for the gang. Whilst the prisoners were in durance they were supplied by Moonlite with an unlimited supply of liquor from the stores, and several discharged station hands, having drank too much, complained to him that they had been harshly treated by the overseer. These complaints probably account for a good deal of the abuse and ill treatment Mr Baynes received at the hands of the arch offender. The sticking up of the public house was the first cause of the news leaking out. A young man named Seyman passed the hotel soon afterwards, and found Mrs Patterson the landlady, crying at the loss of her children.
Having ascertained the cause of her grief, he rode on, and at another house of call, he met one of the Wantabadgery station hands, a youth named Alex M'Donald, and told him what was going on M'Donald was just returning home after a hard day's ride, but he at once posted off to the Wagga police station, and came on with the constables to Wantabadgery. He was left in charge of the police horses when they approached the house, but after the firing commenced he started, at Constable Rowe's request for assisting to Gundagai. During that night M'Donald rode about 150 miles and used up four horses. When the police were repulsed three of them retired on a neighbouring station, whilst the third (Constable Headles) concealed himself amongst a lot of thistles, within call of the house, and remained there until the gang departed. Halfway between the public house and the scene of the final encounter a dead horse is lying, with several bullet marks on the carcase. This was the valuable animal belonging to Mr Beveridge that Moonlite destroyed as a punishment for Beveridge having come out to assist the police, and close by is the remains of the five where the gun storks were burned. Moonlite was maliciously cruel.
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