Constable McHale and John Dunn were conveyed as carefully as possible, and by slow stages, from Walgett to the lock-up at Dubbo, to be nursed back to health. After some weeks, Dunn appeared to be growing strong, and as his character was well known, it was deemed expedient to put him in irons. He resented this treatment, very naturally perhaps, and refused to eat. He groaned so continuously that he prevented McHale, who was in bed in the same room in the watch-house, from sleeping. The police were taken in by this shamming, and thought that Dunn was dying. They therefore took off his irons. The watch-house was an ordinary four-roomed weather-board cottage with a verandah. It had been built as a residence for the local policeman. Behind, was a stronger building divided into two or three cells for the safe-keeping of the few evil-doers likely to be arrested in this settlement on the borders of civilisation. The sick men were in bed in the cottage, the window of which was only a couple of feet above the level of the plain on which the town of Dubbo stands. Dunn was not altogether shamming. He was very weak, but he was strong enough when his irons were removed to watch for an opportunity to escape. He placed his pillow length-ways in the bed, covered it with the sheet, which was the only covering required in that district at that time of the year, and placed a red silk handkerchief where his head was supposed to rest, as if to keep the flies or mosquitoes off his face. This was no doubt done to induce McHale, and any one else who came into the room, to believe that he was still sleeping. However, when daylight came, McHale saw that the thing in the other bed was not Dunn and pounded on the floor with a boot, being too weak to shout. At the time the police on duty in the next room were laughing and joking about something, and it was some minutes before McHale could make them hear. At length one of them came in, and on being told that Dunn was gone, gave the alarm. The tracks in the dust outside showed that the robber had simply stepped out of the window, which was kept open on account of the heat, and had made for the bush. It was Sunday morning, January 11th, 1866, and very few people were about in the little town. The tracks were lost among the number of tracks in the roadway and there was no one to give the police any information as to the direction in which the bushranger had gone. Search parties were organised and sent out in all directions.
About two miles away a brickmaker was watching his kiln and gathering brushwood for his fire, although it was Sunday morning, when a man crawled out from behind a log and begged for a "drink of water, for God's sake." It was Dunn. He told the brickmaker who he was and begged him to lend him a horse to get away. "Only save me from hanging and I'll make it up to you," he cried, but the brickmaker refused. He went and caught his horse and rode into Dubbo to inform the police, who returned with him and recaptured the runaway. Dunn was forwarded to Bathurst without delay and was lodged in the gaol, while Smith, the brickmaker, was rewarded for the assistance he had rendered in effecting the recapture of the noted bushranger.
By the latter end of February Dunn was sufficiently recovered from the effects of his wound to be placed on trial. He was charged with the murder of Constable Nelson. The evidence shows that a number of persons had been stuck up on the road between Taradale and Collector. They were marched to Kimberley's Hotel and taken inside by Hall and Gilbert, while Dunn remained outside in charge of the horses. Dunn called a boy, who was standing in the street and who chanced to be the son of Constable Nelson, and told him to hold the horses and not let them go unless he wanted his brains blown out. The party in the hotel were singing and dancing, and the constable hearing the noise walked from the watch-house to where his son was and asked him what was going on. The boy told him the bushrangers were there and the constable returned to his house for his gun. When he came back he did not see Dunn, who was hiding behind the fence, and walked towards the front door of the hotel, when he was shot as already related. Gilbert came to the door immediately and Dunn cried out "I've shot the—— trap." Gilbert walked to where the body was lying, turned it over, and took off the belt, saying "This is just what I wanted. I've lost mine." At that moment Hall came up and the three bushrangers took their horses and went off. Dunn was found guilty and sentenced to death. He was hung on March 19th, 1866. He was of slight build and only twenty-two years old when he died.
Of the chief members of this gang Gardiner was sentenced to thirty-two years' penal servitude; Vane surrendered owing to the influence of Father McCarthy and was sent to gaol for fifteen years; Bow and Fordyce were sentenced to death, but their sentences were commuted to fifteen years' imprisonment; Manns, Peisley, and Dunn were hanged; Lowry, Ben Hall, and Gilbert were shot by the police, and Burke and O'Meally by civilians; Mount or "the Old Man" was sent to gaol for ten years.
There were others who either claimed or were supposed to be members of this gang, but it is difficult to say with certainty how far these claims were justified. Some of these have already been referred to, and others will be mentioned further on. Probably some who intended to join the gang were captured before they had an opportunity to do so. Others merely said they had been out with Ben Hall or Johnny Gilbert on account of the kudos they gained among their fellows. However this may be, the majority of the members of this gang were quite young men, many of them little more than boys. Several were under twenty years of age, and all with the exception of Mount, sometime known as "the Old Man," under thirty. Their lives may have been exciting, but they were short, and none of them, with the exception of Gardiner perhaps, made any money by their robberies. They all died poor.
Bloodthirsty Morgan; Morgan's Opinion of the Police; Murder of Sergeant McGinnerty; Murder at the Round Hill Station; A Pseudo Morgan; Morgan Threatens to Brand all Hands; He Shoots Sergeant Smyth; Challenged to Visit Victoria; He Accepts the Challenge; His Death at Peechelba.
Daniel Morgan began his career as a bushranger shortly after the Great Escort Robbery, by sticking up travellers on the roads about Wagga Wagga. His head-quarters generally were said to be in the huge patch of scrub, which stretched away southward, from the Murrumbidgee River across the low ranges between Wagga Wagga and Narrandera. He was credited with being the most bloodthirsty of the New South Wales bushrangers after Willmore. We have seen that some of the members of the chief gang of this era held human life very cheaply, but it was the general opinion that, except in the case of a few Chinamen, these bushrangers murdered only when on the warpath. In many cases they met the police boldly, and fought with some degree of fairness; while Morgan, on more than one occasion, fired on unarmed, and in some cases sleeping men. For some months he pursued his career without much interference from the police, and it was said that some of the members of the Hall and Gilbert gang had made a raid to the Southern district. When it became apparent that he had no connection with that gang and continued his depredations alone, a party of police was detailed to hunt him down about the middle of 1863. In August of that year, this party of police tracked him for several days, and came on his camp on the 22nd. A desperate fight took place, in which Morgan's mate was severely wounded and crawled into the bush to die. This man was known as "German Bill." On the other side, Mr. Bayliss, J.P., a volunteer who accompanied the police, was severely wounded. He recovered, however, and was awarded a gold medal by the New South Wales Government for bravery in opposing bushrangers. Morgan made his escape in the scrub. Later on the same day a shepherd was shot dead on Brookong station, and it was supposed that the murderer was in league with Morgan. About Christmas Morgan with three companions watched the road, near Narrandera, with the intention of sticking-up several wealthy squatters who were in the habit of travelling to Melbourne at about that time of the year. Fortunately for themselves, they that year took a cross track, and thus escaped the meeting. While waiting Morgan took about 2lb. of cheese from a bullock driver named John Cole. There were several cheeses in the dray, and when Morgan said he should "like a bit" Cole offered him one, and told him to "take the lot." Morgan replied that "the—— traps would risk their necks climbing over the area railings for a leg of mutton. I don't know what they'd do for a whole cheese, but this lump's enough for me." He afterwards remarked that the police generally were "a sour milk lot."