It is no uncommon occurrence in the Australian Colonies for a large number of shearers or others collected in the hut in the country to be “stuck up,” that is, subdued and bound, by two or three determined bushrangers.  Fifteen or sixteen strong active men may be thus treated, and have been, frequently.  At first, one is ready to conclude either that they must have a private understanding with the robbers or else be the veriest poltroons.  I thought so myself till I had an account of one of these affairs from a man who had been one of a large party thus “stuck up” by two very notorious bushrangers, the life and death of whom, would furnish materials for a romance.  Their names were Dalton and Kelly, and they will long be famous in the annals of daring and outrage in Van Diemen’s Land.

Dalton was a stout, powerful man, and about thirty years of age at the time of the rencontre I am about to describe.  His accomplice Kelly, was about twenty-three years old.  They were both prisoners of the Crown in Van Diemen’s Land.  Dalton was transported at an early age, and had for a time been confined in the “Ocean Hell” of Norfolk Island, the gaol of the double-damned convict; but was afterwards taken back to Van Diemen’s Land.  From the same informant I learned some particulars of their escape.  They were confined in a penal establishment on a strait or an arm of the sea, wide enough, it was thought, to preclude the possibility of flight.  Dalton, Kelly, and five or six other prisoners, however, weary of a wretched life, determined to risk that life for liberty; and having one day eluded the vigilance of their guards, attempted, though their legs were weighed down with fetters, to swim to the opposite shore.  One after another their strength failed them; they sank and disappeared till at length only Kelly and Dalton survived.  Kelly’s strength was rapidly waning, when Dalton called out to him “Catch hold of me, Kelly!  I can swim another hour yet.”

When at last they both got safe to land, Dalton exclaimed, “Well, thank God, I shall have one comrade at any rate.”

They now quickly freed themselves from their irons, procured arms, and, knowing that they would certainly be hotly pursued they at once started on a marauding expedition, visiting the neighbouring stations in succession, and pillaging each; intending eventually, to make their way across Bass’s Straits to Victoria.  Dalton was a very formidable fellow; strong, active, and resolute, reckless of human life, and now rendered desperate by despair.  He was, too, a first-rate marksman, and could “stick up a glass bottle.”

What follows is an account given me by my informant.  Kelly came up to the hut, which was full of men.  I was standing at the door at the time, but did not know who the man was.  When he came close he asked me if I had heard that the bushrangers were out.  I answered “Yes, I had.”  Then he pointed his gun at me, and said “I’m one of them.  Go into the hut.”  I went