After this the two bushrangers boldly carried on their depredations, roaming about from station to station, “sticking up” the men, and robbing the masters; while a large party of the police were following on their track.  One day they came to a hut full of men, and, opening the door, tried the old plan of intimidation by standing with loaded double-barrelled pieces in the doorway, and threatening with deep oaths to “drop” the first man of them, who moved hand or foot.  But it happened that several of the pursuing constables were within the hut.  One of them, named Buckmaster, rushed towards Dalton.  The robber fired and the constable fell dead.  Dalton still stood unmoved in the doorway, with his levelled gun, and calmly said “Ah, how d’ye like that?  Now, then, I’m ready for another!” This coolness saved them both and for a time they escaped capture.  But such an outrage on one of their officers roused the Government.  A large reward was offered for the capture of the two bushrangers, and they were hunted through the island more hotly than ever.

Driven to desperation, they seized upon a whaleboat; by threats pressed four boatmen into their service, and actually compelled them to work the boat across Bass’s Straits to the opposite shores of Victoria.  Here they safely landed on the solitary coast of Western Port and made their way up to Melbourne.  News of the escape of these formidable and blood-stained freebooters had been immediately transmitted to the authorities of Victoria.  As they had left Van Diemen’s Land in an open whaleboat, there was no doubt but that they would make for the Western Port shores; and the Victoria police, stimulated by the hope of a large reward, were keenly looking out for two persons answering to the published description of the robbers.  The boatmen who had conveyed them across the Strait were seen and arrested at Dandenong, between Western Port and the Capital; but no further trace of the bushrangers could be obtained.  The Melbourne newspapers furnish us with the conclusion of the tragedy.

The following account of the capture of the chief of these desperadoes, from the Melbourne “Argus” is more like a page from a romance than a passage in real life.  It is one more instance of what appears like a special Providence laying its resistless hand on a murderer at the very moment when he seemed to have secured his escape, and dragging him forth to public justice.  Within four hours after his capture, Dalton would have been on board a ship bound for England.

“Between eleven and twelve o’clock on Friday night, Dalton entered a coffee-shop in Bourke Street, in company with a man who had engaged to put him on board the Northumberland at daylight the next morning from Sandridge, and for which he was to pay L4.  This man, we understand, was quite ignorant of the person he was bargaining with.  Dalton asked the proprietors of the shop, if they could change him some Van Diemen’s Land Notes