Parcel 11, "His Life At 25 Years of Age" Summary

Parcel 11 is home to two main events. One is an argument between Ned and Mary that results in Mary leaving him. The other is the famous event of the Kelly Gang taking over the entire town of Jerilderie.

The beginning of the chapter shows the constables' and local politicians' desperate reaction to prove they were doing something about the Kelly gang, in which they arrested twenty-one people and put them in prison just for knowing Ned Kelly. A few really were Ned Kelly's friends, a few were simply unlucky enough to have been at the same wedding as him ten years before. The gang takes advantage by chipping in to do field work when harvest time came, and they won themselves allies and places to hide all through that...