ind.

The appearance of the Waddy bushrangers in the police court excited
extraordinary interest at Yarraman, and Tuesday morning witnessed
something very like an exodus from Waddy. Every man and woman who could
possibly get away made the journey to Yarraman, all as partisans of the
prisoners. In Waddy Dick and his fellow imps could not be too severely
condemned; but Waddy refused to recognise the right of outsiders to abuse
them, and however vicious they may have been, it was felt to be the duty
of the township to stand by its own as against the 'townies' and the
witnesses from Cow Flat.

The court was packed, and most of the people of Waddy had to be content
to stand with the crowd that filled the street. An attempt had been made
at the last moment to alter the charge against the boys to insulting
behaviour, or something equally trivial, and all in court looked for much
amusement. In fact, the tremendous bushranging sensation had degenerated
into something very like a farce.

The witnesses for the prosecution were the three young men from McIvor's
run, who made the gallant attack upon the gang and captured Gable;
Billson, the farmer who had been bailed up in his cart; Hogan, the
horseman; the boy Mathieson, the tollman, and the woman, Cox by name.

The young men were now sober and subdued, and the evidence they gave
differed materially from the story told to the police on Saturday night
when they cantered into Yarramnan with their prisoner, drunk and
vainglorious. They admitted now that the gang did not make a very
strenuous resistance to their gallant charge, but insisted that the boys
were armed with revolvers, and that Gable struggled like a demon; and the
old man, standing amongst his fellow prisoners, evidently immensely
delighted with the part he was playing, smiled brightly upon the court
and ejaculated 'Oh, I say! Oh, crickey! 'a propos of nothing in
particular.

Bilison testified to having been bailed up on the Cow Flat road by a gang
of bushrangers, who demanded his money or his life and fired upon him. He
described his hairbreadth escape with primitive eloquence, and was
certain the gang meant to murder him. He was too agitated at the time to
notice whether the bushrangers were men or boys. It was he who overtook
the three young men, but they could not be induced to turn back till the
boy Mathieson came up with them and declared the highwaymen to be a mob
of boys.

Hogan was equally positive about th