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gun had misfired. Ned was frozen to the spot. Hall moved towards him. He pulled the trigger again—and again. The gun misfired for a second and then a third time.
    Ned suddenly came to life. There were still three shots left in the gun. It was pure luck that he’d survived so far. He wasn’t ready to trust to luck any more. He leapt at Hall, one hand grabbing the revolver, the other getting a fistful of the constable’s fat neck. Hall squawked like a chicken about to have its neck wrung. Before I knew it, there were half a dozen men on Ned’s back. Hall pulled the revolver from Ned’s grasp and bashed him over the head with it again and again. I went over to try and stop him, before he killed the boy. Blood was pouring from his head, but Ned was staring straight at Hall’s sweating face. His eyes flickered. He was holding on to consciousness by sheer force of will. I’d guess he didn’t want to give that fat pig the satisfaction of saying he’d knocked Ned Kelly out cold.
    James Gloster, hawker

     
    Short and Sweet
    On Ned’s prison record, under “Particular Marks” is a list of nine scars. Four of them were on his head and were probably the result of Constable Hall hitting him with the butt of his revolver.
    Ned had to have nine stitches in his head. He had only been released from jail a few weeks and he was in trouble again. This time it was more serious. Ned thought the horse he was riding belonged to a man called “Wild” Wright who had been staying at the Kelly house. The horse had been put in a paddock, but had got out and disappeared into the bush. The horse was found after Wild had left. There was one important fact that Wild hadn’t mentioned to the Kellys—the horse wasn’t his. He had stolen it.
    Ned had made an enemy of Senior Constable Hall the previous year. Hall had asked Ned to draw his uncle Jimmy Quinn into a fight so that the police could arrest him. Uncle Jimmy was a troublemaker. Ned didn’t like him. He agreed to help Constable Hall. He had no trouble annoying his uncle enough to make him pick a fight. He ran to the police station for protection and Hall arrested Uncle Jimmy. But when Ned had to tell his story in front of a judge and jury, he confessed that Hall had put him up to it. Since then, Hall had been out to get Ned. When Ned rode into town on a stolen horse, Hall had his opportunity.
    If Constable Hall’s gun had worked properly, the story of Ned Kelly would have ended right there and no one would have remembered his name.
    Justice
    “I threw big cowardly Hall on his belly I straddled him and rooted both spurs onto his thighs he roared like a big calf attacked by dogs.”
    Ned’s version of his arrest by Hall, Jerilderie Letter, February 1879
    Ned insisted that he didn’t know the horse was stolen. If he had known, he would hardly have been so stupid as to ride it around Wangaratta in broad daylight. Constable Hall was keen to get Ned back for letting him down in court. The judge was happy to make an example of the young larrikin. There was a problem though. The horse had been reported stolen while Ned was still in jail, so he couldn’t be charged with horse stealing. He was charged instead with receiving a stolen horse. Wild Wright, the man who had actually stolen the horse, was sentenced to 18 months in jail. Ned was sentenced to three years hard labour.
    Breaking Rocks
    Prison life was hard. First Ned had to serve three months of solitary confinement—one month for each year of his sentence. This was the prison policy at the time. Locked in a cell by himself, he was not permitted to speak to anyone. Ned and other prisoners serving similar sentences were allowed out of their cells into the yard for one hour of exercise each day. So that the isolation continued even when the prisoners were together for this short time, they had to wear hoods that completely covered their heads, with only two small holes for them to see through.
    The rest of Ned’s sentence was served