The rich squatters were in an uproar, horses and cattle vanished like water through a sieve. It was the Greta Mob's doing, a flashy young gang of thieves who had suddenly become organized. Unstoppable, under the leadership of a 22 year old named Ned Kelly. The police knew it was him, but they couldn't catch him. No matter how preposterous the number of livestock he sold, he always had a legal bill of sale for them. In desperation, the superintendent of police issued a formal directive: Officers must arrest the members of the Greta Mob on any charge, no matter how small, and send them to prison with all the force of the law. That's a very good way of taking the flashness out of them. ♪ Ned Kelly certainly had flash. The squatters might have hated him, but the poor farmers who had suffered under their abuse for decades, celebrated Ned everywhere he went. There was always somebody eager to buy him a drink when he came to town, and Ned's ill-gotten gains would often go to buy a round for the whole bar, so that everybody could celebrate squatter riches turning into drinks. But Ned himself wouldn't indulge. He'd never forgotten the final year of his father's life. He had never forgot watching the man he so admired waste away in a drunken haze. So Ned never got drunk. That is until one evening, in September of 1877, Ned had stopped in for drinks at the local hotel, and happened to sit next to a young officer named Alexander Fitzpatrick. A fellow Irishman about Ned's age, Fitzpatrick had only recently joined the police, and still had a bit of that scoundrel quality that Ned could not help but like. They bought each other drinks, toasted to each other's health, and the next morning, Ned awoke in a haze with a splitting hangover... in a prison cell. Fitzpatrick had arrested him outside the bar on charge of public drunkenness. Ned could not believe it. He wasn't a drinker, but he was no lightweight, either. It would take more than a beer or two to black him out. Unless... ...someone had drugged him, and Fitzpatrick looked awfully nervous. The young officer had set him up, Ned was sure of it. No doubt Fitzpatrick sought praise for being the man to finally bring in Ned Kelly, for finally taking the flashness out of him. Well, Ned was not going to let Fitzpatrick have that victory. Tearing away from the handcuff Fitzpatrick tried to put on him, Ned charges into the street. Four police officers run after him, yelling for passers-by to seize him. Nobody dares, but one brave soul manages to trip Ned, and sends him careening into a nearby shop. The officers run after him, and even shop keep joins the fray. All five jump at him. One officer, desperately trying to get a grip on Ned, accidentally catches the hem of his pants and pulled them down. Another one sees this and thinks: "Hmm..." "I know what kind of pain would stop any full-grown man in his tracks". And that is when things really get... eh, well...nuts. Because pain does not stop Ned Kelly. No no no... Ned roars in fury, and throws the officers off him like broken toys. He kicks Fitzpatrick so hard, that the young policeman flies into a wall and is knocked unconscious. But the officer who grabbed Ned Kelly's nethers continues to hold on for dear life. The local magistrate, hearing all of this noise, comes in to investigate. And when he sees what is going on, he immediately yells at the officers: "YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELVES!!!" They drop off Ned, and he gets to pull his pants up. Feeling vindicated, Ned limping more than a little at this point, tamely agrees to let the magistrate take charge from here. He allows the magistrate to handcuff him. He goes to his court appointment, gentle as a lamb, and pleads guilty to all charges. He pays his fines on the spot, and walks away a legend. As for Fitzpatrick, he was left nursing a headache, and a grudge. Since he couldn't really strike at Ned, Fitzpatrick instead took aim at Ned's younger brother: Dan Kelly. Dan was only 16, but he'd been running with his big brother's Greta Mob since the beginning. The police had finally tracked one of the illegal horse sales back to Dan, and put a warrant out for his arrest. Fitzpatrick decided that he was going to be the man to bring Dan in. So he rode 17 miles out of his way, threw down a few beers to boost his courage, and showed up late one afternoon on the Kelly's doorstep. Ellen Kelly, Ned's mother, wanted none of it. She had watched her siblings, her in-laws, her husband, and now her children dragged before a prejudice court. And she still carried a grudge over Ned getting three years in prison for riding a horse that he hadn't even stolen. She demanded to see a warrant, Fitzpatrick didn't have it with him. So she told him to get the hell out of her house. Fitzpatrick would later claim that she came after him with a shovel. The Kelly family insisted that he started it by pulling his gun on her. Either way, things got heated up fast. Dan leaped for the gun, twisting it out of Fitzpatrick's grasp. At the same moment, Ned drew his own pistol and fired three warning shots above the police officer's head. But Fitzpatrick flailed when Dan came after him, and one bullet grazed his wrist. The shock hit all of them at once. Ned hurried to make amends, sitting Fitzpatrick down at the table helping him dig out the bullet with a small knife. Ellen Kelly bandaged the wound, and Dan gave back his gun. Shaken, and not a little scared for his life, Fitzpatrick agreed that it had all been a misunderstanding. He promised not to say a word about what happened, went back to his horse, and rode away. Hours later, in the dead of night, a drunk and disorderly Fitzpatrick barged into the house of a fellow officer and announced: "I've been shot at by Ned Kelly." Word spreads like wildfire. At long last, the police had a solid claim against Ned Kelly: Attempted murder. They rode like the wind, but Ned and Dan had already been warned. They disappeared into the bush, that great Australian wilderness that lay just on the outskirts of colonial settlements. But their mother hadn't gone anywhere, and after all, she had swung a shovel at a police officer. The police arrested Ellen Kelly with a two month old baby in her arms, and dragged her off to prison. When they found out, Ned and Dan grew frantic. They had to remain in hiding, but friends in town helped them hire a lawyer and organize their mother's defense. Alas, it was no good. The court sentenced her to three years hard labor. Ned and Dan sent a message offering to give themselves up in exchange for her freedom, but the court would promise no such thing. And why would they? The police had organized search parties to find the missing Kelly brothers. It would only be a mater of time before they caught them. Then all of these criminals would be in jail, and the Greta Mob that had so terrorized the region would be leaderless and broken. The first search party embarked with high spirits, full of bravado. They bragged about how they would gun Ned Kelly down on sight, joked loudly about who would get first blood on him. They might not have been so bold if they had realized that Ned Kelly had tracked them to their camp. Ned knew that they wanted to kill him, and he knew that his situation was desperate. His closest friends from the Greta Mob had joined him in the bush, but they only had two guns between the four of them, and the best of those guns was barely held together by wire and string. Ned was the best shot, so he took it. They talked the police camp, and waited until the afternoon shadows grew long. And then, the police officers made that classic mistake: They split the party. Two of them go scouting, while the other two remained behind to make camp. As soon as he is sure they're alone, Ned steps out of the bushes, and shouts: "BAIL UP! THROW UP YOUR HANDS!" The first man, constable McIntyre, does so immediately. The other man races for the cover of a nearby log, and pulls his own revolver. He peers over the log, and takes aim, but... Ned pulls a Han Solo. The shot goes right into the officer's eye, giving him just enough time to scream that he's dying, then he falls. Constable McIntyre, hands still in the air, watches Ned slowly approached the corpse. Ned as never killed a man before, much less a police officer. McIntyre hears him wonder out loud: "What made the fool run?" But it's done now, Ned Kelly has killed a policeman, and the day is not over yet. There are still two more police officers out scouting, and Ned doesn't want to repeat this incident. He promises not to hurt McIntyre. All he really wants is to take the horses and the guns, and send this whole search party home empty-handed. They have a chat while Ned's friends searched the camp, and McIntyre agrees to help convince the other officers to surrender peacefully. They should be back soon. But when they do return, they do not take kindly to McIntyre's suggestion that the surrender. And they take even less kindly to having Ned's gang points guns at them. After all their bragging about shooting Ned on sight, one officer tries to do exactly that. But he misses, and Ned shoots him off his horse. The officer fires also, but he knows he's outgunned. He makes a break for the trees, and Ned runs after him. In the commotion, officer McIntyre grabs a loose horse, and takes off at a desperate gallop. Leaving the final officer alone to meet his fate, at the hands of Ned Kelly. When McIntyre roars back into town with news of the murdered policeman, everything changes for Ned Kelly and his three companions. They are no longer the Greta Mob, they are the Kelly Gang.
