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The police party knowing that there was a strong likelihood of use his prerogative of mercy. Sir Hercules Robinson decided that
the armed bushrangers making more attempts to recover “their” Gardiner had been harshly sentenced and in 1874 released him
booty travelled through the night to Narraburra . Incredibly the po- subject to his exile.
lice in pursuit were now the pursued. Pottinger sent a messenger This decision provoked a public controversy with petitions,
forward to Captain Bettye at Lambing Flat and arranged for eleven counter-petitions and violent debates in the Legislative Assembly,
troopers to converge on Narraburra to aid them . and led to the fall of Parkes’s government. On 27 July 1874 Gar-
The bushrangers had by this time disappeared. The local police diner embarked for Hong Kong and by February 1875 was in San
arrested several suspects in and around the gold fields while Sen- Francisco .
ior Sergeant Sanderson, recently promoted, arrested five more at However, Gardiner’s story does not end there. From time to
Wheogo. Money found on these men matched that stolen during time, the Australian press continued stories about his alleged ac-
the robbery . tivities. Some could easily be fanciful and unsubstantiated.
The legal process began and one of the arrested men confessed He is believed to have run the Twilight Saloon in San Francisco.
to Senior Sergeant Sanderson . He implicated others and exoner- One reports his death in Colarado about 1903 and another states
ated some of those arrested. he was killed trying to stop a gunfight in the saloon. Among these
After three months of legal manoeuvring the case was to come reports is one which had him marry a rich Colorado widow and
before the Bathurst Circuit Court. Many prominent citizens of Ba- they had two sons.
thurst, fearing the public would begin to sympathize with the Gar- Most chances of unravelling further truth of Gardiner’s story in
diner gang after long delays, petitioned the Government to bring the United States are said to have been destroyed in the San Fran-
the prisoners involved in the robbery to trial immediately. The gov- cisco earthquake in 1906.
ernment granted the petition but moved the trials to Sydney Town. Back here in Australia, over the years other attempts were made
This disturbed the citizens of Bathurst as they well knew it would to locate the loot said to be buried by Gardiner. None were suc-
be much more difficult to obtain a conviction in Sydney Town. cessful. . . or were they?
At the first attempt at a formal trial of the first three charged, At various times during his early career, Gardiner sought refuge
the jury was unable to agree on a verdict and was subsequently at Fogg’s hut. After his departure from Australia, Fogg had two
discharged . of Gardiner’s fellow bushrangers visit him asking him if he knew
On the second trial, four prisoners were tried and three were whereabouts in the ranges Gardiner used to “hole up.” They were
found guilty, and one not guilty. Those convicted were sentenced after the plant they “knew” existed. Although they combed the
to death by hanging . ranges, Fogg says that they never unearthed it .
Their friends, and they were many, agitated and presented peti- Five years after, Gardiner sailed from our sunny shores, an Irish-
tions with up to 10,000 signatures to the Government and eventu- man visited Fogg at his shanty with a letter and a map in Gardiner’s
ally had the death sentences commuted to life in prison for two handwriting showing where the hidden gold supposed to be hid-
of the three condemned. One man named Manns, was eventually den. It was in a cave on the west side of Mary’s Mount.
hung by the neck until dead, for this crime, despite pleas for clem- Although Fogg was well acquainted with the range he, together
ency . with the Irishman, could not locate it. There were innumerable
Of those involved in the robbery, only three were ever brought caves, both small and large, where the rock wallabies used to run
to trial. Others involved, namely Gilbert, Hall and O’Meally, were when disturbed. They found two likely caves which showed signs
shot dead while involved in other unrelated crimes. of habitation. Each had rusted sardine and jam tins in them and
Gardiner on the other hand was never brought to trial for this dead leaves that had been plucked to make beds, but no trace of
robbery nor was his share of the booty ever recovered. For a while the gold .
After an unproductive three months’ search, the Irishman sailed
for San Francisco saying he would return with better directions.
This he never did, but almost up to his death, old Fogg searched
for Gardiner’s gold.
He became obsessed with it and would talk of nothing else. Per-
haps some day it will be accidentally discovered by some shooter
or trapper. Mary’s Mount is practically in the same virgin state to-
day as it was then.
A few years after his death there arrived at two husky Americans
Forbes. They did not give their names, or mention anything about
themselves other than the fact that they were brothers.
Soon after their arrival in the district legend says they discov-
ered a big hoard of bushrangers’ gold in the hilly country,. The men
then packed up and returned to America.
It was only after their departure that some of the old residents
of Forbes recalled the strong resemblance of the young men to
Capture of Frank Gardner at Apis Creek, Queensland Frank Gardiner. It is believed that they were the outlaw’s sons. He
it seemed he successfully made the transition to a respectable life may have told them where he had hidden the gold, and, after his
as a trusted store keeper. But the law does not forgive and forget death, they decided to retrieve it .
too easily .
In February 1864 he was tracked by the New South Wales police
and arrested. Tried for wounding Sergeant Middleton with intent
to kill, he was acquitted by the jury but found guilty in July on two
non-capital charges .
Chief Justice (Sir) Alfred Stephen, gave him a cumulative sen-
tence of thirty-two years’ hard labour. In 1872 William Bede Dalley,
who had defended Gardiner, organized petitions to the governor to
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