Five weeks passed before the Chinese went creeping back to Simpson’s Ranges, and by this time the diggers were engrossed in more important affairs, and offered no serious opposition.  It seemed that the trouble was rapidly coming to a head at Ballarat.  Wearying of the effort to secure reform by peaceful agitation, the men were arming themselves as best they could.  The lawful endeavours of the miners had resulted only in spurring their enemies to greater activity in oppression, and blundering and brutal officials had chosen the moment when the agitation was at its height to institute one of the most strenuous and tyrannical license-hunting expeditions that had been inflicted upon the miners of Ballarat.  Diggers were brutally man-handled; in some cases their clothes were torn from their backs, in others they were insulted and beaten by the troopers.  The hunt was manifestly an organized and deliberate effort to display the contempt officialdom felt for the men and their cause.  Blood ran hotly; there were casual skirmishes between the people and the police, who, while serving as the zealous and willing instruments of oppression, offered the diggers absolutely no protection from the thieves and ruffians infesting the fields.

Arrangements had been made to convey the news of a general rising to the men at Simpson’s Ranges in time to enable them to reach the disturbed centre before the outbreak of hostilities, and on a Friday morning, shortly after midnight, Jim Done, Mike Burton, and the three Peetrees set off together.  They left their tents as they stood, and carrying only a blue blanket apiece and such arms as they possessed, started on their long tramp to Ballarat as gaily as if bent upon a pleasure excursion.  They slept in the Bush on Friday night, and reached the Australian Eldorado on Saturday at about noon.  Approaching the field from the north, they were bailed up on the edge of wide lagoon fringed with gum-trees and scrub by a party of men on horseback.

‘Halt!’ cried the leader.

‘What’s the matter now?’ said Mike.

‘I demand all arms and ammunition you may have about you.’

‘Then I’m hanged if you’ll get them!’

‘For the use of the forces of the republic of Victoria,’ continued the leader.

But we’re goin’ to join the rebels.’

’That’s all right.  You’ll be given arms in the stockade.  Peter Lalor has been elected chief of the insurgents.  I have his warrant here for my action.  Arms are badly needed.  We can take no chances.’

The mates conferred, and after examining the warrant signed by the rebel leader, resolved to comply with the demand.

‘Has there been any fighting?’ asked Jim.

’A bit of a shindy with the swaddies in Warrenheip Gully, and an attack on the troopers at the Gravel Pits.  Nothing really serious.  The Imperial troops were drawn up under arms at our big meeting on Bakery Hill on the 29th.  The flag has been floated, the men have taken the oath under it, and are now drilling within the stockade on Eureka.’