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A couple of months after narrating his experiences, Wolf Tone Maloney finished his term, and was released. For a long time I neither saw him nor heard of him, and he had almost slipped from my memory, until I was reminded, in a somewhat tragic manner, of his existence. I had been attending a patient some distance off in the country, and was riding back, guiding my tired horse among the boulders which strewed the pathway, and endeavoring to see my way through the gathering darkness, when I came suddenly upon a little wayside inn. As I walked my horse up toward the door, intending to make sure of my bearings before proceeding further, I heard the sound of a violent altercation within the little bar.

There seemed to be a chorus of expostulation or remonstrance, above which two powerful voices rang out loud and angry. As I listened, there was a momentary hush, two pistol shots sounded almost simultaneously, and with a crash the door burst open and a pair of dark figures staggered out into the moonlight. They struggled for a moment in a deadly wrestle, and then went down together among the loose stones. I had sprung off my horse, and, with the help of half a dozen rough fellows from the bar, dragged them away from one another.

A glance was sufficient to convince me that one of them was dying fast. He was a thick-set burly fellow, with a determined cast of countenance. The blood was welling from a deep stab in his throat, and it was evident that an important artery had been divided. I turned away from him in despair, and walked over to where his antagonist was lying. He was shot through the lungs, but managed to raise himself up on his hand as I approached, and peered anxiously up into my face. To my surprise, I saw before me the haggard features and flaxen hair of my prison acquaintance, Maloney.

“Ah, doctor!” he said, recognizing me. “How is he? Will he die?”

He asked the question so earnestly that I imagined he had softened at the last moment, and feared to leave the world with another homicide upon his conscience. Truth, however, compelled me to shake my head mournfully, and to intimate that the wound would prove a mortal one.

Maloney gave a wild cry of triumph, which brought the blood welling out from between his lips. “Here, boys,” he gasped to the little group around him. “There’s money in my inside pocket. Damn the expense! Drinks round. There’s nothing mean about me. I’d drink with you, but I’m going. Give the doc my share, for he’s as good–” Here his head fell back with a thud, his eye glazed, and the soul of Wolf Tone Maloney, forger, convict, ranger, murderer, and government peach, drifted away into the Great Unknown.

I cannot conclude without borrowing the account of the fatal quarrel which appeared in the column of the West Australian Sentinel. The curious will find it in the issue of October 4,1881:

“Fatal Affray.–W. T. Maloney, a well-know citizen of New
Montrose, and proprietor of the Yellow Boy gambling saloon,
has met with his death under rather painful circumstances.
Mr. Maloney was a man who had led a checkered existence, and
whose past history is replete with interest. Some of our
readers may recall the Lena Valley murders, in which he
figured as the principal criminal. It is conjectured that
during the seven months that he owned a bar in that region,
from twenty to thirty travelers were hocussed and made away
with. He succeeded, however, in evading the vigilance of
the officers of the law, and allied himself with the
bushrangers of Bluemansdyke, whose heroic capture and
subsequent execution are matters of history. Maloney
extricated himself from the fate which awaited him by
turning Queen’s evidence. He afterward visited Europe, but
returned to West Australia, where he has long played a
prominent part in local matters. On Friday evening he
encountered an old enemy, Thomas Grimthorpe, commonly known
as Tattooed Tom, of Hawkesbury.

“Shots were exchanged, and both were badly wounded, only
surviving a few minutes. Mr. Maloney had the reputation of
being not only the most wholesale murderer that ever lived,
but also of having a finish and attention to detail in
matters of evidence which has been unapproached by any
European criminal. Sic transit gloria mundi!”