The police increased the reward on the Kelly Gang. More police were sent to guard banks in the country. Friends of the Kellys were locked in gaol. The gang crossed the Murray River and rode north into New South Wales. They arrived in Jerilderie on Saturday 8 February 1879. They broke into the local police station and locked the two policemen, Richards and Devine, in the police cells. The outlaws put on police uniforms and mixed with the local people. They said that they were extra police from Sydney, who had come to guard the town from the Kelly gang. Ned Kelly took his horse to the blacksmith to get new horseshoes and told the man to send the bill to the New South Wales police force. On Monday the gang rounded up various people and forced them into the back room of the Royal Mail Hotel. While Dan Kelly and Steve Hart kept the hostages busy with "drinks on the house" (free drinks), Ned Kelly and Joe Byrne went to the telegraph office and cut down some of the poles and cut the wires. They then went and robbed the local bank of about £2,414. Kelly also burned all the townspeople's mortgage deeds in the bank. When the gang left the town they were singing about two earlier bushrangers, Ben Hall and Dan Morgan: "Hurrah for the good old times of Morgan and Ben Hall."