By afternoon, Dan and Hart had ceased shooting. Unwilling to allow his men to storm the hotel, Superintendent Sadleir telegraphed to Melbourne for an artillery cannon to be sent up by special train to obliterate the outlaws. A 12-pounder Armstrong gun made it as far as Seymour when Sadleir decided to set fire to the hotel instead, and received permission from the Chief Secretary, Robert Ramsay. Under cover of fire, Senior Constable Charles Johnson, of Violet Town, placed a bundle of burning straw at the hotel's west side. Kate Kelly, Ned and Dan's sister, appeared on the scene around this time. She endeavoured to make way to her brothers, but the police ordered her to stop.