The police and the gang fired at each other for about a quarter of an hour. During a lull, Superintendent Hare returned to the railway station with a shattered left wrist from one of the first shots fired. He bled profusely, and Tom Carrington, artist for the "Australasian Sketcher", used his handkerchief to compress the wound. Hare then ordered O'Connor and his men to surround the hotel, and later attempted to return to battle, but gradually lost so much blood that he had to be sent to Benalla for treatment.