In 1905 Vane collaborated with author and newspaper editor, Charles White, in recording his recollections of the period he spent as part of the bushranging gangs led by Gilbert, Hall and O’Meally.

[4] By the early 1860s Vane was working for Mr. Murray and his partner, in charge of a bullock team carrying goods between Orange and their pastoral station on the Lachlan River.

On their first venture into cattle stealing Vane and his companions gathered a mob and drove them to Neville (then known as 'Number One') from where they were sold “to different parties in the district” for an average of £5 per head.

On a whim Vane grabbed the landlord’s revolver from the bar and a box of caps (though without ammunition) and he and Burke then rode after the man and bailed him up with the unloaded weapon.

The man claimed to have no money, but eventually they found a bag hidden in the horses’ tail containing a £5 note and two ounces of gold, which the two young lawbreakers stole and then returned to the hotel.

[8][9] In his biography John Vane claims it was he and Jim Burke who, unarmed, tried to rob Boyce’s public-house, but those present "soon saw that we did not mean anything serious" and invited them to join the group in a game of cards.

William Vane, James Burke and George Chesher were indicted for the robbery at Boyce’s public-house and tried in the Bathurst Quarter Sessions on 24 September 1863.

[9][11] Vane spent the next several months "dodging about keeping out of the way of the police", which included a period in the Abercrombie Mountains camped at Pound Creek, where his friends kept him "supplied with provisions and information".

[24] On 16 August 1863 a police patrol which had been hunting for the bushrangers, led by Inspector Frederick Pottinger and consisting of three troopers and two Aboriginal trackers, came across the tracks of five horses south of the Weddin Mountains.

O’Meally, who had approached from the opposite side, had managed to secure a horse and the five bushrangers then galloped through the scrub and onto a flat, when they turned and kept their pursuers at bay with their rifles, having a longer range than the police revolvers.

[29] After the confrontation with Pottinger and his party the bushrangers camped in the dense scrub near Bald Hill, north-west of Young, while Vane recovered from his wound.

[30] During the morning of 24 August 1863 Gilbert, O’Meally, Hall, Vane and Burke stuck up and robbed several people on the Hurricane Gully Road between Young and the Twelve-mile Rush.

[34][35][33] After the robbery O’Meally and Vane stopped at a slab hut two and a half miles from 'Demondrille' homestead, occupied by Walter Tootal, his mother and two younger siblings, as well as a carrier named George Slater.

In the meantime, after information of the armed robbery was received at Murrumburrah, Senior-constable Haughey and Constable Keane joined with two policemen from Wombat and rode towards the station.

In the early hours of Sunday morning the four troopers, having arrived at 'Demondrille' and acting on information received from Edmonds, went to Tootal’s hut and saw four horses tied up outside (three of them saddled).

[44][45] After about a week at the camp O’Meally and Vane loaded up two pack-horses with stolen store goods ("chiefly drapery"), intended as gifts for their friends and sympathisers, and travelled back to the Carcoar district.

[50][51] On Friday evening, 25 September 1863, John Loudon’s household at 'Grubbenbong' station, fifteen miles from Carcoar, was robbed by the gang of bushrangers, Gilbert, Hall, O’Meally, Vane and Burke.

[52][53][54] Late on Saturday morning, 26 September 1863, the bushrangers arrived at William Rothery’s 'Cliefden' station at Limestone Creek, south-west of Carcoar, where they bailed up the occupants and "partook of dinner – regaling themselves with champagne and brandy".

O’Meally and Burke remained at the inn while Hall, Gilbert and Vane “went on a foraging expedition” to the two stores in the township, belonging to Pierce and Hilliar, taking a quantity of men’s clothing and three pounds in cash.

[52] In the morning Hall, Vane and Burke rode to ‘Bangaroo’ station in search of horses, but finding none, returned to Canowindra where Gilbert informed them that troopers were camped on the opposite side of the Belubula River, now in full flood, waiting for the waters to subside.

[57] Early on Saturday evening, 3 October 1863, Gilbert’s gang of bushrangers rode into Bathurst, the most populous township west of the Blue Mountains and headquarters of the Western police force.

[64][65] While they had been waiting for the ransom the bushrangers arranged with men from a neighbouring station to take Burke’s body on a spring cart to his father’s house, for which they were paid £2 each.

[64] The events at Dunn’s Plains and the death of his childhood friend caused Vane to reconsider the path he had chosen; in his words: “Now that blood had been spilt I felt that I had had enough of the game”.

[66] As soon as the details of the attack on Keightly’s place became known the New South Wales Government announced an increased reward of one thousand pounds each for information leading to the apprehension of the offenders Gilbert, Hall, O’Meally and Vane, “charged with the commission of numerous and serious offences”.

[67] As notifications of the substantial rewards being offered were posted and circulated throughout the district, Vane’s situation became increasingly precarious, necessitating extra caution on his part, unsure of who he could trust.

That evening Vane made his way to ‘Mallow Grove’, arriving at nine o’clock, where McCarthy told him they must first go to Carcoar to speak with the magistrate, Nathaniel Connolly.

The testimonies of witnesses to this incident were heard, but in his address to the jury Dalley pointed to inconsistencies in the evidence regarding the identity of the prisoner and maintained that Vane’s participation had been at a distance from the action.

The article concluded: “The sheep owners of Trunkey district have for a considerable period suffered through the depredations of a gang of thieves, who have up to the present, carried on their operations with impunity”.

[85] In about September 1905 Vane “entered into an engagement with the proprietor of a circus, which was travelling up the North Coast, to show himself in the ring nightly as the sole surviving representative of the Gardiner-Hall gang”.

[75] John Vane died on 30 January 1906 in Cowra hospital, aged 63 years, and was buried in an unmarked grave the following day at Woodstock cemetery.