Wild Boys

Jack and Dan return to Hopetoun after a month away. With a new Superintendent of Police, Fuller, arriving, their existence as bushrangers is suddenly under threat. Jack rekindles his romance with pub owner, Mary, but any hope for a future with her is snuffed out when Fuller captures the Wild Boys. Fuller attempts to eliminate them in a staged escape attempt, but they manage to get away.

Jack awakes after being shot, to find a shocking discovery at the Ryan farm. Cared for by Mary, he's almost caught when Fuller raids her pub. But when Jack learns that Joey Butler was behind the shooting at the farm, he sets off for revenge, ruining Mary's plan for a new life.

After Mary's bar burns, Jack decides to rob the bank to help her out. But after the boys take the manager and his wife hostage they discover the bank's vault is empty. Their plan goes from bad to worse as Conrad questions his role in the gang, the wife seduces Dan, the armed transport loses a wheel on the bush highway, and Jack discovers the murderous Joey Butler has been let free.

With the Hopetoun Cup being run in town, Jack is determined to ride and win the event. With Frank Butler in town to look for the killer of his brother, Fuller determined to fill his jail with criminals, and a dangerous detective hired by the bank to find the culprits, the boys are in the midst of a very deadly enterprise.

Dan's past comes back to haunt him when an old girlfriend convinces him to marry her - the gun pointed at his head is very convincing. The Wild Boys are also being threatened by a new bushranger in town, who's dangerous, eccentric and rather elusive. Emilia's new suitor, Rupert Wentworth, chosen by her father, turns out to be more charming than Emilia imagined, if not a little flamboyant.

With body parts turning up in the bush around Hopetoun, there are rumours that a cannibal's on the loose. But when Scanlon pulls a dead woman from the river, he comes to realize that a villain from the days he was a cattle duffer with Jack has returned. Jack initially disbelieves Scanlon, but soon changes his tune, and the two former friends are forced to work together to catch Brady.

In the midst of a rum shortage as a result of a spate of hold-ups, which are wrongly blamed on Jack, Fuller convinces Emilia to set the boys up to save Conrad. When the sting goes wrong and Conrad's shot, Jack's convinced they have a rat in their ranks. As loyalties are questioned and suspicions raised, Jack comes up with a dangerous plan to help Mary and save Conrad.

Just as the Wild Boys are relinquishing their plans to target Hopetoun's Assayer, they run into Jessie, a disarming bushranger with a taste for risk-taking. She convinces them to join forces with her, but soon enough Jessie's flawless plan is looking far more complicated. Not only does she lead the Wild Boys into a robbery, but she leads Jack into a seemingly impossible scrape with Mary.

Mary's thrilled to have her younger brother Ben come to town. He's fun and a great uncle to Tommy. But Ben has other reasons for coming to Hopetoun and it doesn't involve family. He enlists the help of the Wild Boys in what appears to be a straight-up cash robbery. Except it's not - they find themselves holding up The Rope Gang, a nasty group of bushrangers, and nothing goes to plan.

When the Butlers target farmer, Old George, on the Old East Road, George seeks the Wild Boys' help. Jack, in fighting off the Butler's assault, comes to realize that Frank Butler was also part of the original murder of the Ryans. He tries to track Frank down to get answers but ends up in Fuller's sights instead. Who is hiring the Butlers to scare and murder farmers?

When Conrad comes into possession of a map, the race for gold is on. Breaking away with Mad Dog Morgan, Conrad is soon pursued by the rest of the Wild Boys, Scanlon and the Traps. Meanwhile, with Emilia looking for her editor, Mary investigating new opportunities and Jack probing the deaths on the Old East Road, the net is closing in more ways than one and not everyone is going to come out alive.

Ruby is murdered and it seems it all has to do with the Old East Road. It is not clear if she was killed by her "lover" Fuller or mistaken for Catherine who has inherited Old George' property. Jack and Gunpowder are found over the bloodied corpse and the Wild Boys made outlaws. Their only hope appears to be for Dan to convince an English lawyer that he is the son of an English Lord.

Facing the rope, the Wild Boys are offered a last-minute reprieve by Fife - rescue Emilia from the Butlers and he'll pardon them. But Jack's rescue plan goes awry when Scanlon is revealed as Frank's prisoner. When Jack is forced to shoot Scanlon to buy time, they finally escape and learn that Emilia's being held at Chow Fat's opium den. Before the Boys can free her, Fuller appears.