Dick thinks Swiftnick isn't cutting it as a highwayman and bribes Tanner the gunsmith into taking the boy in as an apprentice. Glutton and Spiker have come up with a plan to use an actress called Jane Kelsey, who main claim to fame is a performance as Cleopatra, to lure Turpin into a trap.

Turpin intends to find some rest in the little village of Mudbury, but Swiftnick starts bragging about Dick's skills as a prizefighter. An unsuspecting Dick soon finds himself facing the bully Hogg, the accomplice of bible thumping tax collector Father Nightingale. Dick decides to call a favor from an old friend, Tom "The Bristol Butcher" Bracewell, but he disappears shortly before the fight.

A poacher has cut in on Dick Turpins territory. Dick and Swiftnick decide to bait the most obvious suspect, a stranger named Joshua Vizard. Meanwhile Captain Spiker is thoroughly annoyed by the Sir John Glutton's visiting nephew, the extremely foppish Willougby.