A body found in the lake turns out to be a girl from the local reform school. Lawson immediately suspects a gang of local hoodlums who have connections to the girl and gets Constable Parks to make an arrest. Lawson's ready to charge him, but Blake isn't convinced and together he and district nurse Mattie O'Brien find out more about the reform school and the girl.

Danny is directing traffic on the road out of town when a driver, seemingly drunk, narrowly avoids him and crashes. The driver, a travelling salesman staying at a Ballarat hotel, is pronounced dead at the scene. But it turns out it wasn't the crash that killed him - someone had hidden a snake in his car. When Danny is bitten by the snake too, Blake faces a rush to both find the murderer and save Danny by identifying the snake and the antidote.