Marshal Matt Dillon is on foot in a remote, mountainous area with little water, apparently pursuing an outlaw. Matt comes upon a man sitting alone in a rocky area. Matt draws his gun and warns the man not to make any sudden moves. He says he is not sure the man is the person he is pursuing. When the man, whose name is Lorca, goes for his gun, Matt shoots the gun out of his hand and takes him prisoner. It is not immediately apparent, but the two men are mistaken about the nature and intent of the other. Lorca thinks Marshal Dillon is pursuing him because he killed three men in the area. Matt thinks Lorca is responsible for killing a friend who was a Marshal.
As the pair make their way presumably toward Dodge City, or a town where Lorca can be jailed, Lorca further explains the three men he killed worked for a sheep rancher named John Tyson. The only water in the barren desert area is located in a place where Tyson and his men will be searching for Lorca.
Tyson has created a small empire in the area where his sheep ranch exists, and he rules with a proverbial iron fist. He immigrated to the United States from Australia and fought off cattlemen to establish his dominance. Almost everyone that lives in the area fears Tyson. The rancher is intent on finding Lorca and avenging the death of his ranch hands. (We eventually learn he has other reasons for wanting Lorca dead.)
Most of the local folks refuse to help Matt. Fortunately, there are a few people that object to Tyson's methods and are willing to aid, including the local doctor, "Doc" William Lacey.
Tyson's daughter, Laurel, desperately wants to escape her father's harsh authoritarianism. She provides horses for Dillon and Lorca. Laurel soon joins the pair as they attempt to flee Tyson and his men.
This story is a typical cat-and-mouse scenario where Tyson and his men doggedly pursue Lorca, Marshal Dillon, and Laurel Tyson. Along the way, Matt, Lorca, and the viewer meet a few interesting characters and learn the reasons the situation has reached the point it has. This theme is repeated a few times over the twenty-year run of the show.
Mario Alcade is particularly good in the role of the Lorca character. Watching the Lorca character's transformation from a typical "bad guy" to a more sympathetic character is one of the more fascinating aspects to this story. Alcade was never an extremely prolific actor, although he did appear in several television shows and films before his sudden death from a ruptured appendix at the relatively young age of forty-four. Alcade was also a writer and wrote an episode of the television series The Fugitive. This is his only Gunsmoke appearance.
Diana Muldaur also makes her only Gunsmoke appearance in this episode as the defiant daughter Laurel Tyson.
Shug Fisher makes one of his twenty-seven Gunsmoke appearances in one of his more unusual roles as the mysterious, innocent, aboriginal sheep herder known only as Chengra.
A couple of actors that will be familiar to fans of The Rifleman series play roles in this story. Paul Fix, who played Marshal Micah Torrance on The Rifleman, portrays Doc Lacey in this story. Joe Higgins, who played various characters on The Rifleman -- but most notably played the Nils Swenson character -- appears near the end of this episode in a small role.
Walter Baldwin makes his only Gunsmoke appearance as an older man who refuses to provide horses to Dillon out of fear of retribution from John Tyson. Fans of The Andy Griffith Show may recall Baldwin was the first actor to portray Floyd the Barber in an early episode of that series prior to Howard McNear taking over the role.
This is an intriguing story, and it is well acted, as is usually the case with Gunsmoke. Matt Dillon and John Tyson are both prominent men of power. When they oppose one another, something must give.
However, there are several aspects to this story that are never explained. Why was Matt on foot at the beginning? Who was he pursuing? He knows about the death of his Marshal friend, but how does he know, and what led him to be where he is at the beginning?
This is another of those episodes where the Matt Dillon character is featured in a setting away from Dodge City. In the one scene set in Dodge City, Festus Haggen tells Doc Adams, Kitty Russell, and Thad Greenwood that Matt is overdue from a mission to "pick up a prisoner for Kansas City," but that does not explain why Matt is on foot in a remote desert area when the story begins. The explanation for how Matt went from picking up a prisoner to being stranded in a desert area with no horse is never provided and leaves the viewer in the dark. (I wondered if some of the background information was cut by networks to allow more commercial time, but I went to the original episodes on DVD, and the background information is not included in the full, original episode, either.)
Another curious aspect of this story is where exactly John Tyson's ranch is located. It is apparent Matt has no previous knowledge of Tyson. The landscape of the area shown in the story certainly does not look like Kansas. It must be west of Dodge City because Smitty, the man that runs the train depot, tells Matt there is an eastbound train due in two hours, and Matt responds that the eastbound train is what he needs.
The omission of these story details does not significantly detract from the remainder of the story, but it is confusing. The heavy-handed editing that some networks apply to the episode can add to the confusion.
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