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Episode cast overview, first billed only: | |||
Robert Fuller | ... | Cooper Smith | |
John McIntire | ... | Christopher Hale | |
Frank McGrath | ... | Charlie Wooster | |
Terry Wilson | ... | Bill Hawks | |
Michael Burns | ... | Barnaby West | |
Lola Albright | ... | Leonora Parkman | |
Peter Brown | ... | Ben Campbell | |
Jay North | ... | Tom Blake | |
Dennis Holmes | ... | Danny Blake | |
Russell Thorson | ... | Simon Landis | |
Walter Coy | ... | Ord Whaley | |
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Barbara Wooddell | ... | Martha Landis |
Laurie Mitchell | ... | Annie Tolleson | |
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Gail Gilmore | ... | Kate Campbell (as Gale Gerber) |
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Michael Beirne | ... | Lt. Thaxter |
As the Hale wagon train reaches various frontier settlements they lose some members of the train but there are usually more wanting to join to go further west. At one such stop Chris runs into the common situation of more wagons wanting to join the train than he can accommodate resulting in disappointed applicants. At this stop the applicant Ben Campbell, ex-convict, and his wife Kate were the next ones on the list. They want to leave quickly to get away from his old criminal partner Jud Fisher who is in jail waiting to be hung. He believes Ben turned him into the law although it is not true. Ben and Kate want to go west for a new start. Their only hope is that overnight a wagon will drop out. When Jud escapes jail, the sheriff sends protection for Ben and Kate. At the same time the two young orphaned Blake brothers are roaming among the wagons. The older boy tom is apprenticed to a blacksmith who beats him and they want to steal away on the train. Mrs. Parkman, the last to join the ... Written by Anonymous
There's no real main story to this Wagon Train episode, just a series of interconnecting dramas involving several people.
The underlying theme however is that even a big Wagon Train like the Chris Hale Train has to have a manageable number of passengers. Some don't make the whole trip to California and passengers are subtracted and added at almost every stop. What John McIntire is dealing with is a number of applicants who want to make the journey and he has only a few slots.
Lola Albright is traveling with her maid Willa Pearl Curtis to join her army husband at his post. Peter Brown has just been released from prison and he and his wife Gail Gilmore want to put plenty of distance between them and former running buddy Bruce Dern who's out to get him. Eldely couple Russell Thorson and Barbara Woodell are traveling west to visit their grandkids, but he's sicker than he's letting on. And two orphan kids Jay North and Dennis Holmes are running away from blacksmith Walter Coy who North is apprenticed to.
All these stories interconnect and it's a nice ensemble with the regular cast that delivers the goods in this fine Wagon Train story.