Around Dodge City and in the territory on west, there is just one way to handle the killers and the spoilers, and that's with the U.S. Marshal and the smell of gun smoke.
Gun Smoke starring William Conrad, the story of the violence that moved west with young America and the story of a man who moved with it.
I'm that man, Matt Dillon, the United States Marshal, the first man they look for and the last they want to meet. It's a chancey job, and it makes a man watchful and a little lonely.
Thank you, Mr. Duggan, all them men down there by the depot.
That's quite a crowd.
I'm curious about a wagonload of buffalo hides, I wonder.
Maybe they got a white one, Chester.
They sure must have something mighty interesting.
Yeah.
Is this your wagon, mister?
No. Gatlett's. I skinned for him.
What's the crowd for?
I'm just curious. The other skinner got hurt and we brought him into the dock.
Oh, what happened? Does he hurt bad?
Bad enough Gatlett didn't see no sense in bringing him into town at all. Me and the cook, we made him, though.
Here comes Gatlett now.
Chester, go up to Doc's and see what you can find out.
All right, sir.
How is he, Gatlett?
The doc will take care of everything, Tobe.
Never mind that, how is he?
He's dead.
Let's drive these hides on down to the shack.
Just a minute, Gatlett.
Some other time, Marshal. I'm busy.
So am I, but I want to talk to you anyway.
You and the cook go get them hides unloaded, Tobe. I'll be right along.
Yes!
All right, what do you want, Marshal?
What happened to your skinner?
Really? He hurt himself, that's all.
He's dead, isn't he?
Yeah, he's dead.
Look, Gatlett, anything you don't want to tell me, I can ask Doc.
There's nothing to tell, Marshal. He got hurt and he died, that's all.
When did he get hurt?
Last night.
Then why didn't you bring him in last night?
Them other fellows, the cook and Tobe, they figured he was done for anyway.
They didn't want to bother her yet.
What happened to him? How did he get hurt?
I don't rightly know, Marshal. He was alone in camp.
We got there, he gone burned himself.
Burned? Wulff what?
Hot lead, Marshal. Spilt it all over him.
He was cooking up lead in a fry pan that was one of his chores.
Making my bullets.
Always was a light clumsy, so he messed himself up this time.
Must have been a lot of lead.
50, 60 pounds, I reckon.
Mr. Gatlett, that man here, as Doc thought through with him,
he says you can bury him now.
Oh, no, I ain't gonna pay for no burial.
He's just a skinner I hired. I don't even know his last name.
You're his boss, aren't you? You brought him in.
He's just a bum that worked for me.
All right, hold it, Chester.
Okay, Gatlett, we'll take care of it.
Caused me trouble enough. I don't want to hear no more about it.
Chester, what about the skinner? Tell me.
It was just terrible, Mr. Dillon.
Doc says he don't know how he lived as long as he did.
Did he talk to Doc?
Oh, my, no. Poor fellow.
How do you suppose it happened?
Poor hot lead. Had a whole pan full of it that told me.
Yeah, but what man's gonna pick up 50 or 60 pounds of molten lead
and spill it all over him?
Well, I...
I didn't think of that.
Of course there's another way it could have happened.
How?
Somebody could have pushed him down into it.
Oh, my goodness.
I don't know.
Gatlett or maybe a skinner, Tobe.
Wonder where Tobe went.
He and the cook probably went over to Long Brasset
to drink up their wages.
All right.
Uh, Chester.
Yes, sir?
Go do something about burying that there, will you?
Yes, sir, I will.
How are you, Tobe?
Oh. Hello, Marshall.
Sam, set out a bottle of rye and another glass, will you?
Sure, Marshall.
Buy you a drink, Tobe.
You will?
Well, sure, Marshall, sure.
There you are.
Now, Tobe, here's to your friend, Billy.
He weren't no friend of mine,
but he died a bad death.
I'll drink to him.
Tell me something, Tobe.
How did Billy and Gatlett get on?
You noticed Gatlett's eyes, Marshall?
Yeah, I did.
You got powder specks shot into him.
They look like turkey aches.
Yeah, I know.
Now, you don't get on with a man like that.
How come I never seen him in Dodge before?
That man's greedy, Marshall.
He's downright wicked about money.
He figures he can save time and make more money
by selling his hides to buyer's agents on the prairie.
It gets less out there,
but he can kill and sell more that way.
Well, he came in with a load of hides today.
Well, that's just because we made him come in with Billy.
Now, tell me about the accident, Tobe.
Well, Billy was melting lead in a fry pan.
The way I figured, he must have tripped somehow
and fallen smack into it.
When we rode in, we found him rolling around on the ground.
That's all I know.
When who rode in?
Me and the cook.
The cook skins on days Billy's making bullets.
Where was Gatlett?
Oh, he went in just ahead of us.
Oh, how long ahead of you?
Maybe 20 minutes.
Then he found Billy first, is that it?
Yeah, I guess he did.
Now, I hadn't thought of that before, Marshall.
So that's why you've been asking so many questions.
Now, I wasn't sure, Tobe,
but I expect you're telling the truth.
The cook told the same story.
So that's what happened.
Gatlett killed him.
Well, he murdered him.
Yeah, that's what it looks like.
I haven't got enough to prove it.
He killed Billy so that he wouldn't have to pay him his wages due.
You see, we've been out four months.
He must owe Billy three, four hundred dollars.
Yeah.
You going back out on the prairie with him?
I ain't afraid of him.
I'll sure be sleeping with one eye open from now on.
If you let on your suspicions, he will sure try to kill you.
Not me.
He can just do his killing on somebody else.
He'll be living in the morning, I suppose, huh?
About dawn, I reckon.
Soon as Gatlett hires a new skinner.
Yeah.
Well, the bottle's yours, Tobe.
And good luck.
I sure do thank you, Marshal.
Later in the day, Chester and a couple of other men buried Billy out on the hill.
As Tobe said, he died a bad death.
And it was made worse by the man who had done it to him, going scot-free.
Thought there was nothing I could do, and I tried to forget about it.
They left Dodge next morning, and things were peaceful enough for a few hours until
word came that there'd been a knifing in a nester camp over across the river.
We rode over to see what it was about.
Yes.
Well, he was knifed in the back, man.
That's all I know.
Yeah, and nobody saw it happen.
Just looks like somebody got clean away with murder.
It is.
Well, look here.
Where's Yorkie?
Marshal?
Chester?
What are you doing over here, Yorkie?
I come looking for berries, and I seen it.
What do you mean?
I seen that man get stabbed.
You did?
I heard him arguing, and I think up just after he'd done it.
They were all alone.
Well, who did it, Yorkie?
Did you recognize him?
No, I never saw him before.
Well, what did he look like?
Oh, he was big, dirty-looking.
He had a buckskin shirt.
Anything else?
Well, he had funny eyes, Marshal.
He had spots in them.
What you doing there, sounds like.
Yeah.
How in the world could you ever sneak up close enough to see his eyes, Yorkie?
I lived with the Arapahos.
Well, by golly, you did, didn't you, son?
You know who did it, Marshal?
I do now, Yorkie.
I hope you catch him.
I gotta get back.
So long, Yorkie.
I guess it was Gallup, all right, Mr. Dillon?
Yeah.
Seems like a dangerous sort of man to be running loose.
Have I got him now, Doc, as soon as I find him?
I hope so, Matt.
I certainly do hope so.
Since Gallup would figure that nobody had seen him, it wasn't likely that he'd run.
And anyway, there wasn't much sense in trying to track him down in the dark,
so Chester and I didn't start out till the next morning.
Ordinarily, a man could ride into the prairie and disappear,
but with Gallup, it was a little different.
At least we knew he'd be around the buffalo herd somewhere.
I don't know if he was a man or a woman, but he was a man.
It was late afternoon before we reached good hunting grounds
and almost dark when we found the first hunter's camp.
The shop will be ready soon.
Cook, throw us some more tongue in that stew pot.
All right, Mr. Mercer.
If you don't like buffalo tongue, you'll go mighty hungry in this camp.
Oh, thanks a lot, mister.
Hey, you're a lawman.
Yeah, I'm Matt Dillon. I'm a U.S. Marshal.
And my name's Tom Mercer.
Pleased to meet you.
This is Chester Proudfoot.
How do you do?
The stuff will take a little longer now,
and anyway, my skinners won't be in for a while yet.
How you been doing, Mercer?
Fair, Marshal, fair. I killed over 100 today.
You been here long?
About a month. I'll move on in a couple of weeks.
I don't know, Marshal, I think this whole southern herd
is going to be clean wiped out for long.
Next year, I'm going to Dakota.
Too many hunters, maybe, huh?
That's just it. That's it, exactly.
Have you seen any in the last day or two, Mercer?
Just two you're looking for, Marshal.
Man by the name of Gadloff, a big man,
a man with speckled eyes.
What's he done?
Do you know him?
No, no, I don't.
Nobody's come near us in over a week.
Then you're not much help,
except for that stew that your cook's making.
You like that. We're having dried apples, too.
Ah, good.
I swear, I could eat a buffalo raw, the entire beast.
You must be part Indian.
No, sir.
I've seen one of them eat a whole liver raw.
Got propped up in a
the sun.
Hey, we're crispy, we're What's He done?
kind of like that damals in bowlers.
Yeah, lui니.
a
Yeah,
That kid was five and a half years old.
Speak to me, Ed.
Hey, look at these 30 right here.
You made all this sound's so good theater glass.
Got there.
I'm a lot prettier than ed.
Got...?)
To kind of do that,
a man called Ed,
It sir.
Oh, no, I pure him bad.
Ha.
Nah.
S collar only cameras good,
and went sound asleep right there in the sun.
He was sure some sight.
For a year we get that close to Indians.
Oh, Indians ain't always bad.
No.
But they're gonna get real hungry
when you hunters finish this herd off.
That's so, Marshal.
That's surely so. That's what makes them mad.
Now, don't you think that's reason enough?
A fellow told me a couple of weeks ago
he ran into a bunch west of here.
He was looking for scouts, all right.
Hey, there come the skinners.
Now we can get outside of some of that stew.
All of it.
Don't you ever feed this man, Marshal?
Only when he works, Mercer.
Now, Mr. Dellen.
We spent the night in Tom Mercer's camp,
and at dawn just after breakfast
we said goodbye and rode on west.
In the next two days we met plenty of hunters,
but we didn't find cattle.
About noon of the third day
we cut the trail of a wagon train
and figured it to be that of a hide-buyer's agent
who'd come out onto the prairie to do business on the spot.
An hour or two later we saw him.
A long string of ox-drawn wagons
piled high with buffalo hides.
There was a man on horseback leading the train.
We rode up to him.
Oh, there.
That's quite a load you've gotten us, too.
Ten thousand so far.
What are you doing way out here, Marshal?
I'm looking for a hunter by the name of Gatlet.
Sure do.
He picked up a load from his rig early this morning.
In trouble?
Yeah. Where is he?
Straight south there, a couple of miles.
Can't tell you exactly, he moves around a lot.
That's close enough for us. Thanks a lot, mister.
Sure, Marshal. I never did like him anyway.
There's an empty rig down there. That must be it.
Yeah, but he's moved his camp.
Yeah, but not far if it was just this morning.
Chester.
Hmm?
What's that out there?
Where at?
That looks like a man. Come on.
Why, Mr. Dillon, get that skinner here.
Yeah, get some water, will you?
Yes, sir, will you.
Tobe? Hey, Tobe, can you hear me?
Tobe?
He's been shot, Chester.
Yeah? Here's the water.
Yeah.
Tobe. Tobe, it's Marshal Dillon.
Give me a drink.
Here.
He shot me, Marshal.
Oh, what happened? Where's the rest of the crew?
They ran off. They took his wagon and the horses.
He went kind of crazy when he found out.
And that's why he shot me.
Oh, where is he now?
I don't know. He shot me and then he said he was going hunting.
He's gone loco.
Loco?
Take it easy, Tobe. Take it easy. You're going to be all right.
I could hear him shooting at the sharps a long time.
Then he stopped.
Where was he? Which way, Tobe?
Off behind me. I could hear him.
Chester, you stay with him.
I'm going after Gadloff.
Off in the direction Tobe had indicated there lay a large isolated hollow surrounded by low ridges.
When I reached it, I dismounted and crawled up to where I could look down into it.
There was no sign of Gadloff.
But lying on the prairie floor were the bodies of countless fresh-killed buffalo.
It was a strange sight.
The old bulls and the cows and the little calves lying there blackening the prairie grass.
I got up and I stood looking at it for a long time.
Then suddenly out in the middle I thought I saw a slight movement of the second leader.
There came a familiar boom of a sharps 50.
I dropped behind the ridge and waited.
Then Chester rode up.
Found him, Mr. Bill?
Yeah. Tobe's dead, is that right?
Yes, sir.
Okay. Now Gadloff's down there in the middle of the hollow but we can't get anywhere near him as long as he's got that sharps rifle.
He's killed a small herd of buffalo in there. Now he's lying up in the center of them.
Must have gone crazy just like Tobe said.
Yeah.
What in the world is he shooting at now?
I wish I knew, Chester.
He's facing them shots.
Yeah. That's a signal for help, Chester. Come on.
Look out, maybe it's just a trap.
We'll be ready to take cover behind one of these animals. It might be.
Yes, sir.
Just keep your eyes open now.
There he is. Behind that big bull.
Yeah, I see him.
What are you doing? He's all...
Yeah, there have been horses in here. Indians.
Oh my goodness.
Come on.
That was his last effort, Chester. He's dead now.
Mr. Dillon, that awful.
Yeah.
Come on, let's get out of here.
I don't know how the Indians caught Gatlett.
He'd gone a little mad and maybe that made it easy for them, but...
they finally got themselves a buffalo hunter.
And into their unbelievably savage torture of him had gone all the hatred and...
desperation of a race being slowly starved and driven from their homeland.
And they'd put him there surrounded by his own bloody slaughter and they'd...
gone off with a gesture of contempt, leaving his rifle and his ammunition by his side.
And having seen what they did to him, I'll never know how he managed to fire even one of those shots.
For all of his evil Gatlett had died harder than any man I'd ever seen.
Chester and I rode back to Dodge.
And it was never mentioned between us again.
Gunsmoke, produced and directed by Norman McDonald, stars William Conrad as Matt Dillon, U.S. Marshal.
The story was specially written for Gunsmoke by John Meston. Featured in the cast were Lawrence Dobkin, Vic Perrin, Richard Beals, Harry Bartel and Jack Moyles.
Harley Bear is Chester and Howard McNear is Doc.
Join us again next week for the third of the five most popular Gunsmoke shows.
It is called Word of Honor.
This is the CBS Radio Network.