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 a 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, 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.
Sure, I'll need your name if it fell right if at all.
Just see here now.
I'm sorry, I didn't see you.
I ought to look where you're going.
You're right. I was saying goodbye to my informant, the stage driver. The information wasn't worth it. Here, here's your hat.
Thank you. You just get off the stage?
Yeah, I came all the way from St. Louis. I must say, St. Louis is looking better to me all the time. My name's Norton, Reed Norton.
My name is Adams, Dr. Adams. Anybody forcing you to come here, Norton?
I'm a correspondent. I'm after a story on the stage holdup that happened near here several days ago.
I heard about that all the way to St. Louis, didn't I?
I mean, your western shooting matches get a lot of publicity.
Well, if you know all about it, why did you have to come to Dodge?
Well, I want the real story, not some romanticized account.
Hey, maybe you can tell me what you know about it.
Mr. Norton, since you're so interested in the real thing and all, I suggest you get your story from Marshal Dillon.
He'd be the man with the facts.
Oh, and a swagger to go with him, I suppose.
Why don't you find out for yourself?
I'll do that, Doc. I'll just do that.
Yeah, come on in.
Marshal Dillon?
Yeah, I'm Marshal Dillon. Come on in.
You want to see me?
You or somebody who can tell a straight story?
Oh, who are you?
Norton, Reed Norton. I'm a correspondent out of St. Louis.
Glad to meet you, Mr. Norton. Would you sit down?
Oh, thank you.
Your paper sends you here?
No, it's my own idea.
It's about time somebody wrote a story on the frontier the way it really is and not the way it's pictured in exaggerated accounts as in Harper's Weekly.
Oh, and you figure that you're the man to write that story, huh?
I'm a hard man to fool, Dillon. I've been worked on by experts. I was a general crook at the Rosebud.
Those cavalrymen are pretty good at telling tall tales to correspondents.
I see. You think you're going to get a tall tale from me, is that it?
Well, it seems to be a habit here in the West. A story isn't a story if it isn't three times life size.
I'll tell you something, Mr. Norton. You're not going to get a tall tale from me. In fact, you're not going to get any story at all.
Now, Marshal, you must have some explanation of how you let the men who held up the...
You figure that's the way it was, huh?
I can see you're not chasing me. Even though it's known one of them was badly wounded and couldn't travel far.
You got some suggestions about that?
Why, Marshal, the way the West is advertised... I know about the scouts of the cavalry.
You're welcome to bring him down here. That trail, Mr. Norton, was a day old before I even got word of the holdup.
They could bear off on a hundred miles in any direction, a day old, and swept clean by a wind coming all the way from Canada with nothing to stop it.
I see.
So you've given it up. You're letting them get away.
They won't get away.
You're going to catch them sitting in your office, Marshal Dillon?
You're going to write your story before it's finished, Mr. Norton?
Hello, Marshal.
Hello, man. Hi, Kitty.
Sit down. Thank you.
Drink?
Well, yeah, I think I'll have a beer.
Sam, bring Matt a beer, will you? Sure, Kitty.
Well, I understand you're a big disappointment as a Marshal.
Oh, Norton's been in here, huh?
All afternoon. He sure has a chip on his shoulder about the way we live out here.
Yeah, well, I think some of the cavalry boys gave him a pretty good hazing.
He's not the kind to forget.
Maybe not, but he isn't doing you any good.
Ah, don't pay him any attention, Kitty.
He doesn't bother me, Matt, but he's doing a lot of talking to anybody else to listen.
Here's your beer, Mark. Ah, thanks, Sam. Sure thing.
Uh, Kitty. Yeah?
What's Norton been saying?
That you're sitting there in an office full of guns, not doing anything to bring that old man in.
He talks a pretty good story, doesn't he?
Yeah, but Matt, I...
Yeah, yeah, over here, Chester. What is it?
Excuse me, Mr. Kitty.
Oh, sure, Chester.
Mr. Dillon, Joe Porter just got in from a trip down Meadway, and he is pretty upset.
Now, why?
Well, because long about night, Paul, last night he was going by that old deserted Hutchinson cabin out there.
He figured he'd bed down for the night.
Well, he got scared off by the old man's ghost, huh?
If they was ghosts, Mr. Kitty, they was too.
Well, all right, Chester. What happened?
Well, two people was firing at Joe with rifles.
He took off and never stopped for breath until he got here to dodge.
The old Hutchinson place, huh?
Yes, sir. Now, why would anybody be out there?
I don't know, Chester. Yet.
They got the horses. We'll ride out and take a look at that cabin ourselves.
Be dark for long, Mr. Dillon.
Yeah.
Mr. Dillon?
Yeah.
I just wondered, you don't reckon a ghost could shoot a rifle now, do you?
I don't think it matters much, Chester.
How's that?
If a rifle's aimed at me, I'm not particular about who's aiming it.
Ah, I suppose not.
I... Mr. Dillon, I believe there's somebody following after us.
Yeah, you're right. Hold up a minute.
Can't rightly see too good in this light.
Just keep your rifle handy.
I'd expect Mr. Dillon to hit that newspaper fella.
Yeah.
What are you doing here, Norton?
I've been tracking you, Marshal Dillon.
The best tradition of the West.
Cracking. Ain't no cracking about it.
All they're doing is riding right behind us. Ain't nothing to that.
What do you want, Norton?
Why, I want to be in on the kill, Marshal.
I want to watch you single-handedly bring in the desperadoes.
What makes you think we're after anybody?
Oh, Marshal, you're not riding out here just to exercise your horses.
How to send you straight back to Dodge.
Yeah, but the night's coming on, Marshal Dillon, and you told me yourself how hard it is to follow the trail on the prairie.
I got half a mind to let you find out for yourself just how true it is.
But you'd get lost and I'd have to waste my time looking for you.
Then I can join the expedition.
After all, you don't have much choice.
All right. Well, just stay out of the way and mind your own business.
You should know, Marshal, I wouldn't interfere with the carrying out of frontier justice.
Then keep your mouth shut.
And that's the best idea all.
Starting right now.
Now.
That ought to be just over that next little ride, Mr. Dillon.
Yeah.
Chester, we'll leave the horses in those trees over there and go the rest of the way on foot.
The way Ned Bundlein tells it, Western peace officers never go on foot.
Mr. Dillon, Mr. Dillon, couldn't we just tie up this smart aleck and leave him with the horses?
Take it easy, both of you.
It's just that I want to get things right, Dillon. I want to do you justice in my story.
If you don't start being a little quieter, you may not be around to write a story.
We're close to earshot now.
Yeah, this is as good a spot as any.
Chester, I'll boog the horses with you.
I'm going to move up head a little.
You come with me, Norton. I want you where I can keep an eye on you.
All right.
We'll see the shack from up here.
Yeah.
Won't they be able to see us?
If they're looking, they will.
Kind of dangerous, isn't it?
You wanted to see how it was done, Mr. Norton.
All right, you better get out.
Now what?
As soon as Chester comes up, we'll move in closer.
Right here, Mr. Dillon.
All right, Chester. Let's go have a look.
Right on top of me.
Yeah.
I'm going to try to...
Get on.
You sure ain't surprising them, man.
You stay down, Chester.
I'm going to try and talk to them.
All right, you men in there.
And the marshal out of Dodge City.
Now we're looking right down your throat.
You'll never make it shooting it out with us.
Now you throw your guns out and come on out and you won't get hurt.
You can't get it.
Well, that's up to you.
What would we do, Mr. Dillon?
We're going to have to make it from the front, Chester.
There's no way for one of us to get around back.
What about me?
You'd be smart to go back where you were.
We're not writing the story.
I don't feel much like writing one either.
Mr. Dillon, look.
Shack, somebody's coming out.
Yeah, I see him.
Come back here, you!
Don't shoot! Don't shoot!
Go on in, Mr. Dillon.
Help me! Please! Help me!
Don't shoot, Chester.
I ain't with them. I ain't with them.
Here, let's get him down behind his rise.
Yes, sir. Come on.
Don't shoot me again, Marshal. I ain't with them.
They made me stay with them.
It's all right, son.
Here, let's have a look at that arm.
It's pretty bad.
Bind it up, will you, Chester?
I'll try, but it needs something real tight.
Do what you can.
Can I help?
I don't know, Mr. Norton. It seems to me you've got your story.
That can wait.
It reads, Marshal shoots unarmed boy instead of bandit.
That ought to give your readers a real good idea of what the West is like.
Marshal, if you don't want to write it.
Mr. Dillon, I'll come with you.
You stay with the boy, Chester.
I said stay with the boy. I'll handle this.
Great.
He'll be killed.
Get him!
Get him!
Get him!
Look, Marshal, I...
I guess I was wrong.
You took his book.
Mr. Dillon?
Mr. Dillon?
Mr. Dillon, are you all right?
It's all over, Chester.
Yeah, but are you all right?
Yeah.
Now get on back up there and watch that boy like I told you to.
Yeah, but Mr. Dillon...
Nobody needs any help down here. Now go on.
I'll be up there in a minute.
Mr. Dillon, I'll tell you one thing.
This newspaper fellow's good for.
He sure can handle a shovel.
I guess it's good for us to have to dig at least one grave in our lifetime.
It keeps us from taking anything for granted.
But digging two seems to be overdoing it a bit.
Yeah.
You riding easy enough back there, son?
Well, sure, Marshal. Ain't nothing a matter with me.
You just ticked me.
And like they say, that bullet's a long way from my heart.
Well, don't get too gay with it and start bleeding again.
Doc'll probably want to stitch you up a little bit when we get back to town.
I don't think he'll have to do anything like that.
No, Doc'll do you a real nice job.
I got some of it sewn in my shoulder and it's every bit as pretty as him stitching.
Well, Marshal Dillon...
Yeah?
Would you be interested in hearing some of my ideas about the West?
Why don't you just write them down for your newspaper, Mr. Norton?
These are revised ideas, Marshal.
I thought that you ought to be the first to know.
I don't care what you print in your newspaper.
I answer for my own mistakes.
What I was going to say was...
I've come to see the West as a place to live, just like any other place.
Yeah.
A man has a job there just like any other man.
No different because he wears a gun.
Yeah, a little noisier sometimes.
A man makes mistakes in the West, it's like he makes mistakes in St. Louis.
He goes ahead trying to do his job just like they do everywhere else.
Well, maybe you've learned something after all.
I think I have.
Marshal?
Yeah?
I was just wondering if you'd let me buy you a drink when we get back to town.
Sure, Norton, I'll have a drink with you.
You may still have something to learn about Western whiskey, though.
Gunsmoke, produced and directed by Norman MacDonald,
stars William Conrad as Matt Dillon, U.S. Marshal.
The story was specially written for Gunsmoke by Marion Clark,
with editorial supervision by John Meston.
Join us again next week for another story on gunsmoke.