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.
Marshal, Marshal, I've been looking for you. Oh, hello, Tush. I just want to ask you one question. All right, go ahead, ask.
Are you, are you not sworn as a matter of bound and duty, to uphold law and order in Dodge City? Well, I guess you could put it that way.
Then why don't you get up from that dear table and go out and find that cow?
Oh, my goodness, you think all Mr. Don't got to do is go out hunting some scrawny old hogs?
You keep your mouth shut, Chester.
Get the dog on, minute here. Ain't nobody going to spot off at the other side.
Sit down, Chester, sit down. You too, Tush, you keep waving your arms like that, you're going to get apoplexy.
I ain't got no time to sit down, Marshal. I got 1,400 head of cattle over across the river, balling in the fronting.
I got buyers up at the Dodge house willing to pay for near anything I ask, cause I'm bringing in the first trail herd of the season, providing a can.
Marshal, you've got to find out what happened to Oney Hager and that goddang cow of his.
Well, how do you know anything has happened to him?
They eat at that shack of his, neither one of them. If he was just going best, then he wouldn't take the cow, would he?
He might. Oney Hager's pretty crazy about that cow.
You shut up, Chester, I didn't ask you.
I didn't ask if you asked. I just said one thing, I didn't ask.
All right, all right, Chester. Look, Tush, why don't you just sit down and have a beer, huh? Oney will be back in his own good time.
Well, his good time ain't mine. Burt Collins is bringing a herd up for the Circle C, ain't more than two days behind me.
And if he gets his cattle across that river and into them shipping pens first, he'll get the big prize and not me.
Well, I'll check around town in the morning and see if anybody knows where Oney went.
Hard to ask his neighbors ain't seen him for four or five days, or the cow either.
And, Marshal, I'm reminding you of your sworn duty.
My sworn duty doesn't include going out and scouring the countryside for a missing cow, Tush.
Not even if there's been foul play done.
What are you talking about?
That shack of his has tore up something awful like there was a big fighting ruckus in it.
Is that the only reason you think something's happened to Oney, the way the place looks?
Marshal, Burt Collins wouldn't stop at nothing to get that herd of his in ahead of me. He's just low down mean enough.
Well, it's too late to start tonight, but I'll see what I can find out first thing in the morning.
Well, I'm asking, Marshal, for you to enforce the law and protect the innocent and bring a gelt into jail.
Yeah, yeah, I'll try to do all of that, Tush, the first thing in the morning.
Now, why don't you check in at the Dodge house and try to get some sleep?
I doubt I'll close my eyes. All them cattle on the far side of the river, all that money on this side.
I won't sleep a wink, Marshal, but I hope you pass the pay roll.
Thanks, Tush.
My goodness, Mr. Dillon, all that fuming and fretting over a 16-year-old cow that's a dang skinny or hip bone stick out like a hub's on a wagon wheel.
Yeah, but she comes in handy, though, for a job like this.
Hi, Matt.
Ah, how about Kitty?
Kitty.
Sit down.
Ah, would you like to have some beer?
Yeah, thanks.
All right.
Um, what's Tush Leo worked up about, man?
Oh, he's got a trail herd that he wants to bring across the river.
He's pretty upset because he can't find Oney Hager and that cow it is.
What's Oney Hager's cows got to do with it, Tush?
Well, for land sickness, Kitty, everybody knows you've got to have a cow or a steer.
It's a good swimmer, and it'll take the lead if you want to drive a herd across water.
Well, I didn't know it. Is that true, Matt?
Yeah, yeah, that's true.
See, a lot of herds have a natural leader or two, and if they'll take to water, the rest of the cattle will follow them across.
But if you try to force the herd in, the chances are they'll panic and half of them will drown.
Oh, I never heard of it.
Oh, Oney Hager makes a lot of money every season just leading the herds across the air canisters.
That old cow of his takes to water like a duck.
Well, then it's not a joke. Without that cow, Tush is in trouble.
Sure, he's in trouble.
If Burt Collins hits here in a couple of days with his herd, there's going to be more trouble.
But he's already here, Matt.
Collins?
Yeah, I seen him on the streets this afternoon. Ain't he due in yet?
No. He must have had a gun ahead.
Mr. Dillon, Tush said that shag the Oneys is all tore up like they'd been a fight.
Yeah, and Oney's not one to go off on sudden trips.
You know something, Kitty, I think you're right.
It's not a joke.
Ah, yes.
Now just listen a minute, or if you will.
I've got a little story to tell you.
Well, it's not so little, and it's sort of a tall tale.
There's about a drought-busting weather conjurer named Feebold Feeboulsen.
Why, they say Kansas never had a drought that he couldn't bust in 24 hours.
They say he had at least a hundred different ways of doing it, too.
Once when it got so hot that folks had to spend half their time in some lake
to keep from drying up and blowing away, old Feebold figured it was time for a little rain.
Well, he thought on the problem for a while.
He went out and built huge fires all around the lakes and kept them going
until the lakes started boiling and the water got to vaporizing.
These vapor clouds rose up from the lakes so fast they slammed into one another
and started raining all over the place.
Well, sir, once primed the rains came again and were soon back on schedule.
Feebold saved the country that time.
That wasn't the only time that Feebold saved the country, either.
There were others, too.
There was a time he used the noise method to make rain.
Oh, he didn't use cannons and rockets and the like.
He was original. He used frogs.
Now, Feebold realized that frogs wouldn't croak unless they were good and wet,
so he hypnotized a couple of them and told them it was raining.
Well, sir, it would have done your heart good to hear them frogs croaking with joy
and spreading the news around.
Soon every frog in the country was croaking as loud as he could,
which was loud enough to give an Indian rain god a skull-splitting headache.
Well, the amount of noise turned out to be just right and the rains just poured down.
Of course, old Feebold could only use that method once a year,
because so much rain would come down that the frogs would get washed clear
down to the Gulf of Mexico and it would take them near a year to get back home.
Rain, fog, sleet, snow, heat, or what have you,
old Feebold had a way to handle the situation.
Why, I remember the time that—no, I hadn't better tell you that one.
Why, it's almost unbelievable,
and I don't want to take a chance on making you think that I might stretch the truth just a little bit.
Say, isn't it nice being citizens of a country where you can laugh and talk about things free as a breeze
and write and read and worship too?
Yes, sir, maybe you don't think about it much, but you should.
It sure is good to get back, Mr. Lillen. I'm terribly hungry.
Matt, oh, Matt, wait a minute.
Oh, hello, Doc.
Hello, Doc.
I want to talk to you.
All right.
Chester, you go on ahead if you want. I'll meet you at the restaurant, huh?
Well, I am feeling pretty empty, Mr. Lillen. I'll go on in. See you later, Doc.
Yep, right, Chester.
What's on your mind, Doc?
Well, Matt, what are you planning to do today?
Work, same as the other six days of our week.
Work? You mean sitting down in that jail office with your feet on the desk?
No, not today, Doc. I've got to track down a cow.
A cow? A cow, that's good.
Say, Matt, say, you come along with me.
Oh, where?
I've got to look in on a couple of patients out toward Iowa Meadows.
Now, it won't take long, and we'll have the rest of the day to shoot us some prairie hens.
Prairie hens? This time of year?
Doc, the only prairie hen around here right now are holed up in the plum thicket so deep that a weasel couldn't even get in.
Ah, now that's just where you're wrong.
You know how Iowa Meadows is protected by that bend in the river, those high bluffs on the north side there?
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, these last few weeks, it's been mighty warm for this time of year.
Yeah.
Well, it's made a kind of a fall spring out there in the meadow.
Now, the way I hear it, it's just as green as May, with a standing young clover coming up there,
and wild tin of hen, buffalo grass, and the prairie hens are just swarming.
You know something? That's possible, Doc. I remember something like that happening a few years back.
Well, come on then. Let's get out there and get at it.
Well, Doc, I already told you. I've got to find the cow.
What? Are you serious?
Yes.
I thought that was a joke.
I wish it was. Say, you haven't seen anything of Ony Hager, have you?
You mean Ony's cow?
Uh-huh.
That old bag of bones?
If that old bag of bones doesn't turn up pretty quick, it's going to cause the worst fight that this town's ever seen.
Oh, fight? Now, who would have bothered to fight over that scrawny old walking carcass, huh?
Except Ony, of course.
Yeah, not Ony. A couple of pretty tough boys named Burke Collins and Tush Lee.
See, Ony's disappeared, and that's the trouble.
Tush thinks that Collins has had something to do with it.
I'm not too sure, but what he may be right.
What do you mean?
Well, Chester and I just got back from a look at Ony's shack this morning.
He's been a fight in it, all right. The cook stoves knocked over, tables smashed.
No sign of Ony or the cow anywhere.
Oh, well, gee, Matt, maybe he went on a trip.
Took his cow along?
Oh, oh, well, no.
See, Matt, if any of them's something to pull on Ony, they ought to be hung.
I feel the same way, Doc.
He's got his faults, but he's a harmless old coot, and he never did any hurt to anybody in his whole life.
Yeah, it kind of looks like somebody did some hurt to him, though.
I just don't seem to have no appetite at all lately, Mr. John.
Yeah, I noticed that, Chester. You only had six eggs.
Well, I don't mean I don't eat exactly, but I just don't seem to relish it as much anymore.
Oh, I see. Or maybe if you cut down on the quantity a little bit, maybe...
No, no, it ain't that, I don't think.
Oh.
See, it's just more like I've been feeling poorly lately.
Nothing different. It got me just kind of sore all over.
Tell me something, Chester. You didn't start getting these feelings just a few minutes ago, did you, when I told you about Doc going hunting today?
Oh, my goodness, no, Mr. John. I've been having these pains for a long time.
Oh, I see.
Of course, now that you've missed it, I declare I bet it sure wouldn't do me no harm to...
Get out in the open for a while.
Oh, like around Kiowa Meadow, for instance, huh?
Parahend makes mighty good eating. I heard you say that to yourself many a time.
Doc's already promised us something, Chester.
Oh, Doc's already... Look, seeing is believing. Doc can't hit the side of a barn with both hands and a board in the middle, you know that.
Matt.
Oh, hello, Kitty.
Matt, you better get over the long branch right away.
Oh, why? What's wrong?
Tush and Bert Cullen's over there, sidling around each other like a pair of tomcats. It's gonna bust loose any minute now.
Oh, come on, Chester.
I got some pop jacks here on the air.
I'll bring them with you.
They know how to say nothing about robots.
There they are, Mr. John.
Everybody knows what kind of people some people are, and with them kind proving they're needed.
Well, now, Matt had never had no friend his whole born days. You should not expect nobody here to agree with him.
Matt, if we get another mirror broke this month, we might as well close up.
Now, we'll see what we can do, Kitty. You stay here, Chester.
I'm saying you made off with Onni Hager and that cow I has, and more than likely you've done him in.
Now, that's a lot. And I'm gonna break you in pieces for it, huh?
You can start whenever you're ready.
All right, hold it, both of you.
Well, there's a murderer, Marshal. Do your duty now.
Marshal? Marshal?
A man shouldn't ought to go telling lies about somebody, had he?
What are you doing in town, Collins? I thought your herd was still a day or so south of the river.
Well, I rode in ahead. I wanted to talk to them cattle buyers.
Come in to steal that cow and murder Onni Hager. That's what he done.
Have you seen Onni?
All right, I want to see him. I got two, three good swimmers in my herd.
You gonna arrest him or ain't you, Marshal?
I'm afraid I haven't got much reason to, Tush.
All right, then we'll take the law into my own hands.
I wouldn't advise that, Tush.
I'll give you your chance, Marshal. If you ain't gonna do your job, I'm gonna bring my boys into town and do it for you.
Tush, come back.
Well, now, crazy fool, the man is gonna be attacked. He shouldn't ought to just stand around and do nothing to protect himself, should he?
Now, wait a minute, Collins. Wait nothing. I'm going to camp and get some of my boys, Marshal.
Ah, doggone old cow, sure is causing a lot of trouble, ain't you, Mr. Young?
Yeah, and it's gonna get worse.
This land is your land, this land is my land, this land was made for you and me.
For all that we tend to group Nebraska with one or another of the states, the Cornhusker State has many characteristics which are strictly its own.
Since 1875, for example, Nebraska has been a debt-free state, which preferred to spend ten years building the capital at Lincoln rather than spend money it didn't have.
Further, as its name may indicate, corn is its most important crop, and Omaha's stockyards are among the largest in the world.
Then there's historic Chimney Rock near Bayard and the town of Alliance, which was once almost sold by the Burlington Lines Railroad.
Many years of tears and Indian wars and hardship such as the grasshopper plague contributed to the words which are engraved upon the capital,
honor to pioneers who broke the sods that men to come might live.
Nebraskans live by these words and they live for them.
It's worse than I get to skip my nerve tour.
Mr. Dillon? Mr. Dillon?
Shut the door, Chester.
Oh, Chester. Mr. Dillon, what are you aiming to do?
Sit here and digest my breakfast wine.
But they're going to be added any minute now.
Who is?
Tush, Lee, and Bert Collins. You ain't forgot about them, have you?
No, but I wish I couldn't.
Well, they're in town right now, both of them, and they got their men with them.
Yeah, I know.
Well, if you already know, why don't you do something?
Like what, Chester?
Well, my land, you could, at least you could go, well, maybe if you couldn't do that, you,
well, you can't just sit here and let them kill each other.
But I can sit here until I'm sure that that's what they're going to do.
But they are, they are. That's what I'm telling you.
Tush is up there at the long branch saying how he's going to hang Bert,
and Bert's down the other end of the street making his brag about how he's going to shoot Tush
so full of holes the birds can fly through.
Chester, if all the killing that's talked about in Dodge City was actually done,
Boothill would be ten miles wide and twenty miles long.
But these two aren't really going to.
Then I'll deal with it when it starts.
And that'll be any minute now.
Everybody else in town thinks so, too.
Take a look out this window. There ain't a soul in the street except for some crazy fool leading a,
leading a, Mr. Dillon?
Yeah, what's the matter?
Tony Hager.
Huh?
He's got his cow.
He ain't dead at all.
Come on.
Hey, Onnie.
Wait up a minute, will ya?
And look, there's Tush, the door of the long branch there.
Yeah, there comes Collins and his men.
It's him.
Morning, Marshal.
Chester.
Oh, Onnie.
Looking up to be another mighty pleasant day now.
Or wouldn't you say so?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a fine, fine day, Onnie.
Where have you been?
Oh, me and Ida Bell here.
We've been up to Kiowa Meadows for a few days.
Kiowa Meadows?
Oh, my goodness.
It's just like spring up there.
All new grass and fresh clover.
And Ida Bell ain't at nothing but dry feed all winter.
She's just done her world of good.
Ain't that right now, dearie?
Uh, Tush.
Come on out of here.
You too, Collins.
And both of you come along.
You had any excitement around town while I been gone, Marshal?
Excitement?
Oh, no.
None to speak of, Onnie.
Things have been pretty quiet.
Onnie, did you see any prayer hand up in Kiowa Meadows?
Oh, my, yes.
It was just schedule.
I'm mighty glad you got away from him, Onnie.
Did it hurt you bad?
Oh, now shut up and listen to me, both of you.
Before you start taking the law into your hands again, Tush,
you better stop and think for a minute.
Onnie's only been away on a little trip.
Collins here had nothing to do with it.
What?
It's true.
Tell him, Onnie.
Well, I don't know what you're talking about,
but me and Ida Bell's been up to Kiowa Meadows.
Well, there you are, Tush.
Look, I told you.
How was I to know?
Well, you didn't know.
And it's like I said, a man hadn't ought to say what he ain't sure of.
I reckon I was kind of in the wrong, all right.
Well, that's for dang sure.
And you made me look real bad, Tush.
Yeah, I guess I did.
Bert, I might set up drinks after you as a mind-bender.
Oh, right.
You ain't got to say that but one time.
Let's go.
Onnie, will you have that cow down the river in a couple hours?
I got a job for her.
Bert, I'm mighty sorry, but Ida Bell can't do no swimming today.
She can't?
Well, why not?
Well, she ate too much green clover and she ain't going to be fit to go in the water before tomorrow.
Tomorrow may be too late.
Oh, forget it.
Those you're hurting with mind will swim across together.
Well...
Then we'll hold out for the same price with them cattle buyers.
Fair enough.
All right.
Come on, let's get that drink.
Okay.
Say, Onnie.
Yeah?
If you went off on a trip on your own choice, now how come your house was all tore up so
bad that way?
Yeah.
Well, there was an encounter with Ida Bell.
She didn't know where we was going and she put up an awful ruckus before I convinced
her.
But it wasn't the barn that was tore up, it was the house.
Well, of course it was.
Where do you expect me to keep her?
Outdoors?
No, no, Onnie, nobody would expect you to keep that cow any place except right in the
house.
Gun Smoke, produced and directed by Norman MacDonald, stars William Conrad as Matt Dillon,
U.S. Marshal.
Featured in the cast were Parley Bear as Chester, Howard McNear as Doc, and Georgia Ellis as
Kitty.
George Walsh speaking.
Join us again next week for another specially transcribed story on Gun Smoke.
This is the United States Armed Forces Radio and Television Service.
Thank you.