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, 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.
Doggone it! What's the matter, Chester? Well, I just can't figure out how he done it, Mr. Dillon. How, who did what?
Well, that fellow with the medicine show over back at the Dodge house. Oh, that I can't. Well, Sam and me had it all figured out. Sam would walk from one side and I'd walk from the other, and when he'd move them three walnut shells around, we just knew which one the pea was under.
Sure you did. And by golly, somehow we still lost six dollars apiece. I've been fooling with it here, trying to puzzle out how he done it. There ain't nothing to it except three walnut shells and a pea.
And a pretty smart man operating them. Well, now me and Sam ain't exactly dummies, you know. Well, Matt, you better come quick. What is it, Doc?
Well, Del Bregan and some of his riders, they're up at the livery stable. They got hold of some stranger, and I think they're fixing to hang him. Huh? Come on, Chester.
Well, I think they need business, Mr. Dillon. Look at that rope. Yeah. What did they do, Doc? They got Bregan all riled up. Well, I didn't wait to find out, man. Well, it don't take much, but he did get Del Bregan riled up.
That's for sure. Hey, Bregan. What's going on here, Bregan? This ain't nothing the law need bother about, Marshal. Huh? We caught this here saddle bum dead to rights. There ain't no use wasting time on a trial.
I see. That looks to me like you've already pushed him around some. Is he conscious? He will be before we string him up. I want him to know just why we're doing it.
Doc, take a look at him, will you? Sure, man. Stand back there, will you, please? Let me have a room. Now, Bregan, suppose you tell me why you're about to lynch the man.
It ain't none of your concern, Marshal. You go on about your business and take Doc, will you? Ain't no use patching up a fellow that's going to be dead in ten minutes anyhow.
Hasn't anybody told you we got laws in Dodge City now? Laws for them that needs it. This ain't the first horse thief I've hunted.
Those days are over, Bregan. And so's the hanging, boys. You come on down out of that loft and you bring the rope with you.
Marshal, we caught this man with two of my best horses, blooded stock, that's been missing off the ranch since last month. If he's stolen the law, I'll deal with it.
No, Marshal. We'll deal with him. Bregan, you keep your hand away from that gun.
I will. When you get out of here and leave us be. You will, right now.
Here, Chester, get Bregan's gun.
Yes, sir.
How's the fellow, Doc?
He's been beat up, son. Kicked around a little, but he'll be all right.
Then let's get him over to the jail.
Say, give me a hand here, will you, Chester?
Sure, Doc.
All right, you men drag Bregan over there to the horse trough and you stick his head in it. Tell him he can pick up his gun at the jail as soon as he cools off.
And another thing.
The next time any one of you brings a rope into town, you keep it tied to your saddle. Do you understand?
The shoveling started at the little town of Rome in New York State back in 1817.
And on July 4, 1967, the post office released a special sesquicentennial stamp there in honor of the big ditch they dug, which it says on the stamp in my album here was the Erie Canal.
Now, in case you don't know, that canal went all the way from Buffalo on Lake Erie to the Hudson River, connecting the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean.
The biggest waterway ever built in the United States at the time, and it was done mostly by the Irish just over from the old country, who did their digging with spit and mussel.
Made lots of money for years on tolls, and the traffic and freight and people through the canal was mainly responsible for building up the Midwest and keeping business in the East busy doing it.
Well, of course the Erie Canal ain't what she used to be, because the railroads do most of the job now, but the big ditch is still there, and so is all the history that went through it.
You the Marshal?
Yeah, that's right.
I'm Jesse Hyatt. How'd I get here, Marshal?
We carried you here, Jesse. How do you feel?
Oh, Marshal, I couldn't feel no sore if they drove a herd of longhorns over me.
Now, that could have been worse, you know. They were fixing to hang it.
You know something, Marshal? Dodge City ain't the friendliest town in the world when you come right down to it.
Not for horse thieves, anyway.
I didn't steal them horses. I tried to tell them that, but they wouldn't listen, especially that red-faced mouthy fella.
Now, that's Del Bregan. They're his horses.
I hit town, left the horses there at the livery stable while I went up the street to eat. When I come back, they all jump me.
You did have his horses, though.
Who says they're his?
Well, I do, for one. I went over and took a look at them. They disappeared off his ranch about a month ago.
Well, I don't know nothing about that. All I know is that I bought them, fair and honest.
Where?
From a horse dealer in Wichita about two weeks ago.
Huh? What was his name?
I don't know. I think he was just traveling through. He offered me a bargain, so I bought him.
I was coming on west, and I needed a pair of good horses.
You remember what he looked like?
Oh, well, none of the good, fast-talking fella, black whiskers, dressed like most anybody else.
I ain't even sure I'd know him if I was to meet him again.
I see.
Well, I didn't pay no special mind. There were no reason to.
Marshal, I bought them horses, no matter what anybody says.
That's going to be kind of hard to prove, isn't it, Jesse?
Not if you find that trader I bought them from.
Where would you look for him?
I don't know.
You see, that's what I mean.
Are they going to have a trial on me?
Yeah, breaking those final charges.
What do you think will happen?
Well, kind of hard to say how, a jury you figured.
I ain't got a chance, have I, Marshal?
Oh, there's always a chance. At least you're not swinging on a rope.
Tell me, what are you doing a dodge in the first place?
Just passing through. I got an aunt who lives alone upriver.
She wrote she needed help running the place.
Uh-huh.
I'm sorry to bother you, Mr. Jones, but there's somebody out there to see you.
Oh, all right, Jesse.
Jesse, if you can think of anything else that might help, you let me know, huh?
There ain't nothing, Marshal. I'm a goner. We both know it.
I think you're kind of rushing things, Jesse.
All right, come on, Jesse.
Yes, sir.
Mr. Dillon, it's that young and the Dale Bragan.
Oh, you mean Tommy?
Yes, sir.
Ah, hello, Tommy. How have you been?
Oh, fine, Marshal. Could I see that fella, please?
What? What fella?
The one that Pa tried to hang this morning.
That one he treated mean, like he treats everybody mean.
Why, your Pa thinks he's doing right, Tommy.
He ain't right to be like he is. I know it ain't right.
And someday the devil's gonna get him.
Ah, Tommy, that's...
Could I see that fella, Marshal, please? I want to tell him I'm sorry.
All right, Tommy. Go on back through that door there. He's in the last cell.
Thanks, Marshal.
You reckon that Jesse feller is guilty, Mr. Jones?
I don't know, Chester. But I do know one thing.
The jury's gonna think so.
Matt, Matt, wait a minute.
Ah, hello, Kitty.
Matt, what's this story Delbregan's telling?
Well, I don't know, Kitty. What story is he telling?
About how he's gonna take some fella out of jail and hang him if the law doesn't get a move on.
And how he'd have done it this morning only you hit him when he wasn't looking.
Well, he's got more imagination than I gave him credit for.
Well, he's sure been mouthing off over there at the bar. To anybody who'll listen.
I thought you'd want to know about it in case. Uh-oh. Here he comes, Matt.
Yeah.
You know, I've never seen that man when he wasn't mad about something.
What have you done about that horse thief, Marshal?
Not a thing, Bregan. That's up to Judge Bent.
What are you aiming to do with a man? Keep on coddling him until old Bent gets up the gumption to hang him?
Well, I'm gonna feed him and keep him locked up, if that's what you call coddling.
And for the rest of it, stealing horses is not a hanging offense under the law.
It is under the law I go by.
How long's it gonna take you, Del?
Take me to what?
To get it through that thick head of yours that the old days are finished over with. There's law on the frontier now.
Things work better without it.
Maybe for a bully like you.
But like it or not, the law's here to stay and you better understand it.
For your boy's sake, if not for your own.
What about my boy?
He's gonna have to live in a different world from yours and the hard-headed way you act isn't much of an example for him.
Tommy'll do all right. Don't you worry. He knows what he'll get if he don't. He's had the fear of the Lord beat into him.
And with less beaten and more understanding, he might not hate you so much.
Hate me? He don't hate me, he respects me.
Respects?
Now, you call it that if you want. But I wouldn't want to be in your shoes the day he reaches your size.
You trying to tell me how to raise my own son?
No. But I am telling you this, you leave my prisoner alone.
Marshal, you whip me with your fist this morning.
And if it come to it, maybe you could out draw me.
You keep on acting hard-nosed.
Might be we'll find out for sure.
Hello, Mr. Dillon.
That thing's been quiet, Chester?
Yeah, an area of souls come near. You'd think this jailhouse had been quarantined for the Pox or something.
You're lucky it's given you more time to study that shell game, hasn't it?
Sure ain't done no good. I've been at it all evening and I still can't figure out how that fellow's coming.
You want to take a few more dollars and go try to find out?
Sure, I ain't going near that medicine show ever again.
Not till payday, anyway. How's the prisoner?
Sleeping, I reckon. I ain't been back.
Maybe I better go take a look.
That's all right, I'll go.
Tell you what, why don't you set up the cribbage board and I'll show you another game you can't figure out.
Oh, no. Cribbage is something I do know about.
Wow.
Just don't move, Marshal.
Where'd you get the gun, Jesse?
I make no difference where. You move easy now, Marshal. I'll blow a hole right through you.
What good would it do you? You'd still be locked up?
Not for long I won't, because you're going to let me out.
Don't lay money on it.
Open that cell door, Marshal, right now.
Don't be a fool, Jesse. The worst you'll get now is a prison sentence. You pull that trigger and you'll hang.
I ain't going to prison for something I didn't do. You open that door and hurry up about it.
Now give me the gun, Jesse. You're not going to shoot and we both know it. Now come on, hand it over.
I'm warning you, I will shoot.
You'll still be locked inside the cell if you did shoot me. You wouldn't be ahead of me. Now let's have the gun. Come on.
Here. Take it. It ain't got no loads in it. I took them out so there wouldn't be no accident.
What you got, Jesse?
That kid brung it in this afternoon. He had it under his shirt.
What? You mean Tommy Bregan?
I don't know his name. He said he was sorry for me.
And he said he'd come back in the morning, about sunup, and try to sneak the key out of the office.
Real nice kid.
Tommy Bregan.
I can't figure why he'd go to all that trouble, not even knowing me.
No, I can't either, Jesse. But I'll ask him when he comes back in the morning.
Hometowns in America have a lot in common, and yet they're each one of a kind.
Take, for example, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The smoky city is smoking less now and enjoying it more,
mostly because Pittsburghers decided a decade or so ago that enough was enough.
Now their smoke and polluted air problem is virtually nonexistent.
Over in Shadyside, you can catch the pit crowd at the encore,
or the party may have moved across the street and down on the corner to Fox's.
On Grant and Seventh, the lighted dome of the Copper's building signals the weather,
and at Gateway Center, the Menongahela and the Allegheny form the Ohio at the Golden Triangle.
Pittsburgh's people meet under the clock at Kaufman's on Smithfield, or lunch at Lamont in Mount Washington.
Meanwhile, the pirates play at Forbes Field. The teens are at McKee's Ports for Elephant.
Office workers drift in Melon Square. And the animals nap at Highland Park Zoo.
But if your hometown is Pittsburgh, you already know this.
We only wanted to remind you it's still there.
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There he comes, Mr. Jones, riding that Pinto pony.
Yeah, I see him.
Looks like Jesse was telling the truth.
He may have been all along, Chester.
Yeah, but my goodness, a young puppy like Tommy breaking sneaking guns into jail,
trying to help prisoners break out like he ought to be switched good.
Maybe he's been switched too much already.
Okay. Walking tiptoe, moving real quiet, I guess he thinks we ain't up yet.
Then we mustn't disappoint him. You get back to your bunk and lie down, huh?
Yes, sir.
You're a darn fool kid, and you're bad at this, huh?
You'll be quiet.
Jesse. Jesse.
All right, let's surprise him, Chester.
Right.
Morning, Tommy.
Oh, Marshall. I thought you was, I mean...
I guess Jesse was the only one who was really asleep, huh?
What's going on here? What are you doing here, Tommy?
He was letting you out, Jesse.
I had to. It ain't right of him being in there.
You gave him a gun yesterday, Tommy. Did you want him to kill me with it?
I thought we were friends.
No, it wasn't to kill you with. It was to keep Pa from getting them again after I let him out.
He's accused of stealing two of your Pa's horses.
But he didn't do it. He didn't steal no horses.
How do you know?
Because I... because I just know that's all.
Boy, if you know, tell him who did it.
My Pa's always beating me, yelling at me. I wanted to get even with him.
Get even with him? How?
By giving them two horses away.
You gave your Pa's horses away?
I wanted to get even with him for being so mean all the time.
Well, who'd you give them to, Tommy?
Oh, some fellow riding through. He had black whiskers and...
Hey, Marshall.
He said he was heading east.
That's the man, Marshall. That's who I bought them off of.
All right, come on out, Jesse. Let's go into the office.
Well, I guess that clears up whether you're guilty or not.
You mean I'm free to go?
Yeah, you sure are.
Marshall, what are you gonna do to me?
What do you mean, Tommy?
For sneaking in here trying to let Jesse out now.
Well, I don't know.
Well, don't matter. Paul'll kill me sure now.
Marshall.
What?
I got an idea.
Remember I told you how I was headed for my aunt's place upriver?
How she's alone, needs help to run things?
Well, she's a good woman, Marshall. Real good woman.
Maybe Tommy could stay there until his pa cools off.
Huh. Tommy.
Yeah?
How'd you like to go with Jesse up to his aunt's place for a little while, huh?
Could I?
In the meantime, I could talk to your pa.
But I won't tell him where you are just yet.
But Mr. Dillon, when Reagan finds out where Tommy is,
he'll come after him with a whole handful of switches.
No, I don't think so, Chester.
Tommy, maybe this will give your pa a chance to think things over.
And you know something?
He might even learn the difference between fear and respect.
All right, now you two get going.
With your permission, I'd like to quote an excerpt from a speech by that old political character Elijah Cuddlestone.
And I say, state and declare, that is, that pork barrel appropriations are not going to be our salvation.
We must, I say, we have to get up on our hind legs.
I mean, you stand up and fight for our own improvements.
The pork barrel is for loafers.
I mean, the greedy and the weak, that is.
That term, pork barrel, you know what it means?
Well, pork is fat, and fat for hundreds of years has meant plenty, abundance.
Ye shall eat the fat of the land.
About a hundred years ago in the halls of Congress, fat, meaning lucrative or rewarding, became pork.
And about 50 years ago, when congressmen sought larger appropriations for such things as bridges,
harbor or river improvements, public buildings and so forth to impress their constituents,
they were accused of seeking pork barrel appropriations.
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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.
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