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.
The lively crowd, today you're green. Those who think young, say Pepsi, please. They pick the right one, the modern light one. Now it's Pepsi for those who think young.
Those who think young, so go ahead and pick the drink that lets you drink young as you think. Yes, get the right one, the modern light one. Now it's Pepsi for those who think young.
No, no, no sir, it just isn't right, Justin. It just isn't right.
What ain't right? What are you talking about, Doc?
I'm talking about Matt, out trippin' all over the country after some killer, maybe getting himself shot.
Oh my goodness.
And here you sit sunning yourself with your feet propped up on the porch rail, half asleep. You just look here.
Shameful, just shameful.
That's not Doc. You know Mr. Dillon told me to stay here and watch after him.
Well, then it seems like you could find something more useful to do with your time. You know, I'd feel a little bit guilty if I were you.
Doc, you're just plain cantankerous, that's what you are.
Whoa, hold up there.
Oh my.
Look at that.
Well, looks like we made it, Benjamin.
Sure does, Pa.
Now there's a pair of real beauties.
They look like they both come off a hog farm.
Hey, you.
Rackney's yelling at us.
You, not me.
Hey.
You talking to me, mister?
Of course I am. Is that there the Dodge house?
It's got a sign, says it real clear.
Folks tell me that that there's the only staying place you got in Dodge City, is that right?
You mean a hotel, I suppose that's right.
You suppose? Well, it seems like you ought to know if you belong here.
Mister, I belong here all right, but maybe you don't.
I go where I please, sonny.
Well, with an attitude like that, you ain't gonna go far.
Who's gonna stop me?
Now, Pa.
Mister, if you wasn't so old and scrawny, I swear I'd throw you right out in the middle of that street.
Well, don't let nothing stop me from trying.
Wait just a minute here.
Who are you?
Doc Adams.
It seems to me that you walked up here with a pretty big chip on your shoulder.
That ain't no concern of yours, so you just keep shut.
Now, here, you listen, you cause any trouble and I'll throw you in jail if you cool off, son.
In jail? How you gonna do that? You ain't no lawman.
Well, I'm the only law there are in Dodge right now.
You? Yes, me.
Well, well, no offense, men.
I mean, we've been on the trail for quite a spell and sometimes, well, sometimes a man gets a mite-shark, you know.
I don't give you no right to go around smarting off at folks like that.
You're right, Marshal. You're purely right and I'm sorry.
Wilters, my name's Sedge Wilter.
And this here is my very own daughter. Step up here, Bessie Mae.
I'm right, please.
Uh, I do, ma'am.
And what might your name be, Marshal?
Uh, uh, Chester Proudfoot, but I, I'm not...
I've never seen a real Marshal before.
Well, look, see, I, I...
I figure Bessie Mae and me might stay right here in Dodge a while.
Well, that'll be nice, but I want to tell you that I ain't...
Looks like a fine town.
Real fine. Ain't that so, Bessie Mae?
Sure is, Pa.
You know, it just might be we're gonna find what we're looking for here in Dodge City.
Yes, sir.
It just might be.
Hello, Chester.
Are you doing it alone or do you want some company?
Well, hello, Miss Kitty.
Sam, bring me a beer, will you?
Yeah, sure, Miss Kitty.
You want another one, Chester?
No, thank you, no.
You, um, heard from Matt yet?
No, ma'am, I ain't.
Seems like he's been gone an awful long time.
Better in a week now.
Here you are, Miss Kitty.
Thanks, Sam.
You're welcome, ma'am.
Wonder if Matt ever caught the man who was after him.
Cliff Mattes?
Mm-hmm.
I sure do hope so.
Them folks up in Hay City got a rope waiting for him.
Feelin' runs pretty high when a man kills a whole family just to steal a few dollars.
I hope Matt gets him.
If he's gonna get caught, Mr. Dillon can do it.
Sure do wish I coulda went with him, though.
Well, somebody had to stay and keep the towns from burnin' down, Chester.
Yeah, well, I suppose he can.
Oh, my.
What, what?
That ornery old sod buster said Wilkerson.
Oh, hey, careful.
I've been lookin' all over for you, Chester.
You have?
Yeah.
Oh, ain't you gonna introduce me to the lady?
Oh, well, this is Miss Kitty. She, she owns a long branch.
Oh, I do, ma'am. Wilker's my name. Sedge Wilker.
Mr. Wilker?
Say, this is the right nice place you got here. Right nice.
Uh, Mr. Wilker, you said you was lookin' for me?
Yes, sir, that's true enough.
Bessie Mae's waitin' for you.
Bessie Mae's what?
Yeah, she went and found herself a cook stove and then she baked a pie.
Well, that's fine, Mr. Wilker.
Well, the fact is, Bessie Mae, she baked that pie for you.
To kind of make up for all them things I said.
Oh, well, now, that ain't necessary.
Oh, yes, it is.
We figure we owe you a proper apology.
This is our way of showin' it.
Oh, now, Mr. Wilker, I...
You ain't gonna refute our apology, are ya?
Bessie Mae's got herself all fancied up.
So, she'll be mighty proud to see you.
I'll go on, Chester. Some pie'll do you good.
Well, now, that part sounds fun, Miss Kitty, but...
To tell the truth, that ain't what's concernin' me.
Why don't you offer us a toast?
Meeh!
Mm?
Postal maid.
Oh, I bless ya.
Alright!
Who is it?
It's me, Chester. Open up!
Oh, my.
Oh, Mr. Dillon, you're back!
It's the middle of the afternoon. What have you got the door locked for?
I've been hiding.
What?
How I can explain?
Oh, never mind, Chester. All right, get him, Meadows.
I know.
Push.
Meadows.
Ah, so you're Meadows. I knew Mr. Dillon would get you.
Catching me and holding me is two different things.
He sure must have made you chase him all over the territory.
Mr. Dillon, you've been gone the best part of two weeks.
Yeah, lock him up, Chester. I'm gonna keep him here a couple of days before taking him to Hayes City.
All right, sir. Come on, you.
Get your hands off me!
Now, listen! Get your hands off me, Mr. Dillon!
I've been pushed around just all I aim to be.
You can walk or get carried, but you're gonna go into that cell.
Okay. But it's a long time between this flea-bit town and Hayes City, Marshal.
You better remember that.
All right, Meadows. We're all through eating. I'll take that tray.
Come and get it.
I ain't got a fool with you, mister. Now, you just pick up that tray and things and slide them through these bars right now.
Yeah.
That's better.
You ain't got a touchy, ain't you?
Well, you ain't making it easy enough to be, and I'll tell you something else.
It's gonna be mighty nice to get you out of here.
You ain't done nothing but trouble to me since Mr. Dillon rung you in.
Well, you better just hope I don't get loose before he takes me to Hayes City. I just might come looking for you.
Well, you ain't gonna get loose, so don't fret about that.
Chester?
Oh, no.
Chester, you back there?
Uh, uh, yes. Bessie Mae.
My goodness, I've just been looking everywhere for you.
Bessie Mae, you ought not to come back here.
Why?
Well, this is where the prisoners is at.
Oh, he's a prisoner?
Yes, he is. Now, go on. Come on, we're outta here.
I got everything ready.
Hmm?
The buggy and all.
Buggy?
Yeah, outside.
What for?
You're gonna take me on a ride.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
I tell you, Matt, that's the only way I...
Oh, hello, Chester.
Bessie Mae?
Well, say, maybe we ought to leave, Matt.
Yeah, maybe you're right, Doc.
No, no, Doc, you come back here.
Well, Chester, we wouldn't want to interrupt any...
You in?
We're going for a buggy ride.
Oh, a buggy ride.
Bessie Mae, I told you...
Oh, buggy rides are nice this time of year.
Buggy ride.
Mr. Dillon?
What?
Well, uh, this here's Bessie Mae Wilker.
How are you, Miss Wilker?
How do.
See, Miss Dillon, her and her pa come to Dodds and they just...
I mean, she just...
Well, will you just tell her I got too much to do to go on no buggy ride?
Chester, I can't very well do a thing like that.
Of course you can.
You can, too.
You can.
Send me down to Depot or something.
How come you're doing that, Chester?
Huh?
I mean asking him for orders and such.
You're the Marshal.
Marshal?
Him?
Well, now, that's another thing, Miss Dillon.
Bessie Mae and her pa thinks I'm Marshal at Dodge City.
I've been trying to tell them.
Oh, now, Chester...
Well, I have.
I have, but they wouldn't listen and you sure wasn't helping none, Doc.
Yes, sir.
Bessie Mae, Bessie Mae, I ain't going on no buggy ride.
I ain't talking about that.
It's what you just said about not being Marshal.
Mr. Dillon's the Marshal.
He always has been.
But you, when we come to Dodge, you said...
I never neither.
I said I was the only law in town at that time,
and that's because Mr. Dillon was gone after that Cliff Meadows fellow,
that prisoner right back there.
Then you just ain't been telling the truth about nothing.
Bessie Mae, I...
Chester Proudfoot, you're awful.
You're just awful.
Ouch.
Here and now, you...
Well, her thinking you were Marshal
seemed to mean a good deal to her, Chester.
Yes, sir, but I never told her no such a thing, not really.
Oh, well, she's just mad.
Maybe she'll get over it.
Well, I just assumed she didn't.
I tell you, Miss Dillon, that woman was near driving me out of my mind
past a few days.
She's the lady I was hiding from the day you come home.
She likes you, Chester.
Well, I don't like her.
I swear I've saw prettier faces on a warthog.
Oh, now, Chester.
Well, I have.
Then she started painting her face all up.
I tell you, it's just become pitiful.
Well, maybe she's never had a man to court her before, Chester.
You should be kind of easy on her.
I have a hard enough time just keeping hidden from her.
Come on.
I'll buy you a dock of beer.
Thank you, Miss Dillon.
Yeah, that's a good idea, man.
My throat, it does feel a little dry.
You know, I still can't figure out Bessie Mae acting the way she done.
It just don't make no sense.
Well, it's like I said, Chester.
She likes you.
It hurt her when she found out that you weren't what she thought you were.
Well, it seems funny, though.
Hey, you, Chester.
Oh, Miss Dillon, that Bessie Mae's a pa.
Yeah, I knew it.
I'd find you crawling around somewhere.
Crawling around?
If you ain't crawling now, you will be when I finished with you.
Now, you look here, Mr. Wilker.
If there's anything I hate, it's a liar.
I suppose you're talking about me not being Marshall.
You bet I am.
Bessie Mae just told me.
I tried to explain all that to you before.
It ain't my fault if you wouldn't listen now.
Oh, it ain't, huh?
Well, I think you've done it on purpose.
Now I'm calling you a dirty liar.
All right, Wilker, that's enough.
Who are you?
Matt Dillon.
Dillon.
Oh, oh, then you're the real Marshall, huh?
That's right.
Well, this Chester's a king.
I said that's enough.
Now it ain't, not near enough.
Ain't nobody gonna make a fool out of says Wilker.
Nobody ain't trying to make no fool out of you, liar.
I've took just about all I'm gonna take off of you.
Yeah, you ain't.
There's a lot more.
And I'll tell you when I get through with you.
That doggone crazy old fool.
What's he want to get so riled up about something
that don't really matter for?
Seems like it does matter to him.
That, best he may.
That coffee's kindly weak, ain't it, Mr. Dillon?
Oh, tastes fine to me.
Well, it ain't got much of a bite to it.
Well, it doesn't grab you and throw you down,
if that's what you mean.
No, no, no, what I mean is...
As soon as you're finished, what did you mean?
Well, it's just kind of weak.
No, as soon as you're finished, let's go some food over to Cliff Meadows.
I want to get a early start for Hayes City.
Marshall! Marshall!
Yeah?
You've got to come quick.
What's the matter?
The bank's been robbed.
What?
I just opened up for the day.
I went in and there was the safe.
It was wide open.
Mr. Botkin lying on the floor, unconscious.
Chester, go get Doc.
Yes, yes, yes.
Marshall, I know who did it.
It was that prisoner of yours.
I'd seen him once before, so I knew what he looked like.
What, Cliff Meadows?
Yes, sir, just a few minutes ago.
I saw him riding out of town,
riding just as fast as he could go.
Boy, am I glad this day's over.
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I'm here, Chester.
That him, Mr. Don?
Yeah, that's him.
I've been thinking how in the world you suppose
he ever got out of jail in the first place.
I don't know.
Come on.
All right, hold it right there, Meadows.
What?
Don't try anything.
Where'd you come from?
We've been following you for two days.
I ain't going back to Dodge, Marshal.
You'll go.
And you want to tell me how you got out of jail?
I bet you'd like to know, wouldn't you?
I'll find out.
Not from me you won't.
You didn't break out.
Somebody opened that cell for you.
Is that a fact?
All right, unbuckle the belt and drop your gun.
Like I said, I ain't going back to Dodge,
and I ain't going to Hayes City neither.
You gonna go back with us,
or we're gonna bury you right here?
Now you decide.
I already have.
Don't be a fool.
I ain't gonna hang.
You should have waited for your trial, Meadows.
Maybe, maybe I like it better like this.
What did you do with the bank money?
It won't do you any good now.
Bank money?
The Dodge City bank.
You robbed it.
The bank teller saw you right out of town.
I didn't rob no bank.
You were seen.
No, I didn't do it.
Then your partner did it, the one who turned you loose.
I don't have no partner.
You didn't even know the old fellow who turned me loose.
Old fellow? What old fellow?
Scrawny old coot.
Come in and said something about that lion Chester.
Then he unlocked myself.
Wolf, I'm too bad about that trial, Marshal.
I don't think I'm gonna make it.
Mr. Dunn, the man that let him out of jail, you don't suppose...
It was Sedgewalker.
Yeah, I think maybe it was, Chester.
It don't make no sense, Mr. Dunn.
If Sedgewalker snuck in and turned me loose, and maybe even robbed the bank,
he sure wouldn't still be here in the Dodge.
Why not?
Nobody really saw who robbed the bank.
Nobody saw who turned me loose.
Yes, I know, but it seemed like they just cut out and ran.
Is this your room?
Yes, sir.
What? What do you want?
I want to talk to you, Wilker.
Some other time, I'm busy.
Well, we'll talk now.
What do you mean, bustin' in? You ain't got no right.
Oh, what are they doing here?
You and Bessie Mae packin' to leave, Sedge?
What if we are? It ain't none of your business.
Why did you do it, Sedge?
I don't know what you're talkin' about.
You turned Cliff Meadows loose from jail.
Oh, you're crazy. Why would I do that?
So you could rob the bank and everybody would think Meadows did it.
Well, he did. Everybody's seen him.
Find him and you'll find the robber.
We did find him.
Huh?
I had to kill him.
Well, well, then what's all the fuss about?
Just before he died, he told us that you'd let him out of jail.
All right. All right, so I turned him loose.
I wanted to get back at you and Chester,
but that don't prove I robbed no bank.
We've been askin' around town, Wilker.
You've bought over a hundred dollars worth of things in the past two days.
Where did you get the money to do that?
Where did I get it?
Well, I, I, I shaved it, that's what.
We, we had a sub-harm and we, we growed things.
It won't work, Sedge. There's too much against you.
You ain't gonna take my money.
Not after all I went through, you ain't. I'll kill you first.
No, don't.
Take it away.
Why did you do it, Sedge?
Never, never had nothin', Marshall.
Never had nothin' at all.
A lot of people don't.
Bessie Mae?
I'm, I'm right here.
Take care of yourself.
You're here now, you, you take care.
Pa.
I'm sorry, Bessie Mae.
He didn't mean no harm, Marshall.
He didn't mean no harm at all.
Just got tired of scratching in the ground for a living and never quite making it.
Yeah.
Pa was awful smart, though, did you know that?
You mean blaming Cliff Meadows for the robbery?
I don't know.
That was an accident-like.
The real plan was me.
You?
I was supposed to fix up all pretty like and shine up to the Marshall.
What?
You know.
So he'd be too busy to notice when Pa was robbin' the bank.
Bessie Mae, you, you mean, is that why you was tagging after me all the time?
You was the only Marshall in town then, Chester.
But you lied to us.
You wasn't no Marshall at all.
I never, I tried to tell you.
Had it been for that, everything would have worked out just like Pa said.
But it all went wrong, didn't it?
Yeah, Bessie Mae, I'm afraid it did.
I'd like to take a quick hop to Paris tomorrow.
It's not Paris, Kentucky we're talking about.
It's Paris, France, the great city on the Seine, a long way from bluegrass land.
The CBS Radio Network is offering you a lightning-fast tour via the Monday through Friday feature entitled,
Your Man in Paris.
Your Man happens to be CBS News correspondent David Schonbrunn,
whose perceptive eye makes for fluent, fascinating observations about many matters Gaelic.
Your Man in Paris, weekdays.
Also heard each Monday through Friday, a woman's Washington with Nancy Honchman,
which takes you on a Gael-oriented tour of the nation's capital.
There's In Hollywood, hosted by Ralph Story, with absorbing vignettes of celluloid city.
Personal Story brings you autobiographies in sound of a new celebrity each week.
And for entertaining, rewarding data on a host of topics,
Information Central with Alan Jackson, and Sidelights with Charles Collingwood.
Weekdays, hear each of these stimulating features right here on CBS Radio.
Gunsmoke, produced and directed in Hollywood by Norman MacDonald,
stars William Conrad as Matt Dillon, U.S. Marshal.
The story was specially written for Gunsmoke by Ray Kemper,
with editorial supervision by John Mesden.
Featured in the cast were Ralph Moody, Gene Bates, John Danaer, and Barney Phillips.
Harley Bear is Chester, Howard McNear is Doc, and Georgia Ellis is Kitty.
This is George Walsh inviting you to join us again next week,
when CBS Radio presents another story on Gunsmoke.
That's Alan Arthur Godfrey, every weekday on the CBS Radio Network.