Marshall Matt Dillon is responsible for keeping the law and respectability in Dodge City in this western action-drama. Gunsmoke captured the courage, character and spirit of the Western Frontier.
Matt is critically wounded while attempting to arrest super-fast gunman Dan Grat. Grat runs rampant in Dodge while Matt recovers, but is unpleasantly surprised when the recovered marshal challenges him again.
Temperatures are high, tempers are short, and Matt is unenviably duty-bound to protect despicable gunman Cope Borden from being lynched by a group of normally law-abiding and hard-working ranchers and cowhands.
Doc is sworn to secrecy to protect a cruel gang guilty of murder.
The frightened teenage daughter of a rancher enlists Matt to attempt to save her father's life by amputating his gangrenous leg.
An old prospector marries a saloon girl, who like others wants to know where his gold from his prospecting days is hidden.
Matt is dubious of young Timmy Wyatt's stories concerning nighttime robberies and assaults, but he agrees to investigate and is surprised by what he discovers.
Matt has the unpleasant task of evicting some squatters from a rancher's land, but the squatters claim the rancher sold the land to them legally.
Dillon takes away the gun of Andy Travis after he kills a man in self defense, figuring no one will challenge an unarmed man to a gunfight, but it's an action that might prove to be very costly.
Marshal Dillon has to keep bullying buffalo hunter Jase Murdock from traveling south into Indian territory on a hunt for hides. Murdock's plan to trespass and wantonly massacre buffalo promises to spark an uprising.
Two men cut off a Chinese immigrant's pigtail, and he tells Matt that he can return home to China only with the pigtail or by taking the lives of the men who stole it.
An inveterate liar is loudly insistent that Dodge City's new banker is a swindler who will abscond with the townspeople's savings at his earliest opportunity.
Chester is concerned when his nomadic and "uncivilized" brother pays a Christmas visit to Dodge, but Magnus Goode proves worldlier and more adaptable to town life than anyone thought possible.
Booth Rider is being played for a sucker by the wife of the ranch owner he works for, in the hopes that he will have to kill her husband in self defense.
Professor Bone is a well meaning medicine man who shows up in Dodge selling an elixir with potentially deadly side effects.
Hank Springer who claims the sheriff of Mingo framed him for murder, escapes from Matt's jail, wrongly believing he has killed a deputy in the process, and now has the intention of killing the apparently corrupt sheriff.
A woman puts a price on Matt's head after he shoots down her husband.
Holdup man John Henry Jordan repeatedly escapes conviction by robbing only the wealthy and sparing poorer persons who are potential witnesses against him. His luck runs out when Matt's efforts force him to victimize ordinary citizens.
A young white boy, taken hostage years earlier by the Pawnee, must steal from or kill a white in order to be accepted by the tribe as a brave.
Troy Carver is an aging ex lawman with poor eyesight being chased by a dirt farmer who wants revenge for the killing of his brother 2 years before.
Long Branch hostess Belle Archer sees Jerry Shand shoot a former Quantrill Raider dead in self defense, but refuses to say so, and now he faces a murder trial.
Matt saves suspected 18 year old cattle thief Steve Elser, from a would be lynch group, and tries to help him find a job, but discovers he might be a hopeless case.
Matt suspects Kitty of shooting and wounding an old man who attempted to abduct her in hopes of forcing her to marry him.
Amos Cartwright is an Indian scout for the army and is suspected of deliberately allowing his troop to be ambushed by the Comanches, and now the brother of one of the dead soldiers is planning to kill him.
When an epidemic of typhoid fever hits Dodge, some citizens want to take the law into their own hands against the person suspected as the carrier of the disease.
A large woman and her small companion bring trouble to Kitty's saloon, as the woman has a way of causing guns to be drawn.
Far from Dodge and without a horse Matt Dillon still manages to bring in Lee Timble...a man wanted for murder. Lee's brother Dolph swears that he'll get him out. Meanwhile, an old friend of Dillon's, Hack Prine, has arrived in Dodge to take a job. Happy to see each other they reminisce about old times both unaware that the job Hack is in Dodge for is killing Dillon.
After Matt exposes gambler Ben Sissle as a cheat, Sissle attempts to exact revenge by giving brain-damaged Cooter Smith a gun and telling the marshal that Cooter plans to challenge him to a gunfight.
Matt must go to extreme lengths to stop the killing spree of a psychopathic murderer who provokes gunfights with cowboys, farmers, and others who he knows have no chance against him.
A stranger comes to Dodge, and Doc bewilders and dismays Chester and Matt by arming himself and vowing to kill the man.
A brutal prize fighter who has been punching on a meek preacher, kidnaps him and tells Dillon he will beat the man to death.
Trail herder Howard Bulow swears to shoot Marshal Dillon in the back after he kills his drunken brother in self-defense.
Dutch George runs a large horse theft operation. The law can't touch him because others take the risk. He makes a big mistake when he personally steals one horse for himself.
Matt tries to quell rumors of a planned Pawnee attack.
Chester has been writing to a mail-order bride who is now coming to Dodge to marry him. What Chester has neglected to tell Matt and Doc is that the picture he sent her wasn't his but the marshal's.
Weed Pindle is a friendly guitar player in Dodge, but when certain cowboys find out he fought for a particular division of the Union Army, they become set on trying to hang him.
An old flame of Matt's comes to town, but her presence in Dodge may be motivated by more than sentiment.
A struggling prairie couple endures harassment and torment at the hands of the wife's self-righteous brother.
A distraught middle-aged woman becomes determined to aid a young murderer in Matt's custody after she learns of her own son's violent death and unceremonious burial on Boot Hill.
While on the way back to Dodge, Matt and Chester help homesteaders besieged by Indians.
Doc is called to a farm to treat a sick farmer, who has always hated doctors.
Matt must resort to trickery after he and Chester trail psychopathic killer Lou Shippen to a small town whose citizenry is so frightened of Shippen that they refuse to even point him out.
"Rough justice" awaits cocksure Army deserter Joe Trimble after a civilian jury wrongly acquits him of murder and the Army forgoes prosecution in favor of returning him to his unit.
Matt goes on a rampage to close down Front Street after he accidentally shoots and kills his old friend (and temporary deputy) while trying to defend himself from a sneak attack by a murderous saloonkeeper.
After Matt beats fast gun and braggart Sam Kircher in a gunfight, Kircher's inexperienced teen brother comes to town and tells Matt he will learn to use a gun, and then kill him.
When a twelve-year-old Cheyenne prisoner is brought to Dodge by the Cavalry, a woman claims it's her son, who the tribe kidnapped many years earlier.
Matt is put in a difficult position by the arrival of Nick Search, an old friend who has since become a gambler with a fast draw and a reputation for dishonesty.
Doc comes upon a new homesteader confined to bed with a badly infected leg and a gun under the bedclothes for protection against his wife.
When a man suspected of murder can't establish his alibi, Matt arrests the man. After the prisoner draws a gun on Chester and escapes, evidence suggests he might not be guilty.
Killer Jed Butler takes Doctor Adams hostage to help his dying partner, and learns the true meaning of love for a friend, when Matt risks his life to rescue the good doctor.
Matt strongly suspects that it is actually white men who are responsible for a murderous series of "Indian raids" that have terrorized prairie-dwelling families.
A man is shot on the streets of Dodge, and Matt realizes that shot was meant for him.
A saloon gal past her youth suddenly receives two marriage proposals, one from a sweet country bumpkin, one from a menacing dandy, but it's no embarrassment of riches: each suitor threatens violence if she selects his rival.
A landowner's attempt to evict homesteaders is helped by a cholera outbreak.
A man, abandoned and permanently crippled by the cold on the prairie, is rescued by Matt and Chester and struggles to find a purpose.
Matt jails the wife abusing Sam Baxton on suspicion of murdering 2 squatters on his land, but after Baxton gets locked up, a 3rd squatter is murdered.
A white man and his Indian wife, passing through Dodge, become targets of violence after it is learned that the wife's father led deadly raids against white settlers.
A bank robber murders his partner and comes to Dodge with his terrified wife, hoping to keep a low profile, but an Indian he once humiliated won't let him be.
Grief-stricken rancher Morgan Curry proves willing to go to any length necessary to get revenge after cocksure gunman Tom Clegg kills his brother Abe in a needlessly provoked gunfight.
When Matt serves a warrant in another town for a wanted man, there are two men answering the possible suspect's description, and they both have gone totally straight.
The shooting of several members of an outlaw gang, though in self defense, triggers an emotional crisis in Matt, haunted by memories of all the men he has killed.
When a lady comes to town looking for her betrothed, Matt takes it upon himself to sober up the man, who, in his fiancée's absence, has become the town drunk.
Violence and tragedy result when Matt and Chester persuade a reluctant Kitty to hire flirtatious Rena Decker as a Long Branch hostess.
Told he has only two months to live, a man is determined to avenge the suicide of a young woman by killing the womanizer he blames for her death.
A government official from Washington warns Matt that he will relieve him of his duties if he does not start using a firmer hand in Dodge.
Miss Kitty is suspected of taking a shot at drunkard John Peavy for harassing her earlier, and shortly thereafter someone fires a shot at her.
When the drunkard whom Chester escorts to jail is shot dead, Chester is suspected of the murder.
Professor Jacoby is a photographer from back East in Dodge, willing to do anything for a picture, even to the point of committing murder.
Sam Rickers shot a man dead in the back to try and claim a $1,000 reward, but it turns out that the dead man was never wanted by the law.
A saloon gal's old beau is in town, and she expects trouble when he finds out where she is working.
A weird whiskey drummer named Wilbur Hawkins makes a claim to Matt that he overheard a man making a offer to pay 300 dollars to kill him, and shortly thereafter an attempt is made on Matt's life.
A man wants to marry a woman whose brother may be willing to resort to violence to keep her from leaving home.
Vint is a crooked card dealer being watched by a gunman hired by a card player to make sure he can not cheat, so he resorts to murder and robbery to recover his losses.
Despicable gunman Joe Delk provokes Lew and Billy Baxter and easily kills the inexperienced young men in gunfights, but Matt's swift and unexpected reaction soon has Delk experiencing nightmares and self-doubt.
Uncle Oliver arrives in town and believes his simpleton nephew would be a good deputy for Matt, instead of Chester.
Kitty's long-lost father, who abandoned her when she was a baby, shows up in Dodge, eager to take her back to New Orleans with him.
Major Emmett Egan has been approved for the job of marshal by the War Department. Matt agrees to let him have his job if Egan shadows him for a week to see if he can handle it.
Hank Shinn is a newcomer in town bragging about his reputation as a gunman, but Marshal Dillon suspects he is nothing more than a braggat and a liar.
A card dealer, newly married, wants to kill his old friend, Marshal Dillon, when a crooked gambler starts rumors that Dillon is courting the dealer's wife.
Gunman Nate Springer arrives in Dodge with the obvious intention of committing murder, but his nervousness and unpredictability make Matt determined to find out who hired him and why he seems so different from his steel-nerved reputation.
Chester claims the new stranger in town is really there to kill him and Matt investigates, but remains skeptical even after Chester is shot in the arm by an unseen person.
When Harry Speener learns that the man who saved his life is a wanted fugitive, he kills the man for the reward, then finds out that the people of Dodge don't like those who kill for money.
While Kitty dines with Matt on the edge of town, Kitty's old beau robs the bank.
An addled and desperate prairie family lures Matt and Chester out of town as a preliminary part of their plan for attempting a violent robbery of the Dodge City bank.
Young and likable Jesse Pruett teams up with an unlikely "partner" in the person of Bill Stapp, a murderous former Quantrill raider. Stapp has promised to lead Jesse to the man who killed his father so he can avenge his death, but the young man is tragically unaware of Stapp's true intentions
On her way to Dodge to marry, Mavis McCloud sends a telegram to the Marshal of Dodge City. Chester and Doc want to know "Is she coming here to marry Matt" or is something else going on?
Joe Digger is nearly killed by two men who tried to lynch him. Now he is giving Matt until midnight the next day to bring them to jail, or he will track them down and kill them both.
In a situation much like the play referenced by the title, the children of two prominent families have fallen in love, though the patriarchs of both have forbidden they see each other. Despite the girl's father having threatened the boy with death, the two run away, and go to Dodge City for Matt's help. He reluctantly does, though the father arrives soon afterward, warning that if he doesn't turn them over to him, he and his ranch hands will tear the town apart searching for them. Matt and Chester secretly have the young couple married and sent off in a stage coach, and delay the father back at his estate until he cools down, and finally accepts what has happened.
Matt sets out with a vengeance to capture two trouble-making Texas cowhands who dragged Chester and left him to die.
Losing his first wife when she disappeared, Jim Cobbett tries marriage again. All seemed fine until she turned up missing too. Did he have something to do with her absence as some think he did with his first?
Matt investigates why a gunman is harassing station master Jesse Daggett by killing his passengers in cold blood, when things reach a climax after a female passenger is shot dead.
An impoverished but hardworking woman's plans to adopt an orphan baby are jeopardized when Matt discovers that her improvident husband is involved in cattle rustling.
Doc, on his way to an accident at a local farmhouse, is confronted by a stranger barring his way. When he feels forced to shoot him, he tells Matt to arrest him for it before the marshal's reputation comes into question by everyone in town.
Kitty takes a buggy ride with a dandified stranger. When he makes a pass, her spirited rejection of it results in her being left alone on the prairie.
A feud begun between two families when they lived in the Ozarks continues with fresh bloodshed, and Matt gets caught in the middle.
Matt and Chester travel to the small town of Elkader to arrest would-be killer Carey Post, but find they must first expose a bogus U.S. Marshal in order to lure him into town.
Doc finds a half-dead man on the side of the road and tells Matt. Matt and Chester ride out to a buffalo hunter's camp but before they get far, the occupants show up not treating them much better than the man the doc found.
Kitty is taken hostage during a bank robbery and killer Jed Gunther warns everyone not to follow them, or he will use Dillon's gun to kill her.
Matt and Chester find a man shot in the back in his lonely cabin and the immediate suspects are two men who have been trying to force him to sell his land.
A strong-willed, shotgun-wielding matriarch helps her son escape from Matt's custody, but the Marshal is equally determined to see the young man tried and sentenced for killing an unarmed man.
"There's no law west of Dodge." Two writers in from New York want to see if that's true. When a Pawnee Indian uprising seems to be brewing, they may have found their story.
On the prairie, Matt meets up with a young boy who tells him that some men tied up and abducted his father the night before.
To escape a potentially lethal blizzard, Matt seeks shelter in a cabin in which two psychopathic bandits have enslaved and repeatedly molested a young woman after murdering her father.
The only man who didn't treat Beulah like dirt is marrying another woman, whose brother doesn't want him in the family. When the groom is shot leaving the church, everyone suspects the new brother-in-law.
Addled hide skinner Emmett Dooley believes that he killed a man and demands to be put in jail. Matt is convinced that Dooley was not the culprit and tries to lure the real killer into giving himself away.
A suspected horse thief is lynched by his former friends. They find out too late they may have had the wrong man. The joke may be on all of them now as someone is killing them one by one.
There's a new Faro dealer at the Long Branch. When the town drunk, the meekest man in town, tries to attack him, the dealer swears he'll kill him if he ever tries that again. But he also swears he "never seen him before in his life."
When town bully Cloud Marsh experiences public humiliation during a laughing gas show, he and his surly brothers assault proprietor Earle Stafford and attempt to molest his kind-hearted wife.
A headstrong Texas trail boss is determined to prevent Matt from learning which one of his men was responsible for murdering another by shooting him in the back.
Amy Slater gets to Dodge and tells Matt she came to die. He suggests seeing Doc Adams, she says she's not sick but that Matt could help. When asked how, she says "you're going to kill me." Learning the truth, he decides how to handle it.
Someone keeps hanging people in Dodge and making it look like suicide.
Lou and Linda met in St. Louis and are engaged to be married. Lou is waiting in Dodge for her but a man he says he never met rides in on the stage too and makes Matt suspicious when Lou says he doesn't know him.
Mr Shaneways wants Mr Papp at the bank to loan him $20,000 for a poker bet. Doc gets kidnapped.
Matt is strongly suspicious of the character and the intentions of gentleman gambler Leach Fields, especially when he proposes marriage to a recently-widowed woman who may know the location of $10,000 in stolen money.
When Jim Cando is thrown in jail by Matt, for a robbery and murder, he orders his partner to get him out by any means, or he will implicate him in the crime too.
When an Army payroll is stolen and two soldiers are murdered, the commanding officer of Fort Dodge threatens to put Dodge City under martial law unless Matt can capture the perpetrators within 48 hours.
After capturing suspected murderer Jim Nation, Matt has to eventually trust the suspect to help out when he and other stagecoach passengers are held at gunpoint by an outlaw.
Suave and enigmatic gambler Marcus France falls in love with Long Branch hostess Boni Damon. France is curiously unwilling to marry Boni, though he is willing to risk death to protect her from the unwanted advances of vicious Tiller Evans.
Matt doubts the veracity of Long Branch hostess Holly Fanshaw's claim that she saw trail drover Fly Hoyt murder young Dave Thorp. His suspicions increase further when Hoyt voluntarily returns to Dodge in order to clear his name.
Matt believes white smugglers supplied the guns that a band of Pawnee used to attack local ranchers.
Two murders result when an unscrupulous Eastern businessman named Ivy hires a psychotic killer to help him establish undisputed control of Dodge City's freight shipment business.
A rich landowner seizes the chance to get a little more acreage when he discovers that a homesteader has failed to file the paperwork to make his quarter section his own.
Matt and Chester, out of water while riding back to Dodge, come upon a man with two fine horses who is not very trusting. When they meet him later in Dodge, he is much different: friendly and spending money freely.
A stagecoach on which Matt and Chester are riding is robbed and another passenger is murdered. Matt utilizes a ruse to incriminate the thieves when a "cowboy" appears and offers to show him where one of the thieves may be buried.
Matt refuses to arrest his friend Ben Tiple without more evidence, when the man he has been feuding with is found shot in the back.
When a stranger leading some immigrants planning on settling outside of Dodge wants Matt to give him a badge to avert trouble, Matt gets suspicious and rides out to their camp to see what is really up.
After mild-mannered Hank Blenis is "lynched" by the two men who stole his horse, self-righteous Charlie Drain decides to take the law into his own hands and is led tragically astray by the culprits.
Two gamblers find Matt incorruptible and attempt to intimidate him by hiring gunman Toque Morlan. The two are ironically unaware that Morlan was Matt's close friend until a long-ago attack by a mob left Morlan scarred and harboring a bitter grudge against lawmen.
White men pretending to be Indians attack greenhorn Harry Pope at night, and he kills one of them. Now the dead man's friends want revenge.
When Doc arrives too late to save his patient, her husband, a good friend of Matt's, blames Doc for her death.
Financially desperate Jack Fitch robs a stagecoach and abducts passenger Laura Church, unaware that she is "engaged" to an unscrupulous businessman who threatened to ruin her father if he did not agree to the marriage.
Claustrophobic plainsman Poney Thompson is arrested for murdering a man who maliciously shot his dog, but an ironic fate awaits him after he breaks free from Chester's custody
Matt's attempt to find a man who shot at him from ambush leads him and Chester into the middle of a murderous feud between two bitter and isolated mountain families.
Over the objections of his sometime partner Rod Allison, treacherous Jim Box murders aging rancher Jesse Wheat, then attempts to steal cattle from Wheat's young widow.
Chester's Uncle Wesley comes to Dodge and thinks Chester is the marshal, and Matt goes along with the gag, playing the deputy.
A man's house is burned and his livestock killed, but he refuses to identify the perpetrators to the marshal.
An old friend of Doc's, a nurse, is visiting and he hopes she will stay around Dodge. In the meantime Matt is worried that an ex-con is gunning for him even though he thought he was innocent five years ago.
Trail boss Dolph Quince sends for his friend Matt to help escort his cattle herd into Dodge because he is having trouble with Jayhawkers (Kansas renegades), and he hopes to ease the animosity his men have towards all Kansans.
A family friend of Kitty's visits from New Orleans and is shocked to find her a saloonkeeper. Still, the young man is determined to defend the lady's honor, a stance that could get him killed in rowdy Dodge.
Young Billy flees Dodge in fear after being suspected of shooting dead an older saloon girl whose sexual advances he had been resisting.
Doc takes hard the death of a homesteader under his care; then a flashy new medicine man comes to town and takes away many of his patients.
Rivalry for the affections of a former saloon gal leads to a frame-up for murder.
A coward gambler, who's too cheap to hire a gunman, wants Matt dead for a beating he got from him years ago, so he starts some talk around Dodge about the big reputation any person could gain, if they simply killed Matt.
Matt suspects a conspiracy when a man is murdered, Al Clovis flees on a train even though he has a perfect alibi, and the bank is robbed.
Men start killing each other over saloon girl Dolly Varden, who seems to bring gamblers luck just by standing next to them when they're playing cards.
After years of captivity, a white woman and her half-Indian daughter are set free by the Indians, but they are shunned in Dodge.
A gunfight in the Long Branch forces Matt to arrest a drunk. Letting him go since it was a fair fight, he suspects him of selling guns to the Indians, and goes after him even though he may run into those Indians.
Matt and Dodge City's businessmen employ an unusual tactic to save ambush victim Lee Prentice from being taken to corrupt Baker City to face certain hanging on a trumped-up murder charge.
Matt becomes suspicious when Jerry Cass's plans to marry saloon hostess Bella Grant are complicated by Bella's sudden insistence that Jerry leave his recently-inherited ranch for six months.
Marshal Dillon has to stop a ruthless, cold-blooded, greedy, buffalo hunter who is in the habit of brutally killing his hired help to avoid paying them their wages.
Matt tries to help Andy Hill, a young gunman who is apparently trying very hard to go straight, by getting him a job riding shotgun on the stagecoach.
Gunman Kin Creed arrives in Dodge determined to enhance his reputation by outdrawing Matt in a gunfight. He goes to great lengths to force Matt into a confrontation and is able to wound him, but it proves to be a pyrrhic victory.
Print Asper is suspected of attempted murder when he forces a crooked lawyer, at gunpoint, to return the ranch he stole from him, and the lawyer still ends up getting shot later by someone.
Dodge City's businessmen learn a hard lesson when they reject Matt's advice and hire a meek constable to handle a gang of rowdy but free-spending trail cowboys.
Seriously injured Matt faces a moral dilemma when Blue Horse saves his life and prevents the escape of a prisoner. The Marshal knows that Blue Horse is being sought by the Cavalry as a fugitive from a reservation, and he is well aware that he is duty-bound to assist their search in any way possible.
Matt seeks the help of wise Chief Long Robe to track down gunrunners who are supplying renegade Cheyenne braves with rifles used to murder prairie-dwelling families. Long Robe provides Matt with the needed information, but warns him that the death of even a single brave could lead to a violent uprising.
Ironic tragedy results when Danny Kader stubbornly disregards his father's predispositions (and Matt's pragmatic advice) in order to attempt an elopement with a young gypsy woman.
When Kitty is hurt in a fall from a horse, she and Matt must seek help from shiftless dirt farmers who are oddly uninterested in aiding them.
Deesha is running a scam in which his partner sells an unbranded horse to an unsuspecting buyer, after which Deesha moves in to claim the horse, leaving the buyer with nothing.
A man suddenly turns up in Dodge City claiming to be Billy Crale, the long-lost son of a well-to-do local widow. Matt knows that Billy Crale was reported dead during the Civil War and he becomes highly concerned for Mrs. Crale's safety when he confirms that the man is actually a onetime outlaw known as Johnny Red.
A father and son bully a farmer and his wife who won't sell their land, but the farmer is oddly reluctant to let Matt arrest the two, even when they resort to gunfire.
Is the homely, sharp-tongued, middle-aged wife of a homesteader really inspiring men to fight to the death for her affections?
Chester saves a man from a zealot's violent "justice" then faces a dose of the same himself.
Matt, escorting 3 men back to Dodge, claims a beautiful wounded Indian woman will be able to identify the one who shot her and killed her husband.
A man wants a gunfight with his brother when he returns home, after years away, and finds him married to his girl.
Onetime gunman Zeno Smith faces an unenviable choice. If he does not help would-be gambler Hank Fergus rob Mr. Jonas's general store, Fergus will tell 12-year old orphan Tommy the full story of how Zeno's descent into deprivation and alcoholism dates to the day he backed down from facing Fergus in a gunfight.
Matt is uncertain what to make of Cyrus Tucker's confused claim that his wife of 32 years "just ran off", especially when a homesteader claims that he saw the old man digging a large hole just behind his house.
A father threatens to kill the two drifters who have been plaguing his daughter.
A man enlists the aid of a parson to fake his own death.
A man is convicted of murder on doubtful testimony.
When hired gunman Killion comes to Dodge, many of the men get scared thinking he is after them.
A quarrel between two partners in homesteading escalates to the point of gunfire. Matt tries to make peace between them by locking them up together.
An ex-Confederate waits to settle the score with the Union man whose unit cost him a loved one and property in the civil war.
Despite a serious heart condition, onetime prizefighter Tom Burr is determined to go through with his plans to fight vicious Hob Creel. The only way Matt can stop the mismatch and save Burr's life is to fight Creel himself.
Someone takes a shot at a hard man who is brutal to his wife, and someone is overheard claiming he was offered money to kill the man.
Matt and his friends try to come to the aid of a has-been actor caught cheating at cards
Matt has reason to believe that the new overweight, gun toting, straight shooting, female owner of the Lady Gay saloon may have killed the previous owner, or did she?
While Matt is out of town an ex-convict comes hunting Doc believing, despite the doctor's protests, that he is the judge who sentenced the man to a long stretch in prison.
Dodge City's businessmen learn a hard lesson when they reject Matt's advice and hire a meek constable to handle a gang of rowdy but free-spending trail cowboys.
Kitty gets caught in the middle when a crazy-eyed man goes hunting for his former son-in-law, whom he blames for the death of his daughter in childbirth.
After a train sparks a fire that destroys a family's crops, the man, his son, and his daughter rob another train of fifty thousand dollars. A baggage clerk is killed and the crusty representative of the railroad pressures Matt to solve it.
Determined to avenge his murderous brother's hanging, Vince Walsh begins a self-serving campaign of unofficially helping to keep the peace in Dodge City over Matt's objections. Walsh is certain that his actions and his taunts will eventually goad the Marshal into a gunfight.
Accused of being the masked robber of the general store, a homesteader agrees to come along quietly with Matt and Chester, but he asks that they help him complete a few chores about the place for his poor wife, who's in the family way.
A dying man's relations are much displeased when they learn that he's willed all he owns to Kitty.
A southern belle charms Chester and many others in Dodge, but Kitty isn't falling for her charms.
Far from Dodge, Chester finds himself in the uncomfortable position of trying to extract a bullet in order to save Doc's life after the two are ambushed by a pair of savage prairie wolfers.
A man beats his wife and is sentenced to fifty days or fifty dollars by the judge. The beaten woman scrapes together the money for her husband's fine, only to be beaten again.
A saloon girl shoots a man who came to her room, claiming he attacked her, but as the dead man was to testify against a man from the woman's past, Matt is suspicious.
Ed makes no secret of his intention to kill Bert for marrying the girl Ed wanted. So when Ed is the one who turns up dead, folks assume that Bert did it.
There's a cattle drive near town, and the cowboys are nervous about a series of cattle rustling events that have taken place recently.
Belle Ainesly rides into town after 3 years absence. Seems she ran off with an unsavory character 3 years ago, and all of Dodge feels she's a "bad" woman. Belle says she is coming back to stay at the family ranch.
Two brothers have decided that it is their mission to rid the West of Indians.
Kitty doubts the veracity of Matt's old friend Dolly Winters, who arrives in Dodge seeking the Marshal's help and claiming to have been robbed, beaten, and jilted by a man named Rad Meadows.
Matt is on the trail of a badly wounded corporal for robbing the army payroll and falls into a trap when the father of the corporal gets the drop on him and wounds Chester.
The widow of a stagecoach robber is courted by the man who, unbeknownst to the widow, is the one who shot her husband.
Badly wounded, Matt's old friend won't identify the man who shot him, but does say he expects the gunman to return to finish the job.
Troublemakers trick an immigrant blacksmith into leaving his house on his wedding night, then burn it down.
Matt arrests Finn Pickett based on a circular that indicates he is wanted for murder in Oklahoma Territory. Pickett repeatedly proclaims his innocence and vows that his prairie-savvy sons will do whatever is necessary to free him.
Lee Nagel suspects his visiting uncle of murder when his father is killed in their store in an apparent accident.
While transporting a prisoner with Chester on a stagecoach to Wichita, Matt learns that the stagecoach is also carrying a shipment of gold, and he suspects the coach might be targeted by outlaws.
Dillon heads to Dodge to get a new man to replace the brutal, corrupt sheriff of Tascosa, with hired killers in pursuit who are unaware that the sheriff's ex-girlfriend has joined up with Dillon.
Don Matteo, who once rode the range with Matt, comes to Dodge looking to shoot down a shady cowboy who once romanced Don Matteo's sister.
Murders follow when a buffalo hunter and his browbeaten partner come to town.
Out on the prairie, Matt is shot and taken captive by two outlaws, one of whom is a weakling abused and bossed around by the other.
Two roughnecks (Sloat and Grade) cruelly harass Raffie Bly, a confused and defenseless young man who suffered a serious head trauma while serving as a drummer in the Civil War.
A row with his boss makes Ben quit his job. He leaves but says goodbye to Jake's daughter first. When he takes a horse for lost wages, Jake swears he'll kill him. The tables are turned when a hard and fast rule of Jake's soon backfires.
When the 3 Dolan brothers keep forcing their cattle onto rancher Jeff's land, the tension leads to murder.
Gus Mather arrives in Dodge in a wagon, carrying the coffin of his best friend, Orson Boggs. Boggs died of a sickness, Gus wants to give him a proper wake, and invites anyone to join in free liquor at the Longbranch. Matt asks Gus who Boggs was, Gus says they're from Redbank Country. The morning after the wake, Matt is too curious, decides to ride to Redbank Country to find out about Boggs. Matt and Chester finally find Mrs. Boggs, who says her husband didn't have any friends. The story continues to unfold as Mrs Boggs later shows up in Dodge. A couple of classic lines by these characters. Matt to prairie man traveling to Dodge: "Pay your bills and don't kill anyone, and you won't have any trouble" (words to live by). Matt says about Mrs. Boggs: "I think she's hiding something". Chester: "Too bad is ain't her face, if you ask me".
The cooking of a new chef at Delmonico's is popular with most in Dodge, but one dissatisfied customer ends up dead.
A seductive, impoverished widow pursues long-married Hannibal Bass, hoping to get her hands on his farm.
In a family that believes in taking care of its own--including administering punishment within the family for crime--one of two grown brothers appears to have committed murder, but which one?
A man shoots his partner, flees, and is caught by two men claiming to be lawmen.
Red and Joe Lime are no-good murderous brothers, and Matt has to track 'em down out on the prairie. Trouble is, Matt comes down with a fever due to missing out on so much sleep in the last couple of weeks. This situation causes some serious problems for all involved when Matt has to return to Dodge because he is too sick to pursue the Lime brothers.
A man and his wife come across a lone trapper and make camp with him. Next day, the husband comes to Dodge to report to Doc that his wife is sick, but Doc finds the woman beaten to death, and the husband accuses the trapper.
The theft of a sack of potatoes leads to increasingly violent hostilities between the Scooper and Galloway families.
Matt rescues teen-aged Trudy Trent from a life of isolated poverty with her incestuous and alcoholic father, but he subsequently learns that "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned" when he rejects her misguided romantic overtures toward him.
Dillon goes after cowboy Jake Bayloe after he guns down his partner in the Long Branch , shooting Kitty in the crossfire and critically wounding he
While Chester is out searching for Doc, his horse is injured. Chester goes to a house for help and is instead taken prisoner.
After witnessing the callous murder of her kindly father, Harriet Horne disregards Matt's advice and unwisely attempts to extract revenge from the perpetrators by making them jealous rivals for her attention.
A concealed gunman takes a shot at Chester, and it may have been a bank robber, or it may have been someone who's been making trouble at the Long Branch.
Hot-headed Tom's new wife used to be a river-boat girl, and when a gunman from her old life recognizes her, a battle between the two men is brewing.
To protect Kitty, Matt is forced to physically (and publicly) subdue fractious troublemaker Pat Swarner. When Swarner is subsequently found murdered, oft-inebriated Jud Sloan's claim that the Marshal was the killer seems uncomfortably credible.
Marshal Dillon must find a suitable home for Charity Gill, a young orphan, after the little girl's father dies when his cabin catches fire. Charity insists that she should live with the Dodge City lawman.
Horse thief murders a man to get his horses. Matt tracks the criminal to a Kiowa camp.
Rough and rowdy Minnie comes to Dodge City and sets her designs on Doc Adams much to the delight of Matt, Chester and Kitty.
Vengeful former convict Nate Bush sets off a tragic series of events when he informs Matt that well-liked new arrival Cole Treadwell is actually Cole Trankin, an escapee from the Arizona Territorial Prison.
A gunrunner supplies the Pawnee with weapons. Matt arrests him, but when the Pawnee find out, they capture Matt and free his prisoner.
Hot tempered Andy Coe and his wife want to sell their wagon to Moss, but can't when Ed Fallon's team spooks and crashes into their wagon. Fallon pays for the broken wagon and gives Andy a job. Fallon is sweet on Andy's wife.
A man claiming to be a sheriff from Texas comes to Dodge and asks Matt for help tracking down a named fugitive, but the man may not be a sheriff.
A pretty girl arrives in town and chases Chester, who's happy for her to do so, but the young woman has a secret that may land her in jail.
When an ex-marshal passing through town is shot in the back, Matt suspects a new saloon gal might have had something to do with it.
When Roy Tayloe is murdered following a poker game, quick-tempered Harry Miles is certain that daughter Melinda's suitor Tom Potter is the killer. Miles quickly becomes impatient with Matt's methodical investigation of the crime and threatens to kill Potter himself unless he stays away from Melinda.
Matt and Chester find Rod Ellison shot and paralyzed on the prairie and return him to Dodge for surgery. Ben Witter abrasively advises Matt that he is a deputy sheriff from Pueblo who has come to Dodge to arrest Ellison for robbery, but Matt is suspicious of Witter's refusal to produce a valid arrest warrant.
Ex-con Perce McCall helps to save Matt's life in a shootout, and then falls for a beautiful, but greedy saloon girl who puts him under great pressure to start stealing again.
Matt becomes suspicious when drifter Frank Cassidy publicly announces his engagement to spinsterish Beulah Parker immediately after the seemingly unrelated murders of an old prospector and her abusive brother Leroy.
Kitty has her friends in Dodge buzzing when she meets the stage in the early hours to pick up a small boy. All wonder, especially his foster parents: could his real mother be Kitty?
A hard man has given his two sons a hard raising, sure that they inherited their mother's bad blood from their murderous ancestor. The old man may be right: one of his sons may be a murderer. Or is it the other son?
A man who lost his wife and all he had returns to Dodge from gold prospecting with three bulging bags to deposit in the bank, and all who scorned him before, including his ex-wife, can't do enough for him.
A headstrong young woman will undertake the long, dangerous journey to her fiancé's fort on her own if she must, so Matt nominates himself to escort her.
His mother has been dead almost a year, and Cully is troubled by his pa's carousing. When they discuss his getting married again, it seems like a good idea until he returns from a business trip with a new wife, an Arapaho squaw, who he has conflicted emotions about.
Chester becomes engaged more or less accidentally, but he takes to heart his obligation to his betrothed, leaving his job with Mr. Dillon to devote himself to homesteading a barren quarter section.
The plain but nubile daughter of a hopeless drunkard decides to marry herself off so that she and her little brother might avoid starvation.
Matt escorts a captain and his troops to an Indian village, to make an exchange for a white woman captured over a year ago.
A young outlaw finds he has a knack for medicine and turns straight, telling Doc he wants to be his pupil.
A homesteader hires a man to make the appearance of a scandal with his wife so that he can blackmail his wife's wealthy father.
An uncouth young mountain man is told by his pa that it's time he had himself a wife, so he comes to Dodge, is pleased by the looks of Miss Kitty, and simply kidnaps her.
A band of outlaws offers to pay Matt to make himself scarce while they rob the bank. If he refuses, they promise to kill one man per day until he agrees.
Prospector Harvey Easter settles in Dodge City after striking it rich in the Colorado Rockies. His heavy handed attempts at philanthropy soon have unintended results.
A hired man is sweet on his boss's daughter and disliked by his boss. When the boss is killed, his own daughter claims to have done it, but Matt is suspicious.
Cody is a well-liked citizen of Dodge. He's building a house and getting married. When he befriends a stranger, his perfect life is turned upside down.
Beginning with Doc, who rescues him from a ditch, everyone wants to give amiable drunk Dan a chance, or a job, or both.
Chester is getting home-cooked meals from, and giving guitar lessons to, a spirited young woman who hopes thereby to make her estranged sweetheart jealous.
A man has been hired to kill Matt, but when he meets and quickly falls in love with a decent girl, he has a change of heart--or does he?
Taken prisoner by a band of comancheros, Chester is helped to escape by one of the band's women and flees with another who may or may not be worthy of his trust.
While returning suspected killer Pruit Dover to Dodge to stand trial, Matt is shot and badly wounded, and yet Dover stays with him and nurses him back to health.
Oren was a rancher who liked his drink, gambling and women, even though he had a pretty wife at home. Matt is forced to kill him and when he breaks the news to her, all she can see is getting revenge for his death, and Matt is her target.
A speculator in land is already unpopular in Dodge, but when he is acquitted of the murder of a man he killed, he finds himself "sent to Coventry": no one in town, not even Kitty, will buy, sell, or even speak to him.
A young woman comes to Dodge insisting on an escort to Indian country so that the body of her husband, believed to have been killed fighting the Kiowa, may be recovered.
Little Bit and his grandpa, from Texas, are passing through Dodge after buying a breeding bull. When they meet Silva, someone grandpa considers a "fooler", they have their hands full making it back with their stock and their lives.
A group of women are going by wagon train to Colorado, lured by the promise of marrying rich miners, but Matt learns that the leader's actual plan for the women is quite different.
Johnny Cole kills a crooked card dealer in self defense, and then falls in love with the dealer's beautiful daughter, but she resists his advances and wants to seriously hurt him instead.
Loy has always felt he could do what he pleased. When he shoots one of his gang members in the back just for the reward, he takes the body into Dodge to Matt Dillon who isn't as ready as he thought to give him his bounty.
Henry and Jake have struck it rich. Now they want to follow their dream and buy a Mississippi river boat. When Henry spots Miss Kitty, he fancies marrying her but she will have nothing to do with his dream or him.
Cale is a bullheaded young drifter who takes a nap in a barn he comes across only to wake up to a shootout between a horse thief and the owner. Cale is shot, wounded, and becomes a suspected accomplice.
On his way to a fishing vacation, Chester stumbles into a human drama when he wounds a fleeing Indian he mistakes for a thief, who has touched the heart of a lonely young white woman.
A charmer escapes from federal prison to Dodge and finds himself caught up in the drama among two brothers, the wife of one of them, and their domineering father.
The market for snake oil is on the decline, so a peddler and his sons expand their con game with murder.
When stable hand Cale is found with paralyzed legs after his horse threw him, Matt goes for help on foot, unarmed, on the dangerous prairie.
An adolescent escapee from a cruel orphanage knows she has a lot to learn, and she starts learning it from the rough-and-tumble characters and loafers she encounters in Dodge.
A half-Comanche has joined his mother's tribe in killing whites to avenge the murder of his father, but Matt sees the good in the man and the chance to re-integrate him, perhaps, into white society.
Chester may find himself entrapped into marriage with a drifter's daughter who isn't particular about how she lands a husband.
A bank robber hides out in Dodge, bringing along his girl. While he's gambling away his loot, his girl casts her eye on Matt.
Released after eight bitter years in prison, Collie Patten has difficulty adjusting to the fact that things have inevitably changed with respect to his relationships with his wife, his son, and the citizens of Dodge.
A young woman who's heir to her father's land decides to carry out his plan to build a ditch that will impair her neighbors' access to water and perhaps trigger a range war.
A trapper leaves his friend dying alone in order to save his own life, only later to stumble across that friend in Dodge, very much alive and wanting him dead.
A band of ne'er-do-wells, led by their mother, see in town a young woman that pleases them and decide to take her by force.
Matt and Doc come to the rescue of a farm wife and daughter who essentially are kept as prisoners by the farmer and his son.
Civilization is moving in on the isolation of a rugged pioneer friend of Matt's, and he starts using lethal force against the settlers encroaching on the land he regards as his.
While Matt is out of town, putting lawman's business ahead of Kitty yet again, a new man in her life has plenty of time and attention to give--perhaps too much attention.
To avenge the death of his twin brother Fergus, savvy plainsman Festus Haggen forms an initially uneasy alliance with Matt to track down his murderous uncle "Black Jack" Haggen.
Chester gets a letter from his uncle Sunday, a 'crook', on his upcoming trip to Dodge city. When he arrives with a niece, he finds he has to watch them both or what they have planned just might work, at his expense.
A slick city reporter sets out to prove that even a milquetoast can pass for a feared gunfighter, if a few well-placed tidbits of rumor precede him.
The "town fool" has a chance to change his life when he learns that a famous general, now on his deathbed, believes him to be his long-lost son.
The town drunk who saw a man drowned, believes it was dream, until he meets up with the guy who did the drowning.
Quint says that white renegades, not Indians, are the cause of recent raids around Dodge. Working shotgun on the stage, he proves his point when he is attacked, then pursued by those renegades. His "Indian" skills save him and a colonel's daughter who has contempt for half-Comanche Quint.
A father's dying request is that Matt go to retrieve his daughter. Expecting to find a little girl, Matt finds a near-grown woman, but one who's wild and desperately in need of civilizing.
When a young pretty farm woman becomes attracted to and sees some good in a would-be robber, she refuses to identify him.
Chance Hopper is Matt's young foster brother, torn between loyalty to Matt and to his partners in crime, who are counting on Chance to divert Matt from their course and make good their getaway.
Gib Dawson brings his beautiful Indian wife, Shona, in to Dodge for treatment of a badly infected hand wound, at a time when racial tensions are running high against the Comanches.
The friendship between business partners is jeopardized when one of them sustains a head injury, changing his personality. The injured man threatens to kill West's character, the fiancé of a young saloon woman.
Billy Poe is falsely accused of murder by a dying man, and flees to another town while Matt follows him, and encounters dangerous resistance from other men who hate lawmen.
Two ne'er-do-wells come to town and soon cook up a plot under which half-Comanche blacksmith Quint Asper is framed for the theft of a horse. The atmosphere in Dodge quickly becomes dangerously ugly for Quint.
Two men want to rob the bank in Dodge, but are unwilling to try it while Matt lives. A man agrees to accept the job of killing the marshal, attaching some rather peculiar conditions to his acceptance.
O'Ryan and Finnegan, feuding over a girl they both knew back home, are caught in a legal loophole to take ownership of a mine and land they both own. When Matt is forced in the middle of it, he has to work fast so no one else is hurt.
An orphaned Indian boy latches on to a cowboy in need of work and the two of them find all doors closed to them in Dodge.
A rancher's spoiled son believes even after he is convicted of murder that his father's wealth and influence will save him from the hangman.
A rancher's widow regrets having spent her life away from the bright lights of a city, and is desperate that her son not share her fate.
Kitty welcomes her mentor from New Orleans, but the colorful old lady takes liberties with the truth and with Kitty's possessions.
Chester is smitten with Polly, but she has eyes only for Wade, a man new in town and newly her father's employee. Knowing little about Wade, Polly agrees quickly to marry him, but Chester discovers that Wade already has a wife.
A woman newly widowed is powerfully attracted to Quint, but when he gently turns her down, she vows to make him pay for scorning a white woman.
Pardoned for his Civil War service, an old outlaw finds his way to Dodge, where there's a lawman who's in his debt.
Chester is sweet on a widow dressmaker. When the widow is not only intent on marriage but eager to make changes in Chester as well, he has second thoughts--especially after a talk with her child suggests that the widow may still be a wife.
Aaron, sweet on saloon girl Leah and wanting to make her his wife, is attacked and killed by Colie Fletcher. When Matt goes after him, Colie runs into Jubal Tanner, wounds him, and steals his horse. Jubal, ungrateful to those who help him, meets Leah, and each helps the other's outlook.
A prized Appaloosa, grazing alone and apparently without owner on the prairie, proves to be the ruin of more than one man.
A young man is convicted of killing the saloon girl he wanted for his own. Matt is so sure that the young man is really innocent that he goes on the road after another suspect to prevent an unjust hanging.
A teen-aged boy who robbed and killed to impress a saloon gal is pursued by Matt. The boy waylays Matt and leaves him for dead, then goes home to his grandmother's house to find her nursing Matt back to health.
A charming cowboy apparently is guilty only of breaking hearts until he gets to Dodge, where he finds two women who may make a killer of him.
A young rascal meets the outlaw idol of his youth, but the aging gunman, newly released from prison, wants only to go straight.
Hard-luck Tobe, who's lost his farm, gets a job in town with Chester's help and takes up with a saloon gal, not knowing she's on the run from a beau who's a con man and a killer.
A mild-looking cowboy discovers that it's easy to steal, and, soon thereafter, that it's easy to kill as well.
A despondent widower goes to work on a farm for two sisters, each of whom finds him fascinating in her own way.
Quint is hired to escort a family on the first leg of their journey to Oregon. On the way, he learns the reason for their going, a motive that could have repercussions for Quint.
A man with a grudge hits upon the perfect revenge when he spreads the word in Dodge that short-tempered Billy is so good with a gun that he shot down the famous gunfighter, Beau Carter.
On his way to Larned, Matt, feverish, spends the night at an abandoned shack. When he wakes up after losing a day, a recently released convict who swore to kill Matt, is himself found against a wall, dead, unarmed, shot twice, and the murder weapon appears to belong to the marshal.
When fast-talking killer Charlie Hacker escapes from Matt in Texas, Matt follows him right into Mexico without extradition papers and has to deal with corrupt officials there.
Matt finally catches up to killer Charlie Hacker in Mexico, and has to make a deal with the greedy Mexican police to get Hacker back to the border, with revengeful Mexican bandits in pursuit.
A mild old peddler of patent medicines and card tricks arrives in Dodge with his grown daughter, hoping to settle down, but instead they find their worst luck yet, beginning with a card game with a rich man and his spoiled son.
A repugnant drifter hopes to use his nubile daughter to get his hands on a piece of land.
A retired lawman and showman wants only to settle down with the Dodge seamstress he left behind twenty years ago, but a young whippersnapper hopes to make a name for himself by challenging the aging gun to a duel.
It's a test of wills when Quint witnesses a murder and the father of one of the prime suspects lowers Quint into a well to try to force him to promise his silence.
Festus returns to Dodge from wolfing and is hired by the Cattleman's Association to hunt down the wolves killing everyone's cattle. What he finds is that what's been doing the preying may wind him up in prison if he doesn't get Matt's help
A man carrying a tempting sum of money is attacked from behind by someone who beats him and leaves him for dead. Lucky for the injured man, an old friend of Matt is there to take him in to Doc Adams for mending.
Bucko, a close friend of Festus, is accused of murdering a man to whom he lost at poker. When his alibi witness lies out of fear, Bucko is sentenced to hang, and Festus, who'd begun to see the marshal as a friend, vows Bucko won't swing.
The Ginnis family, not from any town, live on the prairie and are used to getting their own way. When one son gets hurt, they ride to town to get help. That was just their first brush with the folks of Dodge but proves not to be their last.
Festus's beautiful young cousin, whom he has not seen since she was a little one, arrives in Dodge to keep the pact her father made for her when she was a baby: to marry Festus.
A family in search of a doctor find Matt and his prisoner unconscious and handcuffed to each other on the prairie. The prisoner wakens first and announces that Matt is the condemned man he is transporting for hanging.
Festus finds a little girl out on the prairie. He learns she saw her mother get killed by a stranger. When he takes her to Dodge, Matt hears she was hiding when this happened but can identify this man who may already be in town.
After some horsing around, Festus breaks some of Quint's equipment. To repair or get anew, they travel to Wichita and meet a saloon girl who tells them she needs to get away from town but her jealous boyfriend is now hot on their trail.
A saloon girl spurns a man's advances in Wichita and moves to Dodge, where she becomes a respectable married woman, only to be confronted with her past when she discovers that her rancher husband is the nephew of the man she refused.
Festus, returning to Dodge after doing some trapping, sees his girl, April, and they argue over a gift she received. Running off, she hides but her perch gives her a bird's eye view of a murder, one no one believes she witnessed but the killers. Written by DrDOS
Childless and poor, farmer Caleb feels like a failure, and his wife assures him he is one. Caleb moves into town to seek some meaning in his life, and soon finds himself--a man who doesn't wear a gun--challenged to a duel.
To earn money to recover the custody of his daughter, an aging man accepts the job of Dodge's first in-town hangman, work no one else wants.
A dying man confesses to a murder of which he was acquitted, but Chester suspects the man was lying.
Competing with Kitty is a fancy new woman in town with plenty of money to build a new saloon and a secret from the past life she recently left behind
Henry Huckaby, a local farmer and fed up with a sore back and an empty belly leaves to seek his fortune in Dodge. After several failed ideas he hits on one that may make him rich but could also cost him his life.
Given three months to live by a quack peddler of patent medicines, a mousy bank clerk quits his job, withdraws all his money, makes ready to go to California, and falls for a girl who may endanger what time he has remaining.
Rob Scot considers himself a man who could stay or go when it came to women. He may have met his match though when a woman he desires, along with her husband, take over an abandoned homestead, and they come to where Rob works to look over some stock.
A traveling salesman meets up with Bull Foot, an Indian who mainly sells vegetables. When goods are traded for a squaw, he is upset when she runs away and into the arms of Festus, whose mule she steals, only to return home awaiting sale to the next customer.
Orval returns from seven years in prison for killing his wife's lover, vowing to reclaim his house and business. Edna tries to goad her new husband and Orval's son into a plot to kill Orval; then her head is turned by a traveling salesman.
Jess, Jay's twin, is shot and killed by an unknown assailant while working late at the family business. When a stranger to Dodge is suspected, Matt does his best to track him down and bring him to justice.
Two brothers traveling to California are joined by a third man who soon proves to be a wrong 'un, manhandling and killing a young woman they encounter on the prairie and turning on Quint when he shows up to share his rabbits with them.
A runaway kid and a wanted man from East Texas team up to first find the kid's mother and second to shake those who have been chasing the man about a murder in Carver County and robbery he just didn't commit.
Cyrus Degler is determined to keep Quint away from his 19-year old daughter. But no threats or beatings can keep them apart. They are about to leave town to get married when cousin Praylie comes to town bent on putting a stop to their plans any way he has to.
Having already rescued an old man once, Danny may have to try to save him again when his friend is framed for murder.
A violent killing appears to be the work of Indians, but Matt doubts it. Someone accuses Quint of it and the solution involves secret motives and revenge in Indian country.
There's trouble for Doc Adams, and perhaps for Dodge, when a new doctor and his wife arrive in town and the wife resorts to spreading a nasty rumor about Doc to get the new practice started.
When a shiftless farmer offers his daughter to Matt, Matt demurs, but the smitten girl comes after Matt, bringing danger with her.
When a young pregnant woman seeks Kitty's aid in escaping from the child's father, the two women take the stagecoach from Dodge and meet with greater danger.
As Matt takes a convicted man to Hays City for hanging, Matt and the prisoner are waylaid, the prisoner lynched, and Matt is framed for the killing, then arrested by a sergeant with a grudge against him.
An old rancher returns home after many years in prison, ready to reclaim what is his by any means necessary, including burning out the squatters on his land.
Ellie Merchant, the wife of farmer Joe Merchant, is having a passionate affair with outlaw Pike Beechum. Beechum intends to remove Joe and any other obstacle between him and Ellie.
Mistakenly hailed as a hero who downed four robbers, a man rethinks his decision to let folks regard him as a gunfighter when protecting the woman he wants calls for a gunman's skill.
Art and Bob both have an eye on a new girl in town. She works at the Long Branch but only has eyes for the most well-liked man in town. On the eve of their marriage, it all comes to a head and the town is out for blood.
Festus's ornery aunt arrives, squats on a piece of land, sets up a still, and comes to the rescue of a pair of star-crossed lovers.
Festus takes part in a horse race in which big money is at stake, tempting some to sabotage the race in order to make sure of the outcome.
Matt's old friend comes to town, announcing plans to settle down and start a business, but the business he has in mind involves dishonesty and perhaps murder.
The body of a no-good man is found in his burning store on the same night as the sudden disappearance of the nice couple he cheated out of the money for their ranch.
On their way out of town, some cousins of Festus come across a badly injured man whom they assume is dead, so they flee, pursued by Festus, who believes his cousins attacked the man.
Anderson, a stylish bounty hunter, rides into Dodge City. He informs Matt that his partner has a wanted criminal at an ice house. The locale is a two-day ride from Dodge; Anderson wants Matt's help to bring the criminal in. The outlaw's brother intends to go gunning for Matt and Anderson. There's also a twist: Matt finds out Anderson didn't tell him the truth about what happened. Both Anderson's partner and the outlaw lie dead at the ice house.
Chief Joseph has come to town suffering from pneumonia. When he and his party are refused lodging at the hotel, a stranger steps in offering his room. Local sentiment is against this and like a boiling over teapot, trouble begins to brew.
A circus family comes to town and charms the populace, who don't know the family's real stock in trade is larceny.
The head of the Lukens clan blames Martin Kellums for not helping his young bride during a difficult childbirth when the doctor was away. When Kellums runs to Dodge, Matt does his best to keep everyone safe including the local citizens.
Two brothers quarrel to the death over a woman, and as the survivor flees with her, pursued by Matt, the killing may not be over.
The goofy nephew of Festus, Eliab Haggen, comes to Dodge with the hope of shooting off a tiny piece of his ear, because Festus bit off a piece of his dad's ear years ago in a fight.
Kitty welcomes her mentor to town, but her friend is burdened by a secret: she's here to deliver the child of her outlaw son, a man willing to take his own mother hostage.
A young attorney newly arrived in Dodge works the law to keep his client out of Matt's clutches, then has ample reason to regret it.
Bert Clum uses his clan to get what he wants. They are camped outside of Dodge. When they meet a small wagon train, he hatches a plot to rob the local bank. But he needs to snatch a baby to hide behind first.
A woman and her adult, attractive niece stop in Dodge to earn some money to complete their journey to San Francisco. When an offer of marriage to her aunt threatens to derail those plans, the niece takes action.
A temperance agitator wants to shut down Kitty's saloon and end all the drinking in Dodge.
On a stagecoach returning to Dodge, Kitty and her traveling companions are waylaid and held for ransom.
A mousy local man is hailed as a hero when he shoots and kills a man wanted for murder. Then a newspaper reporter interviews him and uncovers facts that cast a very different light on the shooting.
Drought and crop failure leave Dodge without fruit or vegetables and a farming widow and her son very ill with scurvy.
Just arriving in Dodge, Molly McConnell looks for her husband. When she finds out he's been killed, and Dillon is responsible, she wonders why he didn't tell her in the first place and sets out to learn how to shoot so she can kill him.
Doc, carrying money on an errand for Matt, is found near death. In Matt's absence, the townsfolk figure there's no need to wait for official justice to deal with those deemed responsible. Outside of Dodge, a trapper rides upon two men leaning over a body. Thinking it's a robbery, he shoots at them and runs them off. When he sees it's the Doc, he takes him into Dodge and tells everyone what happened. His story changes with each telling and when they catch them the town wants to do nothing less than lynch them both.
A man comes to town and tells Sam he's going to shoot Matt. It's soon understood he is an old friend of Matt's. Soon this drifter is Involved in shooting and killing a man, and his and Matt's friendship is stretched as he claims self defense even though he was the only one armed.
Matt is ordered to Ridge Town to reopen the case of an army major who was murdered 12 years before, when a dying outlaw he shot swears he did not commit the crime, and it appears the whole town is hiding something.
A buffalo hunter who doesn't hold with ranching is acquitted of shooting the man who tries to stop him from stealing a calf, but he isn't finished with stealing to get his way.
Mace Gore's gang has taken over Dodge. When Matt is believed killed, Festus and Doc have a plan to lure Gore into a trap, even though his usual plan is to leave by dawn.
A man is convicted of robbing and murdering his partner, but the sons of Matt's old friend are responsible. Matt must arrest the remaining son after the other's dying declaration and make it to Hays City in time to stop the hanging.
Thad, son of and deputy to an Oklahoma sheriff, arrives in Dodge pursuing vandals on his father's warrant, not realizing the Oklahoma warrant isn't executable in Dodge.
Someone has placed a fabulous price on Matt's head, and there are many competing to earn it.
After a successful search for gold, two prospectors hire a man, who shows up at their campfire, as a bodyguard.
A young Pawnee arrives in Dodge to seek his own revenge on a murderer, not trusting in the white man's justice.
Lured out of retirement with the promise of land, a bounty hunter is aimed by his boss at the man who killed his son. He just doesn't tell him the reward and charges had been dropped.
A man who persuaded the good folks of Dodge to invest their money in a mine is out of prison and back to prove that there really is gold in the mine.
While Matt's out of town, his friends play along with a drifter's innocent impersonation of the marshal, but a man comes to town determined to get revenge on the marshal, and he's not playing.
An elder brother took the blame for the younger as both were sent away for cattle rustling. When they return home, the younger is not done with doing wrong, nor with asking his brother to cover his tracks.
A twelve-year-old boy recovers in Doc's office and then goes with a gun after the man who robbed and killed his father.
Twenty-two men escape from a territorial prison. The remaining 4 kidnap Matt hoping to get safe passage into Mexico. One of them has another agenda which he reveals to Matt as they get closer to the border.
After a risky train robbery and with two posses on their trail, four men hurriedly ride to some fresh horses. Dillon wounds one of the gang carrying the stolen money and it turns out to be a young woman.
A retired judge and his sons abduct Kitty, Festus, and Doc after Festus shoots his other son in order to defend Kitty. The judge "tries" Kitty and Festus for murder, pressing Doc into service as their defense attorney.
When Matt is too busy to escort Kitty to a gold mine she inherited, she travels there alone and meets with claim jumpers and other difficulties.
Two Bounty hunters bring in a wounded Mexican bandit worth $30,000 and find out the Mexican government might not pay for a man who dies a natural death, so they get the idea of shooting him dead.
Festus's nephew arrives, seeking a bride who can read and write. He soon finds one, but runs into difficulties earning the money he needs for her dowry.
A band of robbers have hit numerous banks with uncanny precision, planning and ease. They have their sights on Dodge now but they must remove a big obstacle before they can proceed - Marshal Dillon.
When one of the gang is hurt after robbing Dodge, the Doc is taken to patch him up. The posse was preparing to go after them but a new problem has been set they must take care of before they can recover their friend.
In Matt's absence, Festus is accused of drawing first on a drunken man. Though innocent, Festus leaves town to avoid Matt having to arrest him, and takes refuge across the border with a widow and her son.
A talented guitarist impresses all who hear him on an instrument that is more precious to him than a man's life.
Festus has a habit of using the wishbone from a dead chicken for making wishes on. When he comes across Doc Adams, alone and snakebit, he uses that wish to help him, if it can. Meanwhile, Matt searches for three outlaws who held up a stage, killing the driver and guard.
An outlaw gang shoots it out fleeing Dodge City. When one of them is injured real bad, he hides out in the church where the reverend is fearful but not for himself.
The Osage Council has found Two Bears guilty of murder. His daughter rides into Dodge seeking Matt's help but he's out of town chasing horse thieves so Thad tries to help. He finds out that he and Matt are really riding the same trail.
Billy has always looked up to his brother Ed. During a robbery gone wrong, he is arrested. Matt begins to open Billy's naive eyes when his brother tries to free him from jail.
While on a fishing trip with Festus, Doc is abducted and forced to operate on a sick child, then ordered to be a bridegroom in a true shotgun wedding.
Some homesteaders have chosen a piece of land that is free to use per the government but Ben Payson has other ideas. When his daughter starts to care about the homesteaders' son, Ben decides to force them off the property regardless the cost.
The new newspaper in town seems to be in the business of fomenting trouble, starting with its employment as a reporter of the illiterate Festus.
When old Jacob is shot dead in self defense, his loyal Indian partner, John Walking Fox, starts paying for things with $50 gold pieces, and he becomes the talk of the town, and a target for would be robbers.
Fast gunman Jim Barrett kills a man in self defense. Now the man's father and brothers are gunning for him, in addition to a young man who wants Barrett dead for a different reason.
A mysterious man rides into town and says he is after one of two men responsible for killing his brother. When he starts crowding a stranger in town, Matt must decide how to make sure he doesn't take the law into his own hands.
Kyle Stoner is fast with a gun and likes to prove it. When he mixes with the wrong crowd and goes up against Matt, his father gets involved and he is a friend as well as an ex-lawman.
Matt quits his job as Marshal when he shoots Ray Gilcher, a prisoner and wartime buddy, dead in apparent self defense and it turns out Glicher was actually trying to save Matt's life.
A group of outlaws murder soldiers of a gold transport, put on their uniforms, then commandeer the blacksmith's shop in Dodge to extract the gold from its alloy.
Etta Stone is a very bitter, older, woman who has Kitty and Matt captured, and thrown into a homemade jail, and now she plans on hanging Matt for the execution of her husband 6 years before.
Matt is in Mexico to pick up a wanted criminal. When bandits steal his credentials, they spring the criminal with the idea of forming a gang of violence.
A bounty hunter is falsely charged with murder when he lies about killing a lynched man he thought was wanted by the law.
A gunslinger hired to kill Matt, backs down from his obligation when he gets badly wounded and falls in love with a beautiful Asian woman who is caring for him, and his employers won't stand for it.
Hootie Kyle felt cheated in a card game by Tenner Jackson. Later, he punches Jackson and takes his thirty dollars back. The next Hootie returns the money to the Marshal only to be told that Jackson had been murdered.
After a robbery, Virgil Stanley buries the money before being captured. It has been eight years and Virgil is being released. He has plans to use the money but has to deal with others with the same idea.
Dodge becomes restless when a severe drought dries up all the wells except for one. Now it becomes a fight to keep living, placing Marshal Dillon in the middle.
A station master sets up stagecoaches to be robbed by a gang, and also routinely beats up his beautiful wife.
Petter Karlgren, a Swedish immigrant, and his father arrive in the untamed west to settle in Dodge. When Petter is baited into a fight, they will find that the west is more untamed and unforgiving than they ever thought.
When a dying deputy swears in Thad to capture killer Fred Bateman, Thad ends up in a Quaker town, in which the people cannot tell which one is the wanted man.
Chad Timpson is taking care of his mentally challenged brother, Orv. But when a rider comes into Dodge we learn that Chad has a checkered past. A past that may break up the two brothers.
Bull Bannock, ex world heavyweight champion, tries to make a place for himself in Dodge City.
Dodge City is the site where notorious outlaw Billy Boles is set to hang. However, the town is occupied by people determined for their own kind of justice.
A cattle-drive, led by Virgil Powell, helps a sick Matt Dillon get his prisoner to Dodge. But the prisoner has made a deal with a cowboy on the drive to avoid a certain hanging.
On the way to help his cousin, Festus is mistaken for a hired gunman. The slow-witted Watson Boys will try to make a name for themselves in this humorous offering.
After a young gunslinger wounds Matt, he comes to Dodge to finish him off and to rob the bank. He gets distracted after going to the saloon, where he meets and falls in love with one of Kitty's girls.
A young boy comes to Dodge looking for his father. What he finds is that his father is a wanted outlaw on the run.
A Marshal from Arizona has tracked down the men responsible for pillaging his town to an area outside Dodge. He is bound to seek revenge on the outlaws at any cost.
Marshal Dillon is trying to bring a suspected murderer back for trial (on foot)for killing a lawman friend of the Marshal's. He finds the man near a large sheep ranch run by an independent Australian immigrant named Tyson. Tyson wants to handle the prisoner in his own way for allegedly killing a few of Tyson's ranch hands. The Marshal enlists the help of a local doctor and Tyson's own daughter while acquiring horses. Ultimately Tyson and the Marshal meet face to face before returning to Dodge City.
Luke Todd's family is hurting due to severe drought. Luke calls his old gang and they decide to rob the freight office in Dodge. When things go wrong, Luke leaves the stolen money for his wife to find. This action only leads to problems.
Kitty gets caught up in a scheme where lawmen will try to arrest known criminal Dal Neely by using his daughter as bait. But everyone gets more than they bargained for in this story.
An attorney general uses Matt's friendship with an outlaw for political gain.
With a man being released from prison that has made threats toward Marshal Dillon, Kitty is torn between a man that saved her life and her duty as a citizen of Dodge City.
A drifter tries to settle in Dodge after switching identities with a man he found who had been bit by a rattlesnake, but his plans are complicated when that man is brought into town still unconscious.
When a bank robber saves five nuns, the nuns look to a higher power to convince the man to turn himself in to the authorities.
A gang hires a jobless man to extract nitroglycerin from dynamite, so they can much more effectively blow open safes.
The man extracting nitroglycerin from dynamite for the gang, begins to lose his nerve in the extremely dangerous process.
Matt Dillon and Kitty Russell are escorting a notorious outlaw back to Dodge City to stand trial. A member of another outlaw gang sees them traveling by stagecoach and switches out cotter pins on the yoke that keeps the stage tied to the horses. The pin obligingly breaks on a mountain road, causing a spectacular crash. Kitty crawls out unscathed and checks on Matt, who's unconscious but will be okay, and the outlaw -- who's comatose and dying. When she hears the outlaw gang approach, she takes Matt's Marshal's badge off his shirt and puts it on the outlaw, then spins a deceptive web for the gang, who believes her until the outlaw awakens and uses his last breaths to tell the gang what really happened. Most of the occasional-player cast of Dodge City is on hand for Kitty's later speech asking the citizens of Dodge to ransom Matt.
Two long time feuding cattle barons are set for a showdown in Dodge. This will place Marshal Dillon and the town right in the middle of the trouble.
A notorious outlaw was shot in the back, fatally, before Matt could arrest him. The large bounty on the man's head was never collected. Now a "crusading" newspaper reporter is trying to goad the dead man's two young sons into a showdown with Matt Dillon, who would have been legally enjoined from getting the bounty money because of his lawman status and thus is the main suspect in the shooting.
Bob Johnson is a super fast gunman looking for revenge against the men who paralyzed his foster father and killed his foster brother, when they were attempting to steal a calf.
Fast on the draw, Bob Johnson continues to give into the temptation to use his gun to extract revenge through self defense, even if he crosses the line into murder.
A badly wounded mountain man kills the son of a powerful rancher in self defense and flees to Dodge, where Dillon provides protection for him against the father and his gang.
A comedic episode. Festus tries to get a box full of gold coins away from his relatives and back to Dodge, the Dooleys who are feuding with the Haggens are also trying to get their hands on the box.
Two deserting soldiers stab their hated Sergeant and frame Festus.
Buck Taylor joins the cast as Newly O'Brian when Newly and Kitty are kidnapped by a gang who mistakenly believe he is a doctor. His skills as a gunsmith are central to their escape.
Two fur trappers find their furs are worthless and their plan for moving westward are crushed. In a desperate move the two scheme a robbery with intentions of leaving for California. But things do not go as planned.
Harvey Cagle, a resident of Dodge, owes money to someone in another town. He tries to convince the man he owes to give him time to pay him back, but the man gives him only a few weeks. While there he sees a gunfighter, named Dave Reeves, kills someone and decides to hire him to kill his partner Carl Anderson so that he could get control of the business they share. When Reeves arrives he finds out that the woman Anderson is seeing is his wife, who left him a few years ago, and this makes him want to kill Anderson more.
Doc Adams has discovered that a private train car passenger has symptoms of the plague. When he quarantines the train car, the citizens of Dodge become fearful of the disease spreading.
Festus is jailed for a robbery and murder he did not commit in Pierceville, by an aging Sheriff who's too proud to investigate leads that would prove him innocent.
A cowboy finds a lone Indian boy near his burned-out village. They become attached to each other, but boy is met by racism when they reach Dodge City.
When triplets are born to a dying woman, Doc Adams will do all he can to keep the babies together instead of sending them to an orphanage.
When a childlike simpleton is accused of murder, Matt will have his hands full trying to keep the man from being lynched in a town that cries for blood.
Matt's horse shows up riderless in Dodge City, and there is blood on the saddle. While Festus and Newly search for Matt, ruthless vigilantes take over.
A wounded man falls into his father's well, and rescue attempts are complicated by nearby blasting and the fact that the rescue party includes two men who don't want him to be rescued.
The father of a young gunfighter tries to end his son's career by wounding his gun hand.
Newly rescues an ignorant hill girl, Merry Florene, from her uncivilized half-brothers Roland and Elbert. He brings her to Dodge City and arranges for a job at Jonas' general store. The two ruffians find her and try to force her to help them rob the store.
Jubal Gray and his gang of renegade ex-soldiers steal a cache of rifles and gunpowder to sell to a band of marauding Indians. In a chance encounter they seriously injure Tahrohon, an Indian friend of buffalo-man Noah Meek. Noah vows revenge for his friend's wounds.
Matt goes to Texas to attend the retirement party of his old friend, Sheriff Mark Handlin. After witnessing his friend's assassination by five desperadoes whom Mark had previously sent to prison, Matt chases them into Mexico.
When a new Indian tribal leader wants changes, the white Reservation Police Chief balks. When Marshal Dillon arrives some free-rein Indian police officers drum up charges on Matt and the new leader.
With a drought around Dodge, a city slicker named Norm Trainer plans on profiting off the local farmers. The only hope the farmers have is a 'water-witch' named Sam'l. But everyone is not happy with Sam's presence in Dodge.
When Dobie Price escapes from the Dodge jail, Dobie's former gang member and cousin rides with Marshal Dillon to bring Dobie back to justice and a date with the hangman.
An ex-lawman waits for a convict, who crushed his hands with a hammer, to be released on parole in hopes that his good fast drawing son will kill him.
A group of cattle rustlers are determined to stop Amos McKee's cattle from reaching sale. Even to the point of placing a diseased animal among the herd.
Matt pursues the Rawlins gang into Mexico to the village of Zavala. Here he meets Paco and his widowed mother. Paco's father had been killed when he stood up to outlaws intimidating the people of Zavala. In his whole life, the only strong willed people Paco had ever seen were outlaws. He first thinks of Matt as such a person, until Matt tells him that he's not there to kill the Rawlins' but to arrest them. "But only outlaws ever come to Zavala." Paco is fascinated with the fact that Matt is a US Marshal. In an unusual episode of Gunsmoke an unlikely relationship develops amongst the trio, Paco, his mother, and Matt. Paul Savage later adapted this episode into made for TV movie "Cutter's Trail" where Manuel Padilla Jr. reprises his role as Paco.
When Merry Florene's brothers return to Dodge to turn in their 103 year old Uncle Finney for fifty dollars, you know some shenanigans are afoot.
Will Geer plays an old mountain hunter that comes to Dodge to see his long time friend Matt Dillon. When the hunter is accused of attempted murder, it will be Matt that sets off to bring his friend to justice.
In Spearville Irishman O'Quillian shoots a man for cheating in cards. The dead man's brother is set for revenge even though the Irishman was cleared of murder by the courts.
Doc helps Matt escort a wounded man to Dodge to stand trial for murder, but Matt gets word by telegram that the man's gang plans to storm the train on which the lawman and his prisoner are traveling.
The Ward gang is on the run after a bank robbery. The gang loses one of the Ward brothers, shot in the stomach, while Abelia and another gang member go to Dodge for a painkiller. While in town Festus and Newly have a run-in with the pair. Festus has a tracking job which leads him to Abelia's home where the gang has already taken off south bound. One of Abelia's children is bitten by a snake and Festus stays on to help heal the girl.
Dillon backs a citizen who refuses to sell land to a railroad builder, so the builder buys liquor for his large crews causing drunken riots in Dodge.
Bob Sullivan is a con man who tries to trick a widow with three children out of money for a fake cattle herd.
On the way back to Dodge with outlaw Waco Thompson, Matt runs into a very pregnant Indian woman. With a gang on their heels Matt finds a farm house to help the woman, but runs into bigotry with a painful past.
Luke Brazo is on the trail of a lone wolf, nicknamed Lobo, that has been harassing farmers around Dodge. But Luke will prove to be more of a lone wolf and just as dangerous as any animal.
Johnny Cross, though innocent, is a wanted man. Bounty hunters are after the reward. Newly finds him and intends to bring him in. Johnny has a choice to make when Newly is injured on the way back to Dodge.
Down on his luck, a widowed farmer is unable to get a loan from his brother-in-law, a banker in Dodge City. The two briefly argue. The farmer's son and daughter, however, go back to the bank, cause a commotion and steal an envelope full of money. Marshal Matt Dillon is out of town, leaving Festus in charge of investigating the incident. The farmer is arrested for the robbery. Upon hearing from his children that they took the money, he forbids them from telling the law; he feels he'll only be using his children as scapegoats. A short time later, the children run away and encounter Matt.
On her way back to Dodge after a short trip, Kitty shares a stagecoach ride with Blaine Copperton, a gentlemanly but uncertain man who seems to be far less mature than his age. Suddenly, two armed bandits attack the stage, killing the driver and seriously wounding Copperton. Copperton manages to grab a shotgun and kill the bandits, but then collapses unconscious. Kitty drives the stage to Copperton's ranch, where she finds a family of squatters living in a shack. The squatters, who have a long-running feud with the powerful Copperton family, refuse to give any help. When Kitty gets to the ranch headquarters and finds Copperton's mother, she finds a powerful matriarch who treats her son like a child, her granddaughter (Copperton's daughter) as barely legitimate and everyone else like so many servants. The mother soon finds out about the squatters. She goes to their shack, burns it to the ground, and shoots a squatter in the leg. Kitty calls for help before things get way out of hand, but before Matt can get there, the squatters kidnap Kitty and demand that Copperton show up to rescue her and get shot in the leg himself. Copperton defies his mother and shows up at an old mine where the squatters have hidden out, but will the feud turn deadly?
Matt and Festus shoot it out with an outlaw who was a member of the infamous Jess Trevor gang, particularly notorious for murder and mayhem. Matt finally kicks in the outlaw's door and shoots him. The outlaw lives for a few minutes, and Matt asks him why he deserted the Trevor gang. The dying outlaw reveals that he left at the request of Trevor's girlfriend, who was also shocked by his cruelty and wishes to leave. The woman is then shown lying in a corner, having accidentally been shot by Matt. To his horror, Matt recognizes the woman as Leona, a woman he knew and loved before he came to Dodge City. Guilt-ridden, he brings Leona back to Dodge and learns her story: she had drifted after leaving Matt, turning to prostitution and hooking up with various gang members, closing with Trevor himself. Trevor has learned of Leona's defection and puts out a murder contract on her. While Matt searches for Trevor (and Trevor orders a hit on Matt), Kitty (who is nursing Leona) struggles with her feelings toward her boyfriend's past girlfriend, finally making an uneasy alliance with Leona. When Matt gets to Trevor first and takes him in, Trevor warns "there will be twenty shotguns pointed at your head" when Matt sends Trevor off to court for trial. Matt warns Trevor that "there's going to be one aimed at yours" in return. The extradition trip to the train station begins in an atmosphere of the highest tension, as Leona watches from a sidewalk.
Mannon, arguably the fastest gun in the West, terrorizes Dodge City while he waits for Matt Dillon to return. A cruel, violent encounter with Kitty Russell sets up the inevitable showdown.
Merry Florene is back, along with her remaining half-brother Elbert Moses and cousin Smiley. Merry pesters Newly while the boys scam Dodge City with a salted gold mine.
A buffalo hunter stumbles on the fact that a local man was head of an abusive Confederate prison camp during the war. With tension high, Matt and Festus will try to prevent citizens from taking the law into their own hands.
A young wife miscarries when Doc Adams must tend to a wounded killer instead of making a house call. The killer will probably hang, because Doc's witness to his murdering a local card-player celebrating winning a big pot. As the only physician in the area, Doc's over-committed, but the young woman's husband, a short-sighted farmer with a bad temper, can't accept the loss.
After surviving (barely) a bounty hunter's attempt to assassinate him, an outlaw tries to turn himself in to Matt Dillon. But Matt's out of town, and the bounty hunter's companions get to the outlaw first. They aren't so much interested in the outlaw as they are in killing Matt, so they take over the Long Branch and hold everyone hostage. They also get word out to a land baron whose wife the outlaw accidentally killed: come here and pick up the prisoner in return for your gunmen to waste the marshal. The land baron accepts the deal, but the outlaw's girlfriend shoots him as he's about to take the outlaw away. While Doc performs an emergency operation, the land baron's hirelings are torn between their promise to punish the outlaw and their revulsion at the bounty hunters' sadistic leader, who forces town drunk Louie Pheeters to crawl on his hands and knees the length of the saloon to get a drink (which he then refuses in a dramatic sequence). This episode's production number indicates it was actually filmed at the end of the previous season and held up for reasons unknown (it's shown in broadcast order in syndication).
The Civil War isn't over -- not nearly -- for Judge Proctor, a respected Missouri man who was on the losing side and had his home devastated by a guerrilla band led by a Kansas man. Now the judge has formed a gang of his own and sweeps through Kansas seeking the guerrilla leader. A tip-off tells the group that the man is in or near Dodge, but the judge can't locate his exact whereabouts and sets fire to a wheat field as a warning to the local citizenry. When that fails to produce the man, the judge threatens to burn all of Dodge City.
Festus, while taking a wounded prisoner to Dodge, has to stop at a farm house for help. Little does Festus know this was part of the prisoner's plan all along.
A group of former slaves on their way to Oregon are temporarily halted to repair a broken wheel. They find Matt on the prairie, wounded by two outlaws trying to prevent his reaching Dodge City, and hide him until he can recover.
A prisoner is being escorted to a town where his chance of receiving a fair trial are slim. Kitty will intervene by protecting this young man until the Marshal can return.
Frank Reardon, a former lawman and friend of Matt's whose pregnant wife was killed by a gang, has tracked the last three remaining men to Dodge to carry out his form of punishment.
While foiling a stage holdup Dillon takes one of the men prisoner. While bringing him back to Dodge he must deal with the prisoner's brother and his gang and their attempts to free him. Things become more complicated when Newly is taken prisoner.
Josh Stryker, a former U. S. Marshal, returns to Dodge City after fifteen years in prison for murder. His former deputy, Matt Dillon was the main witness who convicted him. Now Stryker is torn between his hatred for Matt, his reconciliation with his daughter Sarah Jean, and the threat he faces from two outlaws, Jessup and Reager.
Marshal Matt Dillon is brought to Coreyville by Ellie Wylie to ensure a fair trial for her brother, Titus. In the process Matt must deal with the town matriarch, Agatha Corey and her sons Billy Joe and Frank. Flo Watson, the redheaded saloon keeper, plays a prominent part in the intrigue.
An aging con-man arrives in Dodge with a desire to pull one last con before his health fails.
Sgt. Hawk is a half-breed lawman who stops by to visit his mother, who bore him while being held captive by Indians 20 years before. He finds that she has nothing but hate for him.
Outlaw Will Smith visits his ex-wife Abelia so she can fence some stolen gold in order for him to escape into Mexico. Festus becomes suspicious when he sees Abelia in a seedy establishment late at night.
Matt Dillon is escorting his prisoner Charlie Noon back to Dodge City when he encounters a runaway Indian bride being pursued by the braves of her tribe. The Indians have mistaken Charlie Noon as the man who stole her and are seeking revenge. The suspense builds in this episode as all parties are seen to match wits and maneuver for strategic advantage rather than employ violence. "Charlie Noon" is thus noted more for intrigue than the activity one would expect of a typical western.
Merry Florene is back -but this time she has herself a good job as an interim school teacher in Dodge. But when her kinfolks arrive, we are again in for more buffoonery from her family members.
Louie Pheeters is convicted of killing a man when he cannot remember the circumstance of that night. Facing five years in prison, Louie has one last chance to set the record straight.
A naive missionary woman teacher gets help from Festus in order to get to her rural job. But a group of hillbillies has other plans for the traveling pair.
Ben Hurley, a poor farmer, steals horses for outlaws to get enough money to take his blind daughter Susan to Kansas City, where she can learn to read and lead a better life. Newly tries to find the rustlers and becomes involved in the young girl's plight.
After twenty years in prison, Jake MacGraw comes to Dodge City to start over. He takes a job as piano player at the Long Branch, but is this really why he came to town? He woos one of the saloon girls and seems to want a fight with her beau. What's that all about?
The Sadlers have scraped and saved all their lives to have a home. When they finally move into one, the bank that has all their money closes and the previous owner of their home wants an immediate payoff. Not able to meet his demand they decide to take matters in their own hands.
When three nuns come into Dodge looking for the father of two small children, they are surprised when the father turns out to be an ornery self-centered old mountain man.
An Indian warrior, Gregorio, is wounded escaping from the U.S. Army Fourth Cavalry, and the bigoted, ruthless Sgt. Emmet Holly sets out in hot pursuit. Gregorio encounters Kitty Russell, steals her horse and takes her hostage. Meanwhile, Marshal Matt Dillon is tracking all of them.
As Matt escorts a wounded prisoner to Ft. Union, his camp is invaded by a thieving young boy, whom Matt takes into custody. In Dodge City the journey to Ft. Union is joined by two women, one pregnant traveling to see her husband, the other secretly the wife of the prisoner. A trio of outlaws waits on the trail to kill Matt and rescue the prisoner.
A small family feud between two men goes too far when one of the men hires a gunslinger to take care of business.
Dr. Herman Schultz, a longtime friend of Doc Adams comes to Dodge City to experiment with Mesmerization (hypnotism) as a medical procedure. However, his motives seem to be less noble.
Matt is seriously wounded in a gun fight. Kitty is so despondent, she puts the Long Branch up for sale, bids Matt goodbye and leaves Dodge City. In a new town, in another saloon, she finds out why Matt is the kind of man he is.
Albert Schiller (Milton Selzer) is losing his job as teller at the bank. When outlaws led by Jake Spence (William Schallert) are unsuccessful in robbing the bank, Albert takes $5,000 and blames it on the gang. Irate at the wrongful accusation, the robbers return and force Albert to join them by taking his wife Kate (Patricia Barry) prisoner. Worst of all, she is menaced by the sociopathic Nix (L. Q. Jones)
When Ed Vail's daughter is kidnapped by Indians, Ed and his sons set out to find the girl. But Ed will have to come to grips with himself before rescuing his daughter.
Newly's best friend becomes the victim of a con game perpetrated by a pretty young woman and her partner.
Matt is away, and Morgan sees his chance to take over. He breaks into the Long Branch, and Kitty is forced to take action.
Long Branch bartender Sam Noonan reveals a good bit about his young life while talking to a young man on probation for theft. The thieves, all teenagers, have been given a 'work release': two of them work on a farm and the third for the Long Branch Saloon as Sam's helper. They chafe under the heavy-handed supervision of a small-time lawman who watches over them and takes every opportunity to make their lives miserable. Sam, himself an ex-con from way back, helps out the kid as a sort of payback to a mentor who helped him when he got into trouble. One of the other two, a mentally challenged young man who just goes along with his partners, may also rehabilitate himself if treated properly. The third one, though, finds more and more ways to get into trouble for himself and his partners.
Will Hackett has just been released from prison after serving ten years for a foiled train robbery. Hackett just so happens to visit the farm of Quentin Sargent, a former partner that ran out on him during the robbery.
When a gang tries to kill one of their captured members, the member turns around and teams up with Matt to bring the rest of the members to justice.
Chato is a mixed-race Native American with a serious grudge against lawmen. He also has a remarkable athletic ability: he can run and jump over mountain ledges while keeping up a steady fire with his rifle. After an exciting duel, he kills a friend of Matt Dillon's who was tracking him. Matt comes to New Mexico and engages him in a duel of wits with Chato to catch him. Chato's one soft spot is his common-law wife. She is shot and severely injured by a group of renegade tribesmen who were also gunning for Chato. Chato calls a truce with Matt so the group can escape and get her to a doctor - but it's only a truce.
Ex-con Fred Garth seeks to exactly re-create the hanging death of his father by casting Doc as the father and Matt Dillon as the young Garth (who was shot in the leg and tied to a post while his father swung). Garth kidnaps Matt, Doc, Kitty and Festus and isolates them in a deserted town.
Adam Bramley, an immature selfish young man, has escaped from prison. Lewis Stark is a bounty hunter who catches him, then blackmails him for money with Bramley's father, John, a rancher with a serious heart condition. Adam's strong-willed sister Glory, has the ranch hands beat up Stark, while John pays him off to leave. Adam finally has an epiphany just as his father is dying of a heart attack.
The arrival of the first woman doctor in Dodge City, Dr. Sam McTavish, riles Doc Adams. However, she soon wins his confidence and that of his patients, and the two physicians make a startling medical discovery.
The Gentry brothers catch old trapper Floyd killing another cow on the ranch and in an attempt to scare him they string him up for a fake hanging that goes wrong resulting in Old Man Floyd's death.
Matt, Doc, and Festus are aboard a train in snow covered mountains when it is stopped by Indians who want 2 unknown passengers turned over to them for selling poisonous whiskey to them earlier.
Matt avoids capture by the three Indian braves and continues on to the telegraph station. Exhausted, he finds out the telegraph lines are down. However, an advisory was issued before while the lines were still operating and Matt finds out who aboard the train sold the bad whiskey to the Indians. Matt borrows a horse from the telegraph operator and heads back to the train. Festus, meantime, is overpowered by panicky train passengers determined to give the Indians the guilty parties. They settle on two men who, it turns out, are deserters from the Army. The men protest, saying they had nothing to do with the whiskey. Matt gets back just in time to prevent the Indians from killing the soldiers. One of the guilty passengers tries to shoot it out with Matt but is killed. The other, whose pregnant wife is aboard the train, prepares to turn himself over to the Indians. Matt, however, convinces the Indians to let the surviving guilty man stand trial. The ordeal, while resolved, will cause major changes in the lives of the passengers, including an engaged couple, a pair of spinster sisters and a con man posing as a priest.
A man brings his badly wounded outlaw partner into Dodge and pays a saloon girl to comfort him by pretending to be his daughter.
A teenager meets up with a notorious fleeing gunman whom he kills in self defense and that makes him a target for every gunslinger looking for a reputation.
Piney Biggs wanders tired and thirsty into what's left of a family's camp site that has been massacred with no survivors. As he is scavenging through the remains a band of Indians come by and Piney is forced to play dead. He later identifies them as the attackers and tells the people of Dodge that he had been traveling with the family and he is the only survivor. A posse is formed to hunt them down. The Indians are captured by a slimy band of bounty hunters who find Piney's story suspicious.
When Ira Pickett is accused of murdering a man in a gunfight, his father Osgood comes to Dodge City to get rid of the witnesses by one means or another.
Matt Dillon boards a train looking for a fugitive named McCabe wanted for robbery. When he finds him, McCabe, with a woman at gunpoint forces Dillon to make a deal. Dillon agrees and they set off for McCabe's farm where his wife lies dying. She dies before they arrive and McCabe's son Dodie feels nothing but anger and bitterness towards his father for leaving them alone all these years. Dodie alerts the nearby town, where he is wanted for a far more serious crime, that his father is back.
Pursued by Marshal Matt Dillon, a Mexican bandit seeks sanctuary with his twin brother, a priest.
An Army sergeant is accused of desertion and the theft of an Army payroll.
A strict judge interferes when Newly allows an outlaw to make arrangements for his 10 year old daughter, and to surrender afterwards.
Boston whaling captain Aaron Sligo suddenly forsakes the sea entirely. He moves to Kansas, buys a ranch and ceremoniously sets up a plaque on the 100th meridian of longitude, which he says is as far from the sea as possible in the United States. He then becomes a cattle buyer, ordering a shipment of cows from Texas, while courting the widow next door. The widow resists his courtship until he proves that he can grow corn, knowing the soil on Sligo's lot is notoriously infertile. But Sligo hasn't lost all of his seafaring identity or his skills. He still dresses in full uniform, builds his house in the shape of a ship, and brings his first mate along to serve as ranch foreman. When a rival cattleman pulls a dirty trick on Sligo which prevents him from bringing his cows to market (by spreading a rumor of brucellosis among the herd) and when the rancher's hands beat the first mate to a pulp, Sligo uses his pugilistic skills to even the playing field -- and some mysterious skill to get the corn to grow.
Festus is severely dehydrated and seeing blurred images, when he kills a man in a ghost town, and it's not a clear case of self defense.
Festus tries to go into the freight business and it nearly results in matrimony.
Carl Jaekel and Beth Wilson were a couple a decade ago, when his temper caused him to kill a man who had insulted her. After eight years in prison, he foils an escape attempt by killing two other prisoners, and is granted a pardon. What the warden doesn't know is that Jaekel has gone completely psychotic and engineered the escape attempt himself, killing his partners in an attempt to look heroic when they were found out. What Jaekel doesn't know is that Beth, who wrote sympathetic letters to him throughout his imprisonment, is actually deathly afraid of him. Without telling him, she found a kindly gentleman whom she married, and now is the mother of a young daughter. Beth keeps up the charade for a while when Jaekel gets out, but he's bound to find out eventually -- and he does, kidnapping Beth's daughter in an effort to force her into repudiating her husband and taking up with him again.
A marshal with a warrant to legally execute ten outlaws upon capture, enlist Matt's help, and finds out one of the men is his rebellious son.
Cleavus, an old friend of Festus, has been dogged by poverty and hard luck all his life. He stumbles into a gold mine looking for help -- only to accidentally kill the miner. While driving the miner's corpse to a farm for burial, Cleavus finds $200 worth of gold dust -- a big chunk of money for 1873 -- in his clothing. This gives Cleavus an idea. In Dodge, he learns that the miner's claim hadn't been registered yet and falsely claims title to it himself. With his new money, he buys fancy store clothes and affects himself as a dandy. He even begins paying court to Kitty Russell. Festus finds out part of the truth about Cleavus and Kitty finds out the rest -- the mine actually held only the limited amount of gold and a lot of iron pyrite -- "fool's gold." Cleavus's luck goes downhill from there
Lavery is a ne'er-do-well small-time crook who does pretty much what he wants -- much to the distress of his wife, who's a Long Branch saloon-hall girl. Now Lavery is on the run for horse theft (he actually left his tired horse at the barn in trade for a new one). Lavery gets his chance at redemption when he sees a thug about to bushwhack Matt and shoots the thug dead. Matt has a talk with the stable owner and clears Lavery of the charge, and gets him a job tanning hides. But Lavery's two outlaw buddies soon show up to try to get him to start stealing again. Added to the confusion is the fact that Mrs. Lavery, who quit her job at the Long Branch when her husband got a job, is now pregnant.
Riding away from Dodge after a $2800 robbery, four bandits escape into the windy night. With one of them wounded it seems like a three-way split until Pike, the wounded one, surprises the other three.
Dirty Sally becomes smitten with the outlaw Pike as he continues to heal up and the gang begins tracking Pike down.The friendship between the two grows as Pike is faced with leaving or standing his ground with the gang.
Kitty is lost and wandering countryside when she befriends a female child who has been living like a jungle girl for years in the wild, and then a family captures the girl and wants to use her in a freak show.
Phoenix is an ex-con hired to kill an ex-law man. When he starts working for the man and his wife, he becomes attached to them and can't go through with it.
On the trail of thief and killer Ben Rodman in the spectacular Utah wilderness, Matt meets Rodman's latest victim, an old prospector who was shot by Rodman over the water hole the old man had staked a claim to. The dying man entrusts his grandson to Matt's care. Quickly thereafter, a wagon drives up with Maggie Blaisdell and Jed Rascoe at the reins, looking for the same water. Maggie is a madam, gimpy Rascoe her handyman, and the four women inside are her prostitutes. Despite Maggie's profession, she and Matt are old friends, complicated by the fact that she was also once Rodman's girlfriend. It's further complicated that one of the "girls" is, unknown to anyone, the mother of the young boy (she ran off and left him with his grandfather years ago). Matt chats with Maggie and learns that she is taking nearly $48,000 in gold dust to the East to invest in a mining consortium where she's a partner. One of the "girls", treacherous Lisa, overhears the conversation and sneaks out, first ...
Matt, Maggie Blaisedell, her "stable" of call girls and a young boy who's the son of one of the women take refuge from Ben Rodman's gang in an old fort. Unfortunately, the fort has crumbled with age and Rodman and his gang are able to get inside and demand a fortune in gold dust Maggie is carrying for friends. Maggie also has a trunk full of fine hunting rifles and ammo, which she distributes among the group, and though the girls can't hit the broad side of a barn they can scare off any frontal assault. What they don't have is water - one of Maggie's girls turned traitor had drained their barrel before running off to join the gang. With time running desperately short, Matt (and the weather) contrive a scheme to force the outlaws to come headlong after the gold dust, hail of bullets or no
Kitty finds and reads a letter from Doc Adams, who has disappeared from Dodge. Doc writes that he was so distraught over the death of a young girl under his care, who was suffering from an illness he didn't know how to treat, that he has gone East to re-enter medical school and catch up on something other than surgery for bullet wounds. (This was actually a ploy to give Milburn Stone, who had suffered a heart attack in the off season, time to fully recover.) Soon a new doctor, Dr. John Chapman, arrives. Chapman is a highly cultured, very standoffish New Orleans dandy. The townspeople treat him with disdain and refuse to see him. Chapman pretends not to care, but his feelings are deeply hurt. It takes an explosion at Newly's gun shop -- and a bone fragment pressing on Newly's brain, causing him to have hallucinations and become a dangerous maniac -- to get people to turn to Chapman for help.
The Colter family is in trouble. The father is dead, one brother has been hanged, two brothers are on the run, Travis gets fired because of his name and the mother, Beatrice, has to go to work as a saloon singer. Matt and Newly leave town, and Festus is in charge. The two brothers return to Dodge City to get Travis to join in a robbery, but he refuses. Dr. John Chapman, filling in for Doc Adams, steps in to help Bea and Travis.
An outlaw used to killing with ease, kills a priest and then strangely starts to show compassion, mercy, and remorse towards his victims.
A badly injured Matt asks a good friend to take over temporarily as the Marshal of Dodge.
Lijah, an itinerant mountain man, happens on three murdered members of the Ezra Parker family, and discovers the lone survivor, ten-year-old Rachel Mae, hiding in the root cellar. As Lijah is burying the family, Hale Parker, Rachel Mae's shiftless uncle, comes on the scene. In a struggle with the supposed killer Lijah, Hale is knocked unconscious. Lijah leaves and takes Rachel Mae with him to rescue her from unseen danger. Hale revives and makes his way to Dodge City where he tells his story. Matt organizes a posse and rides out to see what's what.
During a thunderstorm, Festus seeks refuge in a cave, finding an Old Indian waiting to die. Festus decides to be his "brother's keeper". He takes the Old Indian to Dodge and tries to civilize him. His efforts don't work.
An aging mountain man reluctantly agrees to join the posse pursuing a murderous outlaw gang, but his real intent is exact a murderous vengeance on the men that murdered his female benefactor.
Doc lacks the faith to operate on Matt's bullet wound, so he transports him to a specialist by train, which is taken over by bandits for its gold shipment.
Jack Sinclair's gang is trying to steal the gold the U.S. Army is transporting on the same train Doc is transporting a seriously wounded Matt to Denver. Festus and Newly commandeer the wagon the gang will use the haul the gold away. Sinclair and most of the gang give chase on foot; the wagon cannot move fast because of the weight of its load. Matt, laying face down, still manages to shoot one of Sinclair's gang. But, in the process, his condition worsens. Meanwhile, the back story of various passengers unfolds, including a priest who doubts his faith.—Bill Koenig
Matt, a bullet lodged near his spine, must have surgery immediately. Doc is convinced he's not up to the task. However, a priest, whose own faith has been wavering, tells Doc that he must operate; if Matt should not survive the operation, it will be God's will. The priest rediscovers his own faith because of the ordeal. Meanwhile, Festus and Newly abandon the wagon with gold while freeing the horses. Sinclair's gang will have to haul the wagon themselves. Festus and Newly gamble the train can be restarted before they arrive. Doc must complete the intricate operation before the train starts up. Sinclair gets to the train ahead of the gang and finally discovers that Matt is aboard.
Handyman Titus Spangler rescues seven orphans from an overly stern headmistress, Emma Grundy, and winds up in Dodge City at Christmas time.
A young man is caught in the web of a trumped-up rustling charge, jailbreak and murder.
Mando is an outlaw in Mexico who seriously wounds Matt and leaves him to die in the desert. Hidalgo controls nearly all of the small town where Matt finds refuge, and nobody will stand up to him. Matt is determined to kill or capture Hidalgo for his crimes, but is so weak from his injuries he has to prop himself upright with the saddle horn of his horse.
Newly falls in love with a woman who could put him in danger.
"Dirty Sally" Fergus takes in an old drunken drifter with a surprisingly cultured wardrobe and manners. The old fellow is on the run, as it turns out. He once was an extremely wealthy Eastern businessman, but Demon Rum ruined him. Sally gets him sobered up and to show some self-respect. But into the picture comes the man's disapproving daughter, who wants him committed to an asylum because of his past drunken antics. She's not all bad -- but her boyfriend, who is traveling with her, is. Unbeknownst to her, the boyfriend has his eye on what's left of the old man's fortune, which is still considerable. He went along with her plans to commit him because she would control his estate (and then he would marry her and take over her property rights), but that's taking too long. Now he just wants to assassinate the old man outright. Matt temporarily frustrates the killer's plan by taking the old man into custody and -- with Sally's help -- getting him to prove his competency in court. The daughter is mollified when the old man gives her some money, but the boyfriend drops all pretense and goes after Sally and her friend with a rifle.
A 'mad' dog in the countryside has been killing cattle & sheep. A vengeful gunman seeks to kill a man who shot him in the back 4 years ago, as a widow and her two children try to tame him.
When wealthy Wil Donvan's daughter and cowboy Yankton fall in love with each other, the young woman's classy European born mother wants to put a stop to the romance.
Phoebe nurses a wounded man with amnesia back to health. But with his memory returning it could lead to even more danger for the confused man and heartache for the lonely Phoebe.
A case of mistaken identity is no laughing matter for Festus when a U.S. marshal arrests the good-natured deputy as bloodthirsty murderer Frank Eaton. While Festus stands trial, Matt investigates to clear his friend's name.
Walt Clayton is bound to protect his daughter from marrying a young local boy. But his protection may lead to Walt losing the most precious thing in his life.
In the Oregon wilderness Matt Dillon escapes with a prisoner from a band of bank robbers led by Charley Utter. They kill the prisoner but continue to pursue Matt for the $24,000 bank loot he has recovered from them. Matt later encounters two runaway orphans, Tuttle and Hannah Kincaid, who are floating down the Rogue River. At a rough mining town, Matt and the children encounter a thief, Pierre, and his partner in crime, Paulette
The outlaws catch up with Matt Dillon and the two orphans, Tuttle and Hannah, at the rough mining town. Matt and the children make their escape on the raft, along with the pair of thieves, Pierre and Paulette. As the outlaws ride hell-for-leather along the Rogue River bank, the escapees continue their whitewater rafting journey.
A faith healer shows up in Dodge City and is challenged by the skeptics, including Doc.
Musgrove spent five years in prison after Ira Spratt turned him in as an army deserter. Now out of prison, Musgrove captures the craven wife beater Spratt and takes him to Dodge City to kill him. In the gun play, Festus and Newly are wounded, and Spratt escapes. He hides in Gideon's barn and again escapes when Musgrove arrives. Musgrove then takes Gideon hostage, threatening to kill him if the townsfolk of Dodge City do not bring him Spratt.
Dan Shay, a retired Cavalry Sergeant, comes face-to-face with his past as he meets a small Indian boy whose father was massacred in a US Cavalry raid.
Matt runs into an old flame named Sarah that now runs a one woman saloon for bandits out in the desert. Matt will have to pass as a villain in order to save Sarah's reputation as a trusted confidante.
When Danny Stalcup, a young member of a gang on the run, is mortally wounded in a fall, Doc Adams is kidnapped, along with Festus, and forced to help.
Festus heads to Abilene to bring a woman $11 left over from the sale of her things after her father's death, and finds time to teach 2 little boys a lesson along the way.
When a family man lawfully kills a murderous outlaw by shooting him in the back, some people in town start to physically abuse him.
A grizzly old man, Bodie Tatum, finds out that he only has days to live. His final wish is to be reunited with the family he abandoned years ago.
Farm owner Clarabelle Callahan has absolute rights to the water supply in her area. Rather than negotiate with Clarabelle, rancher Lamoor Underwood turns to hatred and violence by bringing in a gunslinger, Dick Shaw. Unknown to either side, farm hand Pete Brown is the noted gunfighter John Jobson and represents a deadly equalizer for Clarabelle.
Killer Jay Wrecken is shot dead by Kitty and another man, at the same time, and now the dead man's brother is methodically murdering everyone connected to the incident.
Outlaw gang leader Jude Bonner seeks to force Matt to try and keep his condemned brother from hanging by kidnapping Kitty, brutally abusing and threatening to kill her.
Tuck Frye loves to gamble and loves to brag on his fast horse. Festus realizes his priorities are mixed up and he devises a scheme he hopes will get Tuck to give more attention to his wife.
A very short man rides in on a Giant Horse into Dodge and offers $50 to any man who will take care of him from midnight to dawn tonight, the first light of the full moon, when he will turn into a "Were-Elephant."
On the run, coming home again proves difficult for two brothers who just want to visit their sick ma. With a desperate and wanted friend along, they feel forced to make some choices they may soon come to regret.
Just before he's to be hung, stage robber Shadler busts out of jail, by slugging his last rites priest and donning the robes as a disguise. While burglarizing an uninhabited farm, the escapee helps Deputy U.S. Marshal Newly elude hostile lawmen quarantining a nearby outpost struck by a mysterious plague. Newly believes his pursuers are actually a ring of vultures waiting to loot the dying settlement. When Newly heads back to the besieged town, the fake padre insists on riding with him to minister to the dying citizens. Why is the hardened Shadler risking his health and freedom to throw in with law enforcement?
Newly falls in love with a young woman who is dying of leukemia. Later, Doc Adams offers to teach Newly how to become a doctor.
Matt Dillon rides wearily into Dodge City after thirty-six hours in the saddle. At the office he can't get to sleep because Festus is so exuberant about everything. In the course of the day Matt fights with a prisoner and is stabbed with a fork. Kitty will not talk to him because duty caused him to miss a picnic. There is a brawl in the Longbranch Saloon. A young boy locks a crotchety old woman in a safe that has no available combination. Finally, Matt takes things into his own hands.
Outlaws led by Dan Whelan come to Dodge City looking to kill Matt Dillon, who is out of town. They attack Newly and Festus, and throw them into jail. The outlaws take over Dodge City, robbing the bank and citizenry. They come to grief when they invite Kitty Russell into a poker game.
Adam Kimbro, Matt Dillon's mentor as a lawman, is down on his luck. He's a lush, cleaning horse stalls for his next meal. Kimbro takes a short term job as a deputy with Matt, where he must face the kind of man he has become.
Festus Haggen and Newly O'Brien meet an old friend of Festus, Jesse Dillard, an African-American cattle drive cook. Their confab is interrupted by U. S. Marshal Halstead, who has a warrant for Jesse's arrest, charging him with jail break. Jesse goes along peaceably, explaining that he killed his employer for shorting his wages and for a racially motivated flogging. Instead of the normal sentence of six to twelve months, Jesse had been given ten years at hard labor because of his race. Pete Murphy and a few drovers try to rescue Jesse, accidentally shooting the marshal. Dave Carpenter, the owner of the herd and Jesse's boss, rides in with the rest of the drovers to save Jesse from the marshal, who soon dies. Festus is conflicted between his sense of duty and his loyalty to Jesse.
An outlaw named Talbot falls in love with the widow of a man he was forced to kill in self-defense.
Russian-Jewish farmer Moshe and his family come to Kansas to try to take advantage of the land. However, their traditions are mocked by the cowboys around, notably a neighboring farm family. One night, one of Moshe's sons and the neighbors get into a fight, and the son is found dead of a broken neck soon afterward. Moshe witnessed the start of the fight but not the actual killing. Under the Mosaic law he treasured, he cannot testify and without his word the farm family is set free. Moshe's second son buys a shotgun and threatens the neighbors with it to compel them to confess, but wastes his powder firing at imaginary targets and is run off the farm. The neighbors then invade Moshe's farm in an attempt to drive him off for good.
Matt becomes involved in investigating the disappearance of female settlers and travelers in the region. He links it to a band of renegade Native Americans, who plan to sell the women as sex slaves to a band of ruthless white mercenaries.
Matt helps two of the captives (a one-time saloon girl named Stella and a young girl named Marcy) escape their bloodthirsty Indian captor. After Matt and Stella bring the shaken Marcy out of her shell - she had earlier witnessed her mother's murder at the hands of her would-be rapist - the three team together to bring the ringleader of the white slave trade to justice before he can escape to Mexico.
Matt is shot and abandoned by a fugitive Les Dean, whom he was tracking. Matt's horse finds his way to the farm of young widow named Mike Yardner, who, with the help of her dog, finds Matt and brings him to her farm. Matt is recovering, but he does not remember his past. Love is in the air. Separately, Les Dean makes a contract with Mike Yardner's corrupt neighbor to drive her out due to some water rights. The neighbor's words were "I don't like killings, but I've been around them." Les Dean visits Mike and Matt (who still does not recognize Les), but Les changes his mind about the contract and goes to return the deposit. That's when Matt regains his memory.
When a useless old drunk is hired by some men to sit on some property for them to claim, the old man meets up with a young boy. The young boy gives the old man a reason to change his ways.
Coltrane may be the fastest gun alive, and all he wants to do is live a quiet life with his beautiful wife, but so many men are out to make a reputation by trying to kill him.
Kitty and a gunman start to fall in love, but she's unaware a vengeful woman has offered 1,000 dollars reward to anyone who kills him.
J.J. is a charming petty thief being transported to Dodge by Festus, who eventually has to trust him to protect a woman, her young son, and him.
A lawyer passing through Dodge is reluctant to defend two renegade Indians suspected of murdering a powerful rancher's wife.
The lawyer defends the 2 renegades accused of murder, and the victim's husband is determined to see they are lynched if they are acquitted.
Matt investigates the circumstances in another town concerning poor man Jake Fielder, who admitted to stealing money but denied killing a woman in the process before they lynched him.
When Newly performs emergency surgery on a patient in the back country and he dies, the ignorant families think it's murder and want to hang him.
When a woman and Dillon's wounded prisoner fall in love, her selfish niece makes plans to turn him over to bounty hunters.
When a mentally challenged young man comes to Dodge, Festus takes the man under his arm. But it will not be long until Festus knows the young man needs more help than he can give.
A wanted man goes into Dodge to get help for his sick baby and his Indian wife. With Doc unavailable, Newly offers to help but will be torn between healing and his duty as a lawman.
Matt and U.S. Marshal Bob Hargraves team up to hunt a family of particularly sadistic outlaws.
A released safe cracker and aging saloon girl renew their love, but some crooks are pressuring him to break into safes again.
Marshal Dillon teams up with old friend Marshal Luke Rumbaugh to tame the town of Hilt.
When the parents of a daughter who was raped refuse to accept the girl's baby, Marshal Dillon must find a home for the child.
William Talley is a very unusual breed of gunfighter. He is well-educated, married and father to a poetry-spouting teenage daughter. That doesn't stop an association of ranchers around Dodge from hiring him to kill a rival rancher with his own lofty ideals, but it does lead the rivals into an unusual alliance.
After being raped, Dodge City school teacher Sarah Merkle struggles with the implications of being an unwed mother.
When his uncle kills his father in cold blood, Buck Henry vows to avenge his death, no matter what the cost.
A broke young man seeks his fortune with an old drifter, a formerly legendary champion billiards player.
The schemes of a mother trying to control the lives of her son and daughter lead to tragic results.
Matt's life is changed when his gun arm is seriously wounded.
Since the mob killing of his wife years ago, old man Wakefield has gone on murderous rampages with his sons. Now the Wakefields are trying to run down and kill Matt in the freezing mountains.
Five ex-Confederate soldiers have robbed the bank in Dodge City and are on the run through Indian territory, followed by Matt Dillon. The outlaws find abandoned Union military uniforms and disguise themselves as Union soldiers. At the next town, they declare martial law under the guise of an Indian uprising. The outlaws, disguised as Union Soldiers, talk the town's sheriff into getting the townspeople to load all their valuables into the safe at the town bank, which they are secretly planning to rob. When Matt catches up to the outlaws, things come to a head.
Doc and his female companion, Lyla, are captured by ex-confederates and renegade Comancheros. Matt, Festus and Newly have a plan to rescue the two people from the large gang of bandits.
Matt, Festus and Newly have disguised themselves as gunrunners to penetrate the outlaw's hideout in order to rescue Doc and his female companion.
Three cattle drivers find competition with railroads is forcing them out of business, and 2 of them mistakenly turn to crime for a temporary fix.
Three saloon girls are kidnapped in Dodge by three men who want to marry them, and oddly enough, the women do start to fall in love.
Matt is in the town of Brimstone to investigate a brutal cattle baron and asks his drunkard, ex marshal friend to help.
Dillon has to find and stop a serial sniper in Dodge who has been killing one man per night with a silencer equipped .30 caliber rifle.
Matt has to stop his friend, the sheriff of a nearby town, who has become so dominant, brutal and power hungry he commits murder and thinks he can get away with it.
An elderly circuit judge comes to Dodge to take care of its court docket, only to run into a group of old enemies -- outlaws who rob and kill people in their paths. No one has ever lived to give eyewitness testimony against the family. The judge soon learns that he himself is near death from a heart condition. When the gang goes free after still another set of murders, the judge contrives an ironclad way to get the entire group hanged.
Festus is shot by the killer he is pursuing in the blazing desert, only to be helped by a crazed hermit and forced to tote water to try and get him to a town 80 miles away.
Festus and the hermit come upon killer Gard Dixon dying in the desert, and when Festus helps him recover, the hermit forces both of them to tote water and gold dust.
A drunkard ex colonel overhears plans of robbery and murder while spending a night in jail, but isn't sure if it was a dream.
Matt, in pursuit of three bank robbers, inadvertently catches a fourth one -- their bagman, who swiped the loot and took off. The thieves learn what's happened and go in pursuit of both Matt and the thief. While stopped at a water hole, Matt and the thief meet a group of Indians who are about to leave a squaw in the desert to die. The startled thief asks why and is told the woman is a bad-luck omen, having outlived both of her husbands. To his own surprise, the thief bargains to take the squaw with him and Matt. He doesn't have any regard for the woman, but she proves startlingly helpful when the bank robbers catch up with the group and lay siege to their cabin.
When a young teenager from a group of squatters decides he can do better than stealing, he changes his ways. But the leader of the squatters will try to manipulate the young man with the people that has treated him the best.
Newly is taking wanted killer, Clay Larkin, to Dodge. He not only has to deal with the dangerous killer but also three bounty-hunters also wanting Larkin.
An inflexible father believes that his son is needed more on the farm than attending school. The local schoolteacher believes different and after being assaulted by the father will try to force the need for mandatory education in court.
After Matt finds a young girl on the prairie whose parents have been killed, he takes her to her only relative, an aunt that has troubles of her own and wants no part of her niece's life.
The sons of a loony farmer have all finally found women willing to marry them (the farmer makes a play for Hannah Cobb, in her second appearance, and is turned down again). But finding wives was easy by comparison to actually marrying them.
Dillon is sentenced to a lifetime of hard labor by Judge Flood, who uses an illegally constituted court to staff his private silver mine.
An aging pastor is determined to erect a church for the Indians on the reservation but is met with bigotry from the citizens of a nearby town.
A cowboy is unaware that Doc has given him less than a week to live after being kicked in the head by a horse and his partner tries to give him whatever he wants.
The sons of a Basque sheep herder who's part of a community near Dodge are faced with a manhood ritual. A Basque boy must defeat his father in a fist fight. The older son had beaten a schoolyard rival to death in a fight while a boy in the old country, and wants nothing to do with the ritual. The younger son has no such qualms, and wins the fight with his father in a surprise (inadvertently ramming the old man's head into a huge cast-iron water jug). This leads to the ostracizing of Manolo, made worse when he doesn't spot a wolf attacking the herd and loses sheep and a dog in the process. Manolo goes to work sweeping up at the Long Branch, while his younger brother follows and tries to persuade him that he can fight this.
When Festus accidentally shoots a man in the leg, he takes the man back to his farm only to be used by members of the family.
Complete episode guide for Gunsmoke with detailed information about every season and episode including air dates, summaries, ratings, and streaming availability in United States.
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