User Reviews

Jake Creed is a hard-headed and spiteful farmer that has a younger man, Ben Tolliver, working for him. After an argument on how things should be done around the farm Ben quits. But the real reason that Jake wants Ben gone is that Ben is seeing his young daughter, Nancy, and Jake does not believe that Ben is good enough for his girl. Ben leaves but take a stud horse for the back wages that Jake refused to pay him.

Jake finds out about the horse and threatens to kill Ben for stealing the animal. Marshal Dillon gets wind of this action and goes and talks with both men. Everything seems taken care of until Jake rides into Dodge and kills the horse. Ben steals a gun and goes after Jake.

The episode was interesting and the acting well performed. The only problem, if you can find any, is the casual ending. We do hope that Matt does more than just take someones word on how a situation occurred and at least do a wee bit of investigation. But the flow of the story could not be bothered and the episode ended with a satisfactory end for most. Nice watch.

Well-acted entry with good set-up. Mean old Jake doesn't like budding romance between hired hand Ben and Jake's winsome daughter Nancy. Plus the two men have a falling out over who owns a valuable stud horse. There's going to be trouble since Jake's mean and headstrong, while boyish Ben's not going to give up either Nancy or the stud horse.

There's some tension since we know a clash is inevitable. Nonetheless, as dislikable as he is, Jake is still Nancy's dad, so what is Ben going to do. For me, the ending is much too contrived and convenient to be believed. The series usually managed more thoughtful endings than this, which is more like an easy-way-out climax than classic Gunsmoke. Oh well, not every entry can wind up a winner.