Jim Hardie's visit to his ranch has been interrupted with an assignment to investigate a series of train robberies. When the train to his assignment is robbed, he and a passenger he befriended on the trip find themselves broke in an unfriendly town. But his new friend, Homer Pittman, was once a pickpocket, and a watch he lifted from one of the train robbers proves to be a valuable clue to the case. Having no money, Hardie procures a room for them by offering his gun as security. In their room, Pittman reveals the pilfered watch and offers it to Hardie to attempt to sell it, but Hardie soon finds the watch is his connection to the train robbers.
Here we have yet another very entertaining episode. The story is quite enjoyable, with a good deal of humor as well as an ample dose of that Jim Hardie charm. The characters are quite colorful and the dialogue is brisk between Hardie and the guest cast. Although many actors who appeared on ToWF may not have been too memorable, James Fairfax's Homer Pittman is definitely a distinctive character. His performance is one of the more unique appearances in the series, with a lot of great dialogue.
And I'll say, that Jim Hardie is one heckuva detective. All he needs to do is to mosey on over to the saloon and whatta ya know, by coincidence it turns out the train robbers are running the joint. Oh well, as I've mentioned before, the 30min era didn't offer much time for an extended investigation as we'd see on a series such as The Virginian. And man, the bad guys in this one are so obviously bad it would be difficult for Hardie NOT to suspect them of the robberies. First the surly bartender tries to force him to pay $3 for basically walking into the saloon, and that encounter ends with fisticuffs. As it often occurs the #1 saloon girl and girlfriend of the bar owner intervenes, but as soon as Hardie flashes the watch the reaction he gets from her practically solves the case. When the bar owner offers $100 for the watch, Hardie knows he has his man.
There's more to the fun plot, as I've discussed the setup but not nearly everything. You'll need to see the episode to get the final resolution, but it's a darned fun watch, so this is a pleasant bit of homework.
The cast isn't that well-know, but a couple have extensive credit lists. James Fairfax appears as Homer Pittman. His career only lasted 13 years, and he would die 3 years after this episode. He appeared in a lot of adventure pictures or costume epics, as well as pirate or sea pictures, such as Against All Flags with Errol Flynn. James Seay appears as Clint Faber, the saloon owner and boss of the bad guys. He had a very prolific career, especially on the small screen, appearing in both villainous and sympathetic roles. But he had an extensive list of motion picture roles as well. John Harmon appeared as the hotel clerk, and also had a very extensive list of credits in darned near every genre, but he's best known for his roles in 2 episodes of Star Trek:TOS. Carole Mathews appeared as Lola, and although she had 99 credits I'm not familiar with her.
This is a good one, so don't miss it. A good way to spend 30 minutes!
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