Wagon Train: The Cassie Tanner Story (1958)
Season 1, Episode 36
7/10
Wagon Train Season 1 Disc 9
18 March 2024
Warning: Spoilers
The Dan Hogan Story May 14, 1958 The Ruttledge Munroe Story May 21, 1958 The Rex Montana Story May 28, 1958 The Cassie Tanner Story Jun 4, 1958

The Dan Hogan Story gives us more of the Major's backstory, although it doesn't really fit in with the Major Adams Story. Apparently, Sent Adams and Bill Hawks spent some time in New York City as boxing promoters where the met a constable (Hogan, played by Jock Mahoney) who worked without a gun and was an amateur boxers with "the fastest hands I've ever seen". Hogan is now out west, trying to make a go of it as a farmer, (or rancher, I'm not sure). The town is dominated by a bully, played by John Larch. Hogan wants to avoid violence but is drawn into it when Larch forces him to draw with him. But Dan refuses to use a gun and instead knocks Larch out with a single blow before he can draw his gun, which conveniently goes off and kills Larch. It's a good thing they were so close together. The wagon train isn't in sight and Adams, Hawks and Wooster are just bystanders in this one.

Ruttledge Monroe, (John Drew Barrymore, John's son and Drew's Daddy) is a strange gunmen with a strange story. He also has a sawed off shotgun and appears to be after someone on the train. A woman, (Mala Powers), fleeing her violent husband, thinks she's after her. Actually, he's after the Major for an old grunge when he was disciplined by him in the military service.

Rex Montana, (Forrest Tucker), is a Buffalo Bill type but a total phony who has been built up into a popular hero by writer James Dunn. Montana abuses everyone around him but remains admired by those who don't know him. He eventually challenge Seth's expertise on where the wagon train should go. They say you should be nice to the people you meet on the way up because you'll be meeting them again on the way down and Montana finds that out.

Cassie Tanner is Marjorie Main, who takes a shining to Seth, causing the wagon master to hide from her ever chance he gets. The local Indians are on the warpath. The train can avoid them if they go into the desert but their animals are too played out to survive the trek. Marjorie goes out to buy horses from a local rancher. The Indians attack, on foot in some bush-filled terrain and the train is running out of ammunition but Cassie saves the say with a 'cavalry charge' of the horses she had acquired. It's the most extended battle of the series so far.
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