Victor French spends about as much time onscreen during the Season 14 episodes of Gunsmoke as any of the regular cast members. In this installment, French plays a mouthy, incorrigible outlaw named Waco Thompson. Matt Dillon tracks Waco to Spivey, Kansas where he takes him into custody with minimal effort. The Marshal is intent on taking Waco to Dodge City to stand trial for robbery.
For some reason that is never fully explained, Waco was separated from his gang, and Waco has the strongbox that was taken during the robbery. The rest of the gang does not know the box only contained 12 dollars. They think it contained several thousand dollars.
When the gang finally rides into Spivey, a woman named Lillie that runs the saloon reluctantly tells them Waco left with "a big man." She does not tell them the man was a U. S. Marshal. (Perhaps she did not realize who Dillon was, or maybe she just did not care enough to notice.) The gang assumes Waco rode off with their money with his "new partner." They immediately begin tracking the Marshal and Waco.
The Marshal's task becomes much more complicated when he and Waco stop at a stream for water and discover a very pregnant, injured Native American woman. The duo is now a trio, and one of them is essentially helpless.
Marshal Dillon finds a farm where the Cade family lives. Nathan and Polly Cade have a daughter named Ann. When the Cades see the woman with Matt and Waco is a Kiowa, they are reluctant to offer her any help. The Cades once had two sons that were killed by Native Americans. Ann saw the incident and has not talked since. Polly Cade refuses to touch the "injun."
As expected, the gang finally finds the Cade's house, and they know Waco is holed up there with "his new partner."
This is partially a story of coming to terms with hatred and prejudice, but it is mostly a familiar tale of cat-and-mouse between the gang and the Marshal. If someone invented software to pull story ideas from a database of common Western plots, it might produce a story like this.
The casting of Gunsmoke episodes was typically excellent, and this one is no different. Victor French plays the same sort of character he usually plays, although this character comes across as more of a nuisance than a threat in this story.
The gang consists of several Gunsmoke regulars, including 14-episode Gunsmoke veteran Tom Reese, Mills Watson in his third Season 14 episode, and Lee DeBroux in his second. Lawrence Mann makes his only Season 14 appearance here, but he appeared in other episodes in other seasons.
Harry Carey, Jr. And Louise Latham play Mr. And Mrs. Cade. Both appeared in their share of Gunsmoke episodes over the years.
No portion of this story takes place in Dodge City, and all the regular cast is absent. The entire focus is on Matt Dillon and the challenges he faces.
This story is yet another where the characters are well acted and the drama is enough to be entertaining, but the recycling of elements that have been used countless times in Westerns makes the story instantly forgettable. This was a common occurrence in Season 14. Even the guest cast is dominated by actors that appeared many times throughout the run of the series. It is not reasonable to expect a series that included more than six hundred episodes is not going to repeat itself on occasion, but portions of Season 14 became too formulaic and non-distinctive.