The last appearance of Emily Hawks, Bill's wife, in the series. It would later be explained that she chose to stay in Sacramento while Bill accompanied Major Adams and Charlie to find a new wagon train. Eventually, she is written completely out of the storyline; in Seasons 5 and 6 Bill mentions that he had never been married. Irene Windust, who appears as Emily, was the wife of director Bretaigne Windust. She later would appear in one other episode of the series, The Colonel Harris Story (1960). Ironically, her character in that episode is killed.
Flint McCoullough has 1 small scene at the beginning of Part 1 of this story, and 1 small scene at the end of Part 2.
Terry Wilson, who plays Bill Hawks, has more scenes and dialog in this 2-parter than in any previous episode.
Nearly all the story is told as a flashback.
Wagon Train Tracker: This can only be a multiverse episode unrelated to the Season 1 train. In the present Major Adams has been halting the train to visit a gravestone marked 1868 for some years, but going by printed documents shown in scenes one season equals one year, and the eight seasons run 1864-71. (Problems then with the series setting being post-Civil War, but oh well.) Major Adams is no longer wagonmaster by mid-1867, Season 4. For what its worth, the "multiverse" train appears by depicted terrain to be somewhere on the Gila Trail in Arizona.