This is one of the landmark episodes, and you'll know it very quickly.
Our wagon train leader finds that a large and dangerous band of Comancheros had been successful at massacres against fairly large wagon trains.
There are so many, in fact, that they split into two or more groups. How many in each group? How many groups? How are the led and organized? Many questions.
A young man, perhaps a mature 13 or a normal 16, is found wounded, near dead, and he was with the band of Comancheros, but left behind to die.
He doesn't give a pity party story, but instead a story of slavery into the band that he wants to leave.
The wagon master (we're in the John McIntire period here) has doubts, but doesn't think he can afford to toss out the boy's story of how the Comancheros plan to attack.
The scouts, of course, want no part of the boy. Bill, in particular, thinks there is no possibility that the boy is anything but another human monster. He says this from personal experience.
But it's a matter of life and death, and that means it's a matter of whether to believe the young man more than whether to forgive him his part in the earlier massacre.
It's always great to see Duryea, and here he's a semi antagonist on the train, ready to mutiny, and although he agrees with Bill, Bill will have no part of the mutiny.
Lots of stories among the other characters, and some make the ultimate sacrifice in an upcoming battle against the Comancheros.
The twists and turns are not totally unexpected. In fact, their very drama and theater are what would be expected.
This episode depicts a very harsh world of savagery in a savage land, and the way civilized men try to deal with it.