Festus Haggen is on a hunting trip when he is caught in an avalanche. One of his legs is severely injured, and he is partially buried in rocks to the point where he cannot free himself. A group of sadistic hide cutters led by a man named Chunk comes along shortly afterwards. They are amused at the plight of Festus. A young man named Arlie Joe is traveling with the group. He defies Chunk's orders and helps free Festus. After he returns to the group, Chunk knocks Arlie Joe to the ground with a backhanded slap across the face, and Festus can see from a distance how the young man is rewarded for his good deed.
Festus is overdue for his return in Dodge City, and Matt Dillon is searching for him. Marshal Dillon encounters the despicable, deceitful hide cutters, but they deny any knowledge of the whereabouts of Festus, and Arlie Joe is so intimidated by Chunk, he joins in the denial.
Soon, the Marshal finds a group of drovers moving cattle toward Dodge. They have found Festus, tended to his leg, and are transporting him in one of their wagons. The hide cutters are following the drovers in the hopes of stealing some or all the herd for the hides. The drovers are aware of the nearby presence of the hide cutters and know the danger they present. Chunk's group is careful to avoid doing anything blatant that could provide justification to the drovers to attack them.
Arlie Joe is the central figure around which the story is built. He is fed up with the abuse handed out by Chunk and the other despicable men traveling with him, but as is often the case with someone who is being seriously abused, he is too afraid to do anything about it. Matt astutely assesses the situation and realizes if he can separate Arlie Joe from the rest of the contemptible group, there is hope for his future. Matt is sympathetic to Arlie Joe's situation, because someone helped him when he was young.
The challenges Matt faces include accompanying the drovers on a long trek to Dodge, preventing the drovers from taking illegal actions against the hide cutters while preventing the hide cutters from accomplishing their goal of stealing cattle, and doing what he can to help Arlie Joe. The situation is more complicated by the fact that the leader of the drovers -- a man named Amos McKee -- is intent on taking matters in his own hands with the hide cutters, which puts him at odds with the Marshal.
It has been a while since we have seen a group of vile characters like the hide cutters on Gunsmoke. Of course, there have been gangs of outlaws seeking fortune, but one has to go back to the Ginnis clan in Season 9's "No Hands" to find a group that apparently reveled in sadism and abuse as a bizarre form of twisted amusement as Chunk and his companions do toward Arlie Joe.
Michael Burns last appeared in a Gunsmoke episode in Season 13's "Nowhere to Run." Burns is great as the Arlie Joe character in this episode. He would play a nearly identical character later in Season 15's "The Thieves."
Cliff Osmond has no trouble portraying the nasty, mean Chunk character in this story. His "who me?" demeanor lends to the underlying deceitful nature that defines the character.
The other members of the hide cutter group are all familiar actors that frequently appeared on Gunsmoke as less-than-stellar characters: Conlan Carter as Bodiddly (Carter also appeared in the aforementioned "No Hands" episode as the same kind of character), Ken Swofford as Sugar John, and Eddie Firestone as Weevil.
Joseph Campanella is the leader of the drovers, Amos McKee in this story. Campanella was certainly no stranger to television as he appeared in many television shows from the early days of television into the early 2000s. I always think of him as Lew Wickersham, the head of the high-tech detective agency "Intertect" and Joe Mannix's often exasperated boss in the first season of Mannix. Gregg Palmer and Steve Raines, two actors that show up frequently on Gunsmoke, play two of the drovers working for McKee.
I do not understand the complaints of the other reviewers about the edit near the end. I will not spoil the surprise, but, while it is abrupt, it makes sense within the context of the story. We do get another scene earlier in the story where someone in a disadvantaged position with a pistol takes on several others with rifles shooting over some distance, and the pistol-wielding person somehow prevails, but that situation is not too uncommon in Westerns.
While there is nothing ground-breaking in this episode, it is a compelling story that is acted and handled well.
