Hattie Silk and her niece Liz Beaumont are traveling from New Orleans, where their family was devastated by losses after the civil war, to San Francisco where Hattie has friends. A fellow creepy traveler named Sam Hare sees the women have not been eating and correctly assumes they are broke. Hare has designs on Liz, who is certainly an attractive young woman as appearances go, and buys them a meal in the hopes of sparking some kind of relationship. The women rebuff Hare's efforts to play up to them.
After arriving in Dodge City, Hattie convinces Kitty Russell to give her a job entertaining older male customers in the Long Branch Saloon. When a drunken Sam Hare begins harassing Hattie in the Long Branch, another Dodge resident named Jud Briar comes to her rescue. It is "love at first sight" for Hattie and Jud, and they are soon engaged to be married.
The thought of having to settle in Dodge City instead of San Francisco is not acceptable to the petulant Liz, and she hatches a scheme to interfere with her aunt's marriage intentions. The plan includes using her sex appeal as a means to achieve her desired end.
Given the history of Gunsmoke and the writers' tendencies toward tragic endings, this story could have gone a few different ways. I don't want to give away anything important, but everything transpires with some surprises along the way, including Matt Dillon threatening to kill someone.
This is one of those episodes where the regular cast is on the periphery of most of the action, even though almost the entire story takes place within Dodge City.
The cast of guests in this episode is outstanding. Eileen Heckart is Hattie Silk. Heckart made her name on Broadway and was nominated for several Tony awards. She was also nominated for both Oscars and Golden Globe awards for her work in films and eventually won an Oscar for her role in the film Butterflies Are Free and an Emmy for her role in Save Me A Place at Forest Lawn.
Katherine Ross makes her second and final Gunsmoke appearance as Liz Beaumont. The other appearance for Ross took place earlier in Season 10 in "Crooked Mile." The Liz Beaumont character here is quite different than the Susan Degler character from the earlier episode.
Clifton James plays the Sam Hare part with the appropriate amount of sleaziness. James would later make a bigger mark as the boisterous Sheriff J.W. Pepper in the James Bond films Live and Let Die and The Man With the Golden Gun.
A couple of familiar Gunsmoke faces also appear in this episode. R.G. Armstrong plays Jud Briar, and Michael Forest is Ray Pate. Both men were veteran character actors that appeared in many television shows during the time this episode was filmed.
