Kitty Russell has been away from Dodge City for four weeks. As she is returning on a stagecoach, the stage is stopped by a gang of outlaws led by a man named Grant Shay. Shay had previously investigated the passengers on the stagecoach and knows there are a number of prominent people on board. The goal is kidnapping the passengers and exacting various ransom amounts for each.
Back in Dodge City, Matt Dillon is anxious because the stagecoach is late in arriving. (Dillon's anxiety is interesting, because he is usually fairly nonchalant about his relationship with Kitty. This is one of the occasions the character actually reveals the level of care and concern he has for Kitty.) When the horses pulling the empty stagecoach run into a farmer's cornfield, he drives the stage to Dodge. The Marshal and Festus Haggen set out to investigate the whereabouts of the passengers.
Shay and his gang force their hostages to walk to a very remote hill area with a shack and a corral. The hostages are kept in the corral. When nightfall comes, the temperature drops and a strong wind starts blowing, which makes the conditions absolutely miserable.
This story starts well enough, but it suffers from some implausible plot elements. The way the story ends is especially problematic. Hostage stories are difficult to do with any measure of originality.
The cast for this episode is great. The hostages include Darren McGavin as he makes his first guest appearance on Gunsmoke as a gambler of some renown named Will Helmick. Everett Sloane, who was once part of Orson Welles' Mercury Players, makes his second and final Gunsmoke appearance as a railroad tycoon named Follansbee. Aneta Corsaut, who was most famous for her role as Helen Crump on The Andy Griffith Show, is Eleanor Starkey, a woman traveling to Denver with her young son.
Gerald S. O'Loughlin portrays the mastermind of the crime Grant Shay. This would not be the only time the careers of O'Loughlin and McGavin intersected, as O'Loughlin replaced McGavin in the 1970s television drama series The Rookies.
Val Avery and Noam Pitlik were both familiar television faces from the 1960s through the 1970s, and they both play outlaws in Shay's gang. Also look for the seemingly ever present Ted Jordan as one of the gang members. Of course, Jordan, who was one of James Arness's personal friends, would eventually join the cast of Gunsmoke as the recurring character Nathan Burke.
Clyde Ware wrote the script for this episode. He would go on to pen another hostage story in Season 11 in the episode appropriately titled "The Hostage," which also features Darren McGavin in a guest starring role.
