Plot

The Virginian returns a man he killed to his crippled father. After helping bury the body, the man has a heart attack, and asks The Virginian to try to bring his daughter back from the Shoshone to inherit his farm--with The Virginian.

The Virginian returns the body of Asa Keogh's son Dick to him after shooting and killing him during an attempted theft of his horse. After the burial, the crippled Asa suffers a heart attack. Dying, he asks The Virginian to see if his daughter Sarah, who was stolen by Indians when she was 10, will return home. He had found her eight years after her capture but she decided to stay with the Shoshone at that time. Asa wants to give her his farm, as her only other sibling, Dobie, is an outlaw. Sarah agrees to return with her son, as her Shoshone husband is dead. Upon hearing that Dick was killed, Dobie comes to avenge his brother's death. Complicating the situation for The Virginian are a couple of men in town who want the property because it contains silver ore. One is a lawyer who takes Asa's will--splitting everything between Sarah and the Virginian--from Sarah and tries to say that Asa died with no will, but Sarah surprises everyone.—Anonymous

The real theme of the episode was "The Barren Ground". The Keough ranch had failed because it had high concentrations of lead in the soil. The Virginian comes to do the right thing and return the thief's dead body to his father for a proper burial. He notices the rocks may be full of precious minerals related to lead and takes them to an expert to be assayed. Yet the Virginian himself reveals that he too is barren, unable to tell Keough's daughter how he was the one responsible for her brother's death, poisoning the relationship. The Virginian reveals at the end that he is unable to commit to any woman, resulting in him being "barren ground" too, unable to pass on his good values to sons and daughters and grandchildren. Definitely the most thought provoking and revealing episode in the series.