Written by JOHN McGREEVEY Directed by VIRGIL W. VOGEL Regular Cast JOHN McINTIRE as Chris Hale ROBERT FULLER  as Cooper Smith TERRY WILSON as Bill Hawks DENNY (SCOTT) MILLER as Duke Shannon MICHAEL BURNS as Barnaby West FRANK McGRATH as Charlie Wooster  Guest Cast LOLA ALBRIGHT as Leonora Parkman PETER BROWN as Ben Campbell BRUCE DERN as Jud Fisher JAY NORTH as Tom Blake DENNIS HOLMES as Danny Blake RUSSELL THORSON as Simon Landis WALTER COY as Ord Whaley BARBARA WOODDELL as Martha Landis LAURIE MITCHELL as Annie Tolleson GALE BERBER as Kate Campbell MICHAEL BEIRNE as Lt. Thaxter WILLA PEARL CURTIS as Clemsie

Peter Brown as a reformed felon

In its final season Wagon Train went back to the one-hour, black and white format.   This episode starts with the formation of another year's train.  With the usual banter among the regulars who tease Charlie about his cooking.

Hale has set a limit on the number of wagons he will allow to join the train.  The final wagon belongs to Leonora Parkman who says she's traveling to Fort Defiance with her maid to join her husband, the commandant of the fort.  Next up would have been Ben and Kate Campbell.  Ben tries unsuccessfully to persuade Hale to take "just one more."  Ben decides to camp with the train for the night in case one of the other wagons drops out.  As Ben and Kate are a handsome, earnest, sweet young couple, we know it's just a matter of time until someone obliges.

We soon discover Ben has an unfortunate past.  He just got out of prison after serving four years for robbery.  Only his love for Kate kept him going and now he wants to go straight.  When his friend Jud Fisher tried to enlist him for another robbery, he turned him down.  However, when Jud is caught, he's sure Ben turned him in.  He wants to get out of jail to escape the gallows and to kill Ben.

Several other stories intertwine with the story of Ben and Kate.  Two young boys have run away from a cruel guardian and hope to blend in with the wagon train until they get far enough away that their "guardian" Whaley won't find them.

 Martha and Simon Landis, a loving older couple is going West to be closer to their children.  (Anyone with emergency medical training will guess right away that the old folks will be making way for Ben and Kate as Simon keeps clutching his left arm, the first sign of a heart problem.)

A soldier come to apprise Chris and Coop about the Indian situation, lets Coop know that Leonora's husband was killed a month previous and she was notified personally.  When Coop confronts her with the information, she gets angry.   Clearly she's been tormenting herself with the fact that she refused to join her husband in the wilderness and is trying to make up for it by believing he's alive and traveling to meet him.  Coop makes her face the truth and now we see Ben and Kate have yet another empty spot they can take.

When Whaley comes to find his "apprentice" and alienates Charlie with his harshness and lack of feeling for the boys.  When Charlie locates the boys, they struggle to get away so they won't have to go back.  In the struggle, Tom's shirt is ripped and Charlie sees the mark of a severe beating.  He's determined now that they won't go back.  While Tom is scrounging for food, Danny meets Leonora Parker as she is crying in the woods.  Immediately we sense a solution to the boys' problem is in the offing.

In the meantime, Jud has managed to escape from jail and instead of making good his escape comes to the wagon train to get revenge on Ben.  The law comes to the train to warn Ben and hangs around to protect him and see if Jud shows up.  Kate confesses to Ben that she overheard Jud asking him to help in the recent robbery and she turned him in.  In addition, although Ben told her to get rid of it. she still has his revolver and thinks now he might need it.
 

Ben refuses to go into protective custody.  He wants to stay with the train

Ben is not happy that Kate brought his gun, but is thankful shortly.

Jud shows up and tries to shoot Ben, catching Kate in the shoulder which, as any Western fan knows, is never fatal.

All the stories come together in an action-filled ending. Jud gets into a running gun battle with Coop.  Ben joins in so we get to see Peter Brown do one of his trademark dive, roll and shoot sequences.  (Actually Coop gets Jud so Peter only rolls and comes up gun ready.)

The boys see Simon go down with some kind of attack and get caught by Whaley when they run for help.  Leonora intercedes and lets them know she's going to fight to keep them.

All ends happily as Ben and Kate leave with the wagon train while the Landis's sadly look on and the boys appear to have found a happy home with a woman who needs someone to take care of.

Cast Notes: Jay North was best known for his 1959-1963 series Dennis the Menace.  His only other stab at a series was Maya, a short-lived (Sept '67 - Feb 68) series about a boy looking for his missing father in the jungles of India with the help of a native boy and his elephant.
Jay North

Dennis Holmes played orphan Mike Williams who came to live with Slim, Jess and Aunt Daisy for the second two seasons of Laramie with Robert Fuller, John Smith and Spring Byington.  Neither of these child actors made the transition to adult roles.

Dennis Holmes

Robert Fuller was a Western hero to those of us who grew up on the TV of the 1960's as he put in two years on Wagon Train after his four years in Laramie and made many guest appearances on Westerns from Rin Tin Tin [where he dies of anthrax] to shows like Lawman, Big Valley, Virginian, Paradise, etc. etc.  He made several Western features: The Return of the  Seven [we liked him better than Steve McQueen in the role McQueen originated.], The Gatling Gun, Mustang Country and the first of the two attempts at making a new Bonanza series.  Most of us were not thrilled when he became a doctor hiding in a white coat in Emergency any more than we were when Peter Brown became a doctor in a daytime drama.  But what could they do?  Westerns had bitten the dust.  We had planned to eventually add a Robert Fuller fansite to our effort here because his  Official site is mainly for selling pictures although it does have a guestbook and appearance updates.  [We have it on good authority that Bob reads the email he gets there although he doesn't usually answer it.] There's also a Laramie fan site   which is limited to just that but is worth checking out.  We recently found a really nice Wagon Train site that includes a lot on Bob.  http://www.fiftiesweb.com/wt/wagon-train.htm     Finally, there's a relatively  new,  ambitious fan site which  eliminates any need for us to add Bob to our fansite.   Check  out this full service Robert Fuller Fan Site at: http://fansite@robertfullersite.co.uk
They're adding stuff from many of Bob's roles, have fanfic from several roles, pictures, bio, etc.  They are expanding all the time.  We plan to contribute some of our stuff to their site.