Written by SHELDON STARK Directed by DON McDOUGALL Guest Cast MARTIN MILNER  as Dave Ferguson JOAN FREEMAN as Katherine Daniels BILL SMITH as Paul Rodgers ARCH JOHNSON as Charles Daniels RUSSELL THORSON as Ollie WILLIAM BRAMLEY as John Ferguson Roy Engel as Barney Wingate Norman Leavitt as the Prorietor Gregg Palmer as 1st Cowhand Don Either as 2nd Cowhand

BILL SMITH in Timberland

As is not uncommon with 1960's tv, the men of the 1880's are given an environmental awareness they were unlikely to actually have had back then.  This episode sets up a confrontation between clear-cutting loggers and cattlemen protecting their grazing land below the timber harvest.  Tensions are running high between the employees on each side.  The first time we see Paul Rodgers [Bill], the sheriff (Clu Gulagher) is warning him that he has to pay the damages for a brouhaha the night before.  Bill's character is hot tempered but he really isn't a bad guy.  Paul  has been the timber boss [foreman] and heir apparent to the timber baron [Daniels] most of his life.  He's expecting to marry Daniels' daughter Katherine, a marriage blessed, actually almost arranged, by Daniels.  When Daniels brings Katherine to Medicine Bow where Paul has started the timber cutting and set up their house, Paul feels that she's his fiancee more or less.

When fresh off the train, Katherine starts exchanging friendly conversation with Dave Ferguson, the lady-charmer son of one of the biggest cattle ranchers in the valley, Paul breaks it up.

When they reach their new temporary new home, they're greeted by old Ollie who it's plain to see is the conscience of this group and much loved by Katherine.  In a private moment Ollie expresses concern to Daniels that Paul is acting more like Daniels than Paul.   Ollie is totally loyal to Daniels but doesn't necessarily approve of his high-handed methods.   He suggests that maybe some of the trees could be left standing to protect the watershed and defuse the anger of the cattlemen.  And the trees would re-seed and leave something for the future.  But Daniels just wants to strip the land and be gone.

The first conversation that Paul has alone with Katherine should make him uneasy about her feelings for him.  But her tentative attempt to talk about the plans Paul and her father have made for her and Paul just makes Paul think she's worried that his feelings might have changed in the past year while she was away at school.  He assures her they haven't.

Dave's father is not happy about Dave's apparent lack of interest in involving himself in the negotiations between the cattlemen and the timber company.

Sure enough, when the cattlemen's delegation comes to Daniels to ask that he leave some trees standing, Dave wanders off to find Katherine.  He asks her to come to the big dance in town on Saturday.  She declines but looks like she wishes she could go.

Paul interrupts them and looks none too pleased at the friendliness between Dave and Katherine.  He tries to send Dave back to the meeting, but he doesn't go until Katherine asks him to go.

When Daniels asks Paul how things are going between him and Kate, Paul expresses his first uneasiness.  She's changed and he doesn't know how to cope with it.

When Paul talks to Katherine, he becomes more uneasy.  She complains that the plans made by her father were never hers, that she never had the chance to be courted by any young men.

Paul tries to remind her that to the people in the towns where they harvest timber she will always be an outsider.  She doesn't see why that has to be.

Paul's anxiety about Katherine makes him lose his temper more easily in town.  He's starting to go out of control.

When Paul, Katherine and some others go into town for supplies on Saturday night, the dance is in full swing.  That's about all we see of Trampas in this show and the scene could have been footage from a prior show.  Lord knows these guys listened to Betsy and Randy sing often enough.

Paul spends some time in the saloon where Ollie tries to get him to see things with less hate.

In the meantime, Katherine is drawn to the music of the dance, although she only listens outside a window.  But Dave finds her there and eventually talks her into a dance.

The dance leads to a kiss.  However, it's interrupted when Paul finds them and starts a fight.  Paul grabs for Dave's gun and ends up dead.  Dave takes off.

Daniels is devastated over this turn of events and wants Dave to hang.  When Katherine tells him Paul started the fight, he forbids her to tell that to the law.

So when Katherine goes to the sheriff with her father, she claims not to know anything.  But after her father leaves to tend to business, she goes back to the sheriff's office.

After talking to Dave, she tells the sheriff and eventually the judge at the inquest the truth and Dave is freed.  But she tells Dave she can never see him again.  She has to choose her father.  He needs her.

However, when her father decides to seek his own revenge outside the law, she tries to stop him and enlists Ollie to help.

At the confrontation at the Ferguson ranch, Dave comes out of the house without a gun.  He's says he's not about to draw a gun on the father of the girl he's going to marry.  Katherine shows up with Ollie and confirms her feelings for Dave.

There is a stock happy ending (for everyone except Paul).  Daniels  has decided that with his daughter settling in the area, he has to think of the future and log the forest so it will reseed itself.

NiteOwl Review:  Looking at this episode either from the point of view of a Bill fan or a regular fan of the series, it had to be disappointing.  Clu Gulagher had the most screen time of the regulars but he didn't have much to do.  None of them moved the plot.  Bill's character lacked the warmth of his later hero characters and the edge of his later villains.  He did have a few good moments when he showed his uncertainty over his relationship with Katherine.  And despite his temper, he did evoke sympathy as a man we knew was going to be ultimately rejected.  He was probably a decent guy drawn into acting like a bully trying to please Daniels, a man who treated him like a son.  Cast Notes:  Arch Johnson was Bill's costar in the short-lived 1959 series Asphalt Jungle.  Martin Milner was best known by older babyboomers for his role as Todd Stiles in Route 66 and by younger ones as, Officer Pete Malloy, the popularizer of "you have the right to remain silent" in Adam 12.  He did a very funny turn as the New Hampshire constable come to bring civilized legal theory to the uncouth Texas Rangersin the third episode of Laredo, "Yahoo".

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