 This is Have Gun Will Travel for broadcast Sunday, December 14, 1958. Mr. You Killed Nine Men. I never heard anyone say you made allowances for your opponent's ability with a gun. Gun Will Travel. Starring Mr. John Daener as Paladin. San Francisco, 1875. The Carlton Hotel. Headquarters of the man called Paladin. Good morning. Good morning, Mr. Paladin. Good morning, Mr. Davis. I'm going to be at the Pacific Union Club. I was wondering if there's any mail for me. Clerk, a room, please. Do you have a reservation? No reservation. This trip came up suddenly. You have references? I'm Ned Alcorn, president of the city bank in Placerville. Here are my credentials. Of course, Mr. Alcorn. If you'll sign here. Excuse me, Mr. Paladin. Wait a minute, Clerk. Yes, sir. I want you to take a good look at this picture. Manfred Holt wanted dead or alive $2,000 reward. This man might show up here. Desperado, here in San Francisco? May I see that, please? I beg your pardon? I'm sorry. My name is Paladin, Mr. Alcorn. I couldn't help overhearing. This Manfred Holt, wasn't he to be hanged last week in Placerville? Why, yes, he broke out of jail three days ago. Killed two deputies. You think he's coming here? I think so, yes. He's killed nine men, and he'll come after me sooner or later. Why? Well, I was the chief witness against him at the trial. Oh, I see. His wife's living in a cabin up in Grass Valley. She had a son born while the trial was on. Holt swore in court that he'd see the infant and then come after me. That'd probably be better for you if Holt was stopped in Grass Valley, wouldn't it? Of course. As it is, there's a sheriff and a couple of deputies chasing him up there, for all the good it'll do. This makes the fourth time Holt's got away from Sheriff Ledlow. Oh, that sheriff's not too smart. I'm no bounty hunter, Mr. Alcorn. However, I am available for a fee. To do what? Here. My card. Have gun. We'll travel. There's nothing funny about loneliness. Yet one of America's funniest guys, a man who lives by laughs, is haunted by loneliness. His name? Jerry Lewis. In the latest issue of Look magazine, in an exclusive story entitled Always in a Crowd, Always Alone, you'll find out exactly what Jerry Lewis is like. Look tells you why, when Jerry goes on stage, he carries nothing in his pockets except pictures of his family. And what happened when he forgot those pictures? Why does such a successful man drive himself so hard he ends up in the hospital? You'll learn in Look what Jerry thinks about, how he feels inside when he clowns for a nation of television viewers. How much time does Jerry spend with his four boys? What is his home like? And what was Paddy's little speech that made such an impression on him about all the girls he'd meet on tour? For the intimate and often startling story of Jerry Lewis, don't miss the latest issue of Look magazine, the issue with Jerry and Paddy on the cover, at your newsstands now. Get Look today. I arrived from San Francisco to Grass Valley and I had a lot of time to think about this outlaw, this Manfred Holt who had killed nine men. Nine men lying dead somewhere because of him. And his wife had just born him a child. It was a strange sort of cycle. Near noon of the second day, I rode out into a wide meadow and suddenly pulled up short. Three men were spread out along the side of a knoll. The rifles ready. I walked towards a thicket in the middle of the clearing. I dismounted and walked forward. Give it up, Holt. You don't have a chance. That blamed onry fool. Hey, Sheriff, look behind you. What? What are you doing here, mister? I want to talk to you, Sheriff. I'm coming in. Where'd you come from? San Francisco. You, Jake Ludlow. Maybe I am. That's Manfred Holt you've got boxed up over there. What do you know about all this? Well, Holt has returned to Placerville. I was on my way to his wife's cabin. So was Holt when we caught up to him. Is Holt alone? Yeah, just him. He's got a saddle horse and a pack horse. Then you don't need any help. Not unless you want to save us some time and start digging his grave. You might surrender. You think I'd chance two days on the trail back to Placerville with Holt? He's already killed two of my deputies. He was tried and found guilty. But now what's the difference? The difference between justice and murder. He's coming out. I can see his horse. It's a pack horse. Stop him. Bring him down. That's fine shooting. Just fine. You missed him. It was too late. He was flying. You crazy-eyed fool. What are we going to do, Sheriff? Start closing in. I'll come in from this side. You think he's still in there? Better put that fancy gun in your hand. You might need it. Perhaps he was under the canvas on that pack horse. The name's Paladin. All right, Paladin. Keep your eyes open. Sheriff, he's gone. Ain't nobody in these trees. Looks like he got away from us again. And what did you do to stop him? There are his shells. He was firing from here. And he crossed over to here where his horses were and he climbed on one, the pack horse. He was under the canvas. That slippery, murdering devil. Did you follow his trail? One way or other, we'll find him. His saddle horse is over there. You want him? No, he just slows up. Leave him be. Sheriff, I'll meet you at the cabin. Look, Paladin. You cross Holt's trail. Just get out of the way. There's 11 men I know I've tried to beat him on the draw. They're all wearing marble slab hats now. The sheriff and his partner Abe headed out for Holt's cabin while the other deputy Gage followed the trail of the pack horse. I moved over towards the biggest cottonwood in the thicket. You can come down out of that tree now, Holt. There's no point in trying to shoot. You make too good a target against the sky. All right, I'm coming down. Glad you throw your gun down first. All right, come on down. How'd you know I was still here? You rode the pack horse under the tree and swung up a branch without touching the ground. How'd you get the horse to keep running and slip a burr under the pack saddle? Sharp rock. I know Jenny, but she'll keep going till she shakes that rock loose. You knew all the time, huh? What's your name? Palladin. Why don't you tell Ludlow? He would've killed you. And you, what you gonna do? I'm taking you back to Placerville. To be hung at a county fair while I hawk buttons off of my shirt of souvenirs? Let's go. Man ought to be let die like a man at the hands of a man. Alcorn hired me to see that you don't reach him. Alcorn? Hired your gun out of that quiver and tub of gully mud. Can't even fight his own fights. Against you? Well, any man can't handle a gun got no business west of the Mississippi. All right, mount up. Look, Palladin. Half day's ride from here's my cabin. My wife and my boy are there. I got a present to give to boy. I see. You let me get the cabin first. Oh, no trouble. You got my word. I'm not begging, mister. I'm offering my word. Sheriff will be waiting at the cabin. I'm gonna give my son his present. You've never seen your son? No. He's only been around three weeks. Then you ought to see him before you go to Placerville. Let's go. Filter's cigarettes. Can't filter's vest. Can't filter's vest. No sense when you smoke. Can't, can't. Filter's vest. Can't taste the vest. Can't taste the vest. Good country. There's a narrow to save some time. Okay, we'll take it. Hungry? Chewing on this horse, he'd hold still long enough. No, wait a minute. I'll have some of this. Black jerky. Until I'm married up with Sarah. Alright, you lead the way. Yes, sir, a woman's sure change of them, man. That's too bad. She didn't change her ways with a gun. You might have had more time together. Man, has to be the way he is. I don't like somebody. I reach for a gun just naturally where you'd reach to scratch an edge. Maybe. Watch your step, miss. There's tricky ground. You can't go around killing everybody you don't like. Does kinda sound like you still don't seem right to hold a carnival and string me up. I got a son now. Can't you just see him going around saying my daddy got hung? A man lives more important than how he dies. But it's my finish. They'll be remembering most. Up ahead around that bend where it gets steep. Narrow and steep. You hug the walls. Okay. If my boy could say my daddy stood up like a man and got shot down like a man working a gun, then that's something else again. Hey, Paladin, take hold of that! I'll send you as loose as I'll slip it. I'm all right. I need help getting up. Drop me a rope. You're down there on that ledge and I'm up here. Come on, come on, man. Get a rope down here. You see how it is. You know what I got to do. You're taking me back to hand. I'm real sorry, Paladin. I thought you never killed a man except with a gun. Hold! Hold! I got it. All right, mister. Come on up. All right, man. Thanks. No thanks called for. You didn't turn me over to Jake Ludlow when you could have, so you saved my life. You wouldn't have been down there if it wasn't. You went off of your trail since I could see my son. The way I see it now, we're quits. All right. Neither of us owes the other anything. Fair enough. But you keep your eyes open now on. That's my cabin there. Sheriff and Abe are probably inside. Paladin, I got to get in there. You will. What you got in mind? I'm gonna wedge this. Ooh, now. Oh! Wedge this pebble between the shoe and the hoof of my horse. What for? They're mine. Now, you stay out of sight until Ludlow and his man ride out. Come on, boy. Come on. Sheriff, your man, Gage, caught up to Manfred Holt back near where you had him cornered this morning. He got him? No, he didn't. He was still able to talk when I left him back at the clearing. It wouldn't hurt to get him to a doctor. Bad, huh? There's nothing I could do for him. No, no. I'm not going nowhere. Not alone. Not with Holt out there someplace. All right, get our horses. We'll go together. What's the matter with your horse, Paladin? He's gone lame. I can't ride this way. You sure can't. Looks like I'm stuck here. Well, you better hide in the woods till we get back. Holt gets here before we get back. Use that gun. All right. Time was when the sedan chair was considered the height of luxury. When you think of all the places you go and all the things you now do by radio, a sedan chair doesn't seem like much of a luxury at all. Tune to a radio network like the CBS Radio Network. You can, in a matter of moments, travel to foreign capitals to learn what's happening to individuals and nations at a time. Because a network like CBS Radio is made up of many stations, stations like the one you're listening to now, the smartest supper clubs from New York to San Francisco invite you to dance to the music of their big name bands night after night. Because CBS Radio's vast network facilities extend in every direction, you can laugh with the funniest comedians in Hollywood or on Broadway, then move on to a serious discussion of space age problems all in the course of an evening. By all means, use that sedan chair if you have one. But if you want to go places fast, take CBS Radio along. A little cabin sat quiet and alone in the lush green valley. There was only a dust cloud over in the west to show where Ludlow and Abe were tracking the other deputy. I turned and motioned Holt to come in. There was some whopper, you told Ludlow. Look, we won't have much time until your son is present. Paladin, I guess you and me now reached a point where we stopped counting what we owe each other. Manfred! Sarah! What's this I hear about you breaking-boy children? Manfred! Don't be carried on so. You knew I'd be alone. I knew. I brought friends, Sarah. Here's Mr. Paladin. Won't you come in? No, thank you. I'll stay out here. You two have a lot of talking to catch up on. That's true. That's surely true. Come on now, Sarah. You show me what you've been up to. It was so long in there, Paladin. It takes a lot of talking for a woman to tell about bearing a child. Yeah, I guess it does. It's a good drinking water, ain't it? That's good pump you got here, too. I got me a son, Paladin. I've been some. Did you give him his present? I sure did. I give him my name. Manfred Holt, Jr. I... I see you've picked up a present for yourself. Yeah, they're gone. You know what's funny, Paladin? A fellow like me has just got to have one. Yeah. Let's get moving. Sheriff will be back any minute. I'm not going to Placerville with you. Yes, you are, Holt. Not for that crowd waiting there in Placerville, he hired me to see that you don't kill him. I never would feel right knowing he's walking the same earth I am. I'd see he had a gun. Now, we've talked about that, Holt. He's not very good with a gun. Too bad. If you went on, there'd be other men. Some of them pretty helpless that you wouldn't like. You'd have to kill them. A man just has to be what he is. I guess that holds for you, too. That's right. I was hoping it wouldn't turn out this way, Holt. Ain't nothing you can do now to change it. I know. Let's move away from the cabin. She's been told not to come out till everyone's gone, no matter what. She won't. All right. Here. Don't try nothing fancy, Paladin, winging a shoulder of the length. A man like me, you either kill or he kills you. I know. Of course, I'm figuring to beat you, I'm awful good. That pump. When the next drop of water falls, we both fire. Can you see it? A drop. Yeah, I can see it. Building up, Holt. Yeah. It's coming. I'm sorry, Manfred. Sorry? For saving me from that that Placeville Circus. Manfred, you and your heat, he don't like for his paw to get clean. He wouldn't let me avoid it. Tell me it would be like this, that you might do this for him. We've always known that. He shared his life only with many respected. So it was with his death. It was nearly dusk when I'd finished the grave and fixed a simple marker to go on it. An evening breeze was coming fresh from the high mountains. And in the half light I could see Sarah, her son in her arms standing by the cabin. Later after I'd said goodbye and had written to the low hills I turned to look back again. Now there was no one in sight. But a trail of smoke came from the chimney and I knew the woman was cooking the evening meal. And there was a wonderful peace in the meadowland. Come home, Mr. Paladin. Thank you. It's good to be back. While you were away, the San Francisco papers carried the full story of your killing Manfred Holt and your reward. $2,000. Oh, and yes, Mr. Alcorn left for a while. My fee. Yes, that's what I came back for. I'll be leaving in the morning, Mr. Davis. Leaving so soon? Something important? Very important. I have two envelopes I want to deliver to a young widow and her son in Grass Valley. Avgun will travel created by Herb Meadow and Sam Rolf is produced and directed by Norman McDonnell and stars John Daener as Paladin with Ben Wright as Hayboy. Tonight's story was written by Sam Rolf and adapted for radio by Frank Michael. Featured in the cast were Laurence Dopkin, Frank Cady, Ralph Moody, Joseph Kearns, Jean Lansworth and Sam Edwards. Hugh Douglas speaking. Join us again next week for Avgun Will Travel.