 city and in the territory on West there's just one way to handle the killers and the spoilers and that's with a U.S. Marshal and the smell of gun smoke, gun smoke, starring William Conrad, the story of the violence that moved West with young America and the story of a man who moved with it. I'm that man, Matt Dillon, United States Marshal, the first man they look for and the last they want to meet. It's a chancey job and it makes a man watchful and a little lonely. What in the world are you doing in the long grass at this hour? Walking grasses. You're what? Well, it's thought to be that I'm kindly doing it for Sam. I can see that. Why? Well, see, last night Mr. Dillon was out of town and you were so busy and I needed a little bit of money to play a part with. So you bought us some Sam? Yes, ma'am. And you lost? Yes, ma'am. Now you're working off the desk? Well, I don't get paid to land in the moon. Is that coffee you got going here, Mr. Dillon? It sure is. I fed it to the boy when I opened up this morning. You want some? I'll have a cup of the happy cookess to death. It's a mug for the party. I got it. You can just sit there at the table. I'll bring it to you. Okay. You know, I've been thinking that working in this room might not be too bad a job at that. It's warm. There's all these people around the swap lives with. The little stoves are set your feet on. Look at how much hot it is. I guess it's not too bad here, Chester. But it gets to be the same old story. What do you mean? Well, I get also tired of people, especially men. It's like the world's made up of men. Well, no, it's getting easier. You know what I mean, Chester. All those boopin' hollerin' cowboys. And every one of them that hits the solo wants to dance after they've had a few drinks. Well, at least they ain't fightin'. You ever danced with one of them? Well, no, man. But you can't blame the man for feeling a little spry when he hits time after being out on the trail for a couple of months. No. I guess not. Not really. And besides, what in the world would you do if you weren't running the long branch? I don't know. Get married, maybe. Well, you couldn't do that. Why not? Well, there ain't nobody been caught in here. I mean... Well, no, there ain't nobody caught in here. That's the fact. You still... Yeah, he'd be hard to just leave here and settle down on a ranch or somethin'. Well, they'd be good men in town. Like Matt, maybe? A woman would be a fool to fall in love with Matt Dillon. It'd be like trying to light a house with one candle. What do you mean? To go up so easy. Fast. They're some good men on ranches. Yeah, I've seen those country women who come into dodge ranch-wise. They may have been pretty once before they started gettin' up before dawn every day and cookin' and milkin' and feedin' the animals and walkin' around in the dirt. Most of them, you can't tell if they were in drugs or not. I know. What are you doin', Chester? Tryin' to get rid of me? Get me married or...? Well, I'm a gracious no, Miss Kitty. I like that piece to do. And you better get back to finishing up those glasses. It's Saturday, you know, and that's gonna be a big night. Oh, well, I'll be done in a few minutes. Sam's down havin' his breakfast, and I promise I'd have the place all readied up by the time he got back. Thanks for the coffee, Chester. You're welcome. All right, Miss Kitty. You're less than proud of what you talk too much. Oh, you want that box right over San Francisco? Yeah. Knockin' and kickin' with one blow ain't that the way you tell it? One blow, all right, in the 23rd round. Oh, come on. Don, you couldn't stand up 23 round much less fightin' that round. Well, I whipped him and I told him to scratch every round. When it's three rounds, he'll beatin' every round. Sounds like you must've been a pretty good fighter back in those days. A strong fighter, I was. I tell you, it's just too bad, Tommy. You're all soft and broke down. No, no, I ain't soft. No, you don't. You feel that, you feel that. Here, have it. You know what you're back to? He ain't so soft as that. He ain't fightin' no more. Ain't it, Brady? Might work up a pretty good match. Tomorrow night, maybe. Yeah, yeah. I can fight. No, Tommy, ain't done it for long, Tommy. You couldn't beat no one. I don't like anybody you fight. No, Tommy. I don't like anybody in the house. Come on, come on. No, no, Tommy. Don't bother his hand. I don't know if they'll have in mind a real box fight. It don't matter. My name's Big Tom Bird. I can whip anybody. Like to a finish? Win or take off? Like to a finish. Win or take off. Call him over, Brady. Be right back. Come on, come on. You bring him on. Bring him on, will you? Yeah, he's coming, Big Tom. He's coming. He's coming right up. Anybody, Big Tom Bird can whip anybody. Even me, Tom. Can you whip me? Any man in his room, just step out there. You better look at me, Tom. I don't care who. Creel, Tom. Hat Creel. Creel? Remember me? Creel. I beat you once before, Tom Bird. No. You never beat me fair. I beat you blue. I beat you till you was crawling away. That was a foul and dirty fight. Scared, Tom? Are you scared to fight him? I'll fight him. If you show up, I'll be there. I'll be there. All right, boys. And more on that, then. We gotta fight. Come on. Get some doctrine. You can give me a doc. Well, now, Tom, have to know what's the matter with you first. Well, really ain't anything serious, Doc. Only, I gotta be in good shape, by the night. Well, I suppose you'd tell me what's the matter. Oh, it happens all the time, Doc. You know, it just goes away all right, but I figure you can give me a pill. Sit down, Tom. Well, I wasn't aiming to visit, Doc. I said, sit down. All right. Tell me what's the matter. Oh, it's just them giddy spells. Doc, sometimes when I get up, I can't walk straight, and that's a fact. Been happening long? A month or two, I guess. Take your shirt off. Well, not way, Doc. Take it off, I say. Oh, Doc, well... Come on. Get some pills out all this butter. Doc, you're muttering, Doc. Yes, I'll give you some medicine. I want you to do just what I say. Just so you fix me up for the night. I want you to rest for a few days. Take it easy. Well, Doc, would it be all right if I started to do that tomorrow? What's the matter with right now? I can't rightly be quiet tonight, Doc. I got to fight a man. Fight a man? You mean with your fists? Yeah. Why, that would be the worst thing you could possibly do. No, Doc. The worst thing would be if I didn't show up. I mean it, Tom. It could kill you. Why, it's just a brawl that isn't that important. Call it off, Tom. I got to show up, Doc. I got to fight this man. I tell you, it might mean your life. Aren't you afraid? I was afraid of him once, Doc. I wasn't afraid. I'd stuck in my car since... I'm going to be afraid again. No matter what it costs. There's a funny thing, Mr. Loom. Oh, what's that, Chaucer? The man on these circus. What about him? Well, you'd think man's such a disease. You know, murders and robbers and such like. You'd think they'd be easy to spot. Oh, they are when they're working. Well, now that ain't what I mean. I mean, you'd think you could tell just by looking at them. I can. No, now, Mr. Dillon, I'm talking about when they're just walking around town easy like, like they was having a day off. Why, then you couldn't hardly tell one of them clips from anybody else. Oh, not if you're lucky. I swear they love smoking this town that's worth looking the need, man. Not you take old Cass, for instance. Uh-uh-uh. He ain't nothing to look at me with. Them too. Matt, I want to talk to you. Okay, Doc. Matt, I want you to stop a murder. A murder? What murder? Tom Burr. You got to do something about it, Matt. Big Tom? Well, I don't want to kill a real nice fellow like him. All right, Doc. Let's just talk about it. Whenever he gets drunk, he starts talking about his fighting days back in San Francisco. Somebody's going to kill him for that. I'm afraid he's going to work out that way, Matt. Joe Brady and Hobb Clay are brought in this fight from St. Louis. They've got time to agree to fight him tonight. There's a lot of betting going on. Well, what makes it murder, Doc? If Tom Burr fights one round, it'll kill him. I've just examined him. I know. Then why didn't you tell him not to fight? I did, Matt. I did. He says he's got to show up and fight. Even if it'd be the end of him, that doesn't make sense. Not to you or not to me, but it does to Tom. It seems as clear he'll beat him once before and beat him bad. He's never been able to forget it. And he's determined to make up for it now. What can I do, Doc? Stop it, Matt. I might like to, Doc, but I don't see how I can. There's no law against the price for it. What is a law against murder, isn't it? Look, Doc, I have a hard enough time doing the things a law authorizes me to do. You can lock him up until the fight's over. What's he done? All right, Matt. All right. You get a chance to stop killing before it starts, and you tell me it's against the law. But what's the law for? Very fitting that you don't know, Doc. Sure did stomp out of here mad, didn't he? Yeah. He's just a little bit unreasonable. Maybe he's right at that, Chester. That's a good question. What's the law for? Sweetest things off that chair. Ah, never mind, Tom. I want you to come along with me. Come along where, Marshall? Back to Dodge. You mean you've come to give me? That's right, Tom. I came to get you. Why, Marshall? I ain't done nothing. I ain't no law-breaker, you know that. They tell me you were talking pretty loud as you were swinging pretty wide in the long branch last night. Oh, well, there was nothing to that. You know how it is. Marshall, a man gets a little too much bad liquor in him once in a while and it makes him act foolish. Sounds like breaking the peace to me. Now, come on, Tom. Catch your horse. Now, listen to Marshall. I just can't go getting myself locked up this afternoon. I got to be back at the long branch tonight. There isn't going to be any fight, Tom. Marshall, I got to fight this man. You can take me in tomorrow. Tonight. You can take me in tonight. Yeah. But I got to show up first. Catch your horse, Tom. You don't know this creel, Marshall. He beats folks to death because he likes to eat. He fights foul and cruel. He laughs about it. He laughed at me once, Marshall. I got to fight him not tonight, you know. Marshall, you're rigging this thing against me. You got no right to hold me. You going to take me on, Tom? I ain't going to don't jail. All the time, you got me beat, Marshall. I won't grow against you. Ain't going to forget about this. You'll have time to cool off now. Come on, let's go. Sit down. Thanks. I'm glad you're here. Trouble. I will be in a few minutes. I got a fight scheduled out back. There's going to be any fight, Kitty. How are you going to stop it? There's a lot of money changing hands, Matt. Tom Burr won't be showing up. Big Tom. Please never miss a fight in his life. He's missing this one. He's in jail. In jail? What for? Well, I'll tell you about it sometime. Don't tell me. Tell them. Who? Brady and Clay and their fighters. They're right on time. Yeah. I'll see you later, Kitty. I'll see you later. Your name, Creel? That's right, Marshall. Hat Creel. I see you heard of me. Yeah, I've heard of you. You come to see me fight? I come to tell you that there isn't going to be a fight. Huh? Well, I ain't your affair, Mort. Let the Marshall talk, boys. This might be real interesting. I won't be a fight because Burr won't be here. I told you he should have lined up somebody else. I knew he'd be afraid to meet me again. He ain't not afraid. He's not showing up because he's in jail. Listen to this, boys. The Marshalls dropped the fight. They got Burr locked up. When you say Marshall, you ain't no coward, do you? I'm sorry, boys. But that's the way it is. As to me, he like the Marshalls getting a little meddlesome. I don't like you, Mort. The Marshalls thought pretty big about my kind of fighting. Especially when he's wearing his gun. Now, the gun has nothing to do with it, Creel. And the kind of dirty tricks you use have nothing to do with an honest fight, either. You take off your gun, and I'll cut you to ribbons for that Marshall. Yeah, I understand. That's one of your specialties. And hiding behind that gun is one of yours. Looks like you have a Marshall with a striped on his back, boys. Now, the gun's off, Creel. Uh, Sam. Harold is one of the ones who'll show up, Marshall. I'll show you gun fighters. Creel's on. Got a Marshall. You got a bottle. It's true. All right, Creel. Come on, get up. He won't be getting up for a while, Marshall. Yeah. All right, give me my gun, Sam. Yes, sir. No, no, you're all right. Yeah, Kelly, I'm all right. Yeah. That says much for my clothes here. I'm mad. Sorry, Kelly. I guess I just got mad. Yeah. I guess you did. All right, great fly. What happened here? Never mind, Chester. Oh, that's the trouble. Well, it's Tom Blue. He's out with him and back there. No. We've had a mighty sick man here. He tried to pry the bars apart to get out, and they effortfully killed him. No, is he all right now? He'll be all right, if he's careful. You knew what you were about locking me up. I guess I wouldn't have done no good enough like that. All right, don't you worry about it, Tom. Creel won't be back here. You fought him, Marshall? Yeah. You whipped him, till he wouldn't get up. What, Chester? You finished the time now? Yes, I guess so. He'll be all right, if he rests. Well, and you... You better start doctrine someone, Mr. Don. That's the real one, right? What did you say? Oh, see, that's all right. Oh, that closed eye is a beaut. It doesn't matter, Doc. There's not much around here I want to look at anyway. Come on, I'll buy a dozen stuff first. When directed by Norman McDonald, stars William Conrad as Matt Billan, U.S. Marshall. The story was specially written for Gunsmoke by Marion Clark, with editorial supervision by John Meston. Harvey Bayer is Chester, Howard McNeer is Doc, and Georgia Ellis is Kitty.