 Frontier Town, the saga of the Roaring West. Frontier Town, El Paso, Cheyenne, Calgary, Tombstone. Frontier Town, here is the adventurous story of the early west. The tamed and the untamed, from the Pekos to Powder River, Dodge City to Poker Flat. These are the towns they fought to live in and lived to fight for. Teaming crucibles of pioneer freedom. Frontier Town. Here I'm Chad Remington, Frontier Lawyer. Now don't go getting any ideas that being a Frontier Lawyer is anything like being a lawyer anyplace else, because it isn't. No sir, out on the bawling, brawling Frontier law business isn't much more than trouble business. Business which explodes with the suddenness of a single action cold, and as often as not, ends in sudden death. Only recently I was riding back to Dos Rios, the little town where I live and practice law, sided by the reform medicine man who has become my sidekick and now operates the Dos Rios livery stable, Cherokee Albana. The day was quiet, the sky limitless and blue overhead, and everything seemed at peace in the world. Counselor? I say counselor, Chad, have you gone deaf or are you daydreaming again? What was that again, Cherokee? Did you say something? Did I say something? Of course I said something, otherwise why would you have answered me? That's a good question. Alright, Cherokee, why would I? Now, if you don't mind, just what was it that you said? I didn't say anything. Well, if you didn't say anything, why did I answer you? No, that isn't what I mean. I said something, but it wasn't anything. What have you been doing, Cherokee? Studying nights to be a lawyer? Any man who says something but doesn't say anything could soon be a Supreme Court judge. My dear Mr. Remington, if you'd give me a chance to finish and to explain myself, perhaps you'd realize that I make a poor target for your buffoonery. My apologies. I simply spoke your name hoping that when you reply, I could induce you to stop these horses long enough so that I could... Well, wash some of this alkaline dust out of my mouth. If you'd wash your mouth out with water, not only would I stop, the whole world would stop. But since there's nothing around here to wash your mouth out with, why waste time talking about it? Counselor, if you'll cast your eye on exhibit A, there's two width and as follows. You'll see that the scabbard on my saddle doesn't contain a car beam, but it does contain a pint of my former miracle medicine. Genuine Cherokee Indian Rattlesnake Oil. Well, I'll be jiggered. That 154 proof a ledge medicine instead of a 30 caliber rival. What would happen if we got into trouble? This bottle could do a lot more damage than a car beam, Counselor. Either wield it as a club or pour down the throat of some poor unsuspecting owl hoot. A match applied to it would make it burn with bright blue. Hold it, Cherokee. If those shots mean anything, you may get a chance to find out whether that alcohol is any match for a lead-covered bullet. Where do those shots come from? Over that hill? Yes, apparently, from where those two young homesteaders settled only a few weeks ago. Homesteaders? Billy Blue Blaze's chat? That might mean we're in for another range war. It sure might, unless we can get there soon enough to do something about it. Alright, come on, Cherokee. Put that bottle back in your saddle boot. Let's make tracks. From a morning in which everything seemed to be all right in the world, everything changed. The sound of those rifle shots ripped apart the curtain of peace and to our alarm minds opened up the panorama of death and destruction. Homesteaders never were welcome in country which had been used as open range. And although the few who had moved into Dos Rios recently had behaved themselves and turned the other cheek, the young Texan and his wife who had moved into this particular section were young and, well, just Texans. It took us a few moments to top the rise on the hill and race down toward the little homesteaders' cabin. But even before we got there, we could see Bud Gaffety and his wife Donna standing near the fence they had put up, winches in their hands. The barrels of their rifles were pointed directly at one of our old-time ranchers, Psy Davenport. There was trouble brewing and it looked as if we might be arriving there too late. What are you looking to do? Kill somebody? I ain't looking to kill someone, but I haven't got any scruples against it. No one's coming in and tearing down our fences. And if you're aiming on helping this old coot, the same goes for you two. Psy, would you mind telling me what's going on here? I sure don't mind telling you, Chad. These two young lunatics are out to make trouble, that's all. If you don't clear off of my place, Davenport, your troubles will be all over soon. Would someone mind telling me what this rouse all about? All I know so far is that Mrs. Gaffety apparently is accusing Davenport here of ripping down her fences. But as far as I can see, there are no fences ripped down. Yes, and there ain't gonna be. Come rain or high water. Mrs. Gaffety, I have no intention of ripping down your fences. I told you that before. I just come out here to tell you that you've built your fences over your line and onto my place. Well, I suppose you are the judge of that. All right, now wait a minute. If the fence is built over onto Davenport's property, it's a simple matter of fact. Something that can be proved. And that's just what I wanted to do. Prove it to them. But a fine chance anyone's had of proving anything to this pair. Well, you call all that talk, you were handing us proof. What talk, Mrs. Gaffety? Well, I offered to show them where the original government surveyors sunk the hub, marking the middle of the township when this land was originally laid out. You call that proof. Anybody could dig up a hub and move it any place they wanted to. And I spent two days checking the lines in the corners before I put up the fence. And I suppose you want me to take your word for it? Now, wait a minute, Psy. There's no sense in flying off the handle. Prove is proof. And this is the easiest thing I know of to prove. A licensed surveyor can determine your line in a day's time. Oh, sure. I should rip out my offenses because someone you're paying tells me that you're right. Have all the benighted, bucolic bits of balderdash I ever heard? What's that? You on the prod too? Because if you are, I'll make sure it works. Haven't you got a brain in your head? Let go of this rifle, I'll beat your brains out with it. Bug-eyed fool. All right, here, Cherokee. You're needing a rifle in your saddle boot anyhow. Keep this one for a while. Right, consular. Psy, this would be a good time for you to get back on your horse and go on home. Well, they're not running me out of here. Go on, man. Get out while the getting's good. You'd better, Psy. And since we have no axe to grind, after you leave, maybe we can talk to the gafferies and find some way that this thing can be settled. It's better to settle it with a conversation than to have someone settled into a grave out and back at the Methodist Church. I'm afraid that out on the frontier, talk rarely has settled anything. But after Psy Davenport had ridden off and with both Bud and Donna Gaffery glaring at us, Cherokee and I did try to talk sense to them, not that it did much good. What in the name of all is sacred do you want Davenport to do? He's offered to pay to have a new survey made. That'll cost him at least a hundred dollars. Can that be cheap? A hundred dollars to get almost 30 acres of our land. Well, you don't have to worry about it, Donna, because it ain't gonna happen. Well, then, why don't you get your own survey? I told you before I spent two days laying out that land myself. It's right. And I suppose you can't be wrong. Now, don't you see that if you were... The only thing we can see, mister, is that we didn't ask you here. We don't want you here and you'd better be ridin'. Well? Chad, I think she means it. We sure do mean it, and if you or Davenport or anyone else comes back here and tries to stick and notice in where they don't belong, they'd better come here, because ain't nobody stealin' even an inch of what's rightly ours. Gaffery, you've been in dosary as long enough to know that we've got a marshal here who means what he says. And if you're going to try making your own laws, I'm afraid you'll find out that we've got some laws that we enforce and you'll end up in jail. We'll see who's going to end up in jail. And if you don't get off of here in the next 30 seconds, you'll be lucky if you just end up in jail for trespassing. Well, Chad, I've learned the hard way during the tribulations in my life that it doesn't pay to argue with a woman, not even she's a lady. You're right, Cherokee. So, since I don't want to end up in jail or any place else, let's get back on our horses and get into town and have a little talk with the marshal. You don't seem to understand what Chad's driving at, Marshal. Oh, the heck I don't, but I'll tell you this much. If them there gafferies try spraying any lead around this town, they're going to end up right here, in jail. Marshal, I'm afraid Cherokee was right. You don't seem to get the point I'm trying to make. I'm trying to stop any shooting before it happens. If the gafferies go for their guns, they'll just make more trouble. Don't you see that? Well, in the name of Billy Behang, you figure to stop trouble when there ain't no trouble yet. By the simple device of having you go out there and read the gafferies the riot act. But gafferies no surveyor. He probably made a mistake when he lined up these corners. So undoubtedly, Sy Davenport is right. And if you, as Marshal, can keep peace until the surveyor does go out there and check the land, that ought to give the gafferies sufficient time to cool off a little. Well, if gaffery built his fence where you just said he did, it's Krullers the cartwheels that he's over on Davenport's land. Why, I know where that survey hub was sunk. It's been there for years. And if that's the case, all you have to do is go out there with us. And Marshal, that sounds like trouble down the street. Well, come on, let's get down there. Chad, looks like Sy Davenport down there. Yeah, it sure does. And that little fellow slamming away at him is our Texas friend, Bud Gaffery. Stand back there. Move aside, you man. You birdbrained idiot. Oh, show him, he kicked me. Come on now, cut it out. Now, what's the meaning of this? What's going on? I was just riding down the street. When this young smart aleck can turn in, he heals all the leather. All of this knocked me off my horse. Go on. He saw me coming to deliberately turn his horse right in front of me. I've got a good mind to finish you. Maybe you have got a good mind, Gaffery. But from what I've seen of it today, I'm starting to think you haven't got any mind at all. You're sure right about that, Chad. And this is the last straw. No sense in even trying to be knights of someone who don't appreciate it. So tomorrow morning, I'm getting a severe and going back out there. You come walking onto my place and you won't be going back. Let's say, carry you back. Oh, is that so? Well, let me tell you something, Gaffery. If side Davenport comes out your place with a surveyor, you better keep your mouth shut and leave your guns alone. Because if there's any talking back, you'll be doing it to me. And I'm backing up this badge with a gun that's already got a few notches on it. We'll return to the second act of open range our exciting Frontier Town adventure in just a few moments. Frontier Town. Well, as I said before, a lot of trouble on the Frontier ends abruptly. Ends with sudden death. And from the way Bud Gaffery was acting, it wouldn't take a man with too many brains to guess that before his particular trouble was ironed out, someone else might die with his boots on. And yet not one of us who knew of the trouble he was having with side Davenport had any idea of how close death was or how strange would be its results. Of course, it was none of my fear. Neither Gaffery or Davenport or even the Marshal had hired me to thumb through the law books, one way or the other. And sorry as I was for Gaffery getting off on the wrong foot, I decided to act sensibly for a change and keep out of it. So next morning, true to his word, side Davenport gathered up a surveyor and the Marshal and rode out to the Gaffery homestead. Gaffery and his wife saw them coming and with their Winchester's lying easily across the top rail of their fence, just waited until they got close enough to be sure they wouldn't miss. All right, Donna, throw a shell in the chamber. Now I'm promising you it won't be wasted, Bud. Marshal, lest you got a warrant for me, I'm warning you stay on the other side of that fence. But I'm still coming over to a place, if it is your place, with this surveyor. Come on boys. You're safe right where you are. But another two steps and you're on our land. We'll find out whose land it is, once the surveyor gets through checking the lines. And if it is your land, that'll be the end of that. Of course it will. Now why don't you folks act reasonable in the land? I'm glad I missed you, Jen, because I wasn't aiming at you. Nor was I aiming on throwing land. I guess that having you here has made me a little bit nervous. And being nervous ain't good for a itchy finger. And we've both got itchy fingers, as far as you three are concerned. All right, no use wasting any breath in a pair like you. I'm giving you five seconds to drop those rifles on this side of the fence. Sike. Yep, Marshal. I'll handle this Jasper's rifle. You take the one away from his wife. You don't remember what I told you about coming one step closer, do you? Ma'am, I don't go to acting like a fool. Just do as the Marshal says. You stay away from me before I... Low code, little Philly. Shooting side like that. Let's go on Marshal. Not really. Bad to hurt. No, you are under arrest. Both of you. Here, Gaffety. Drop that rifle yours. I asked you, you keep away from my husband. I mean it. Birch, put down them surveying tools and cover me with your .45. All right, ma'am. Now I'm getting them rifles if I have to take them myself. All right. Here's mine. And now, ma'am... You want mine? Come and get it. Donna, we're in trouble enough already. It's always the Marshal only. He don't seem to know it. Well, Marshal, you gonna take my gun? This is the first time I've ever had to fight with a woman. And I hope it's the license. Dog, got it? Let's go over there. You big bull pressure. Go on, break my arm if you want to, but you'll never... A mercy. Gaffety. Gaffety, you see what happened? Gaffety don't stare at me. She pushed that rifle barrel up to her neck and then she squeezed the trigger. Marshal, if you kill my wife, you've done your last killing. But I have. Because just as sure as God made little green apples, I'm gonna blast you right off the face of this earth. There was no question in my mind that if his wife's death hadn't been such a stunning blow to Bud Gaffety, that he would have pulled trigger and not stopped squeezing until the bright morning sunlight poured through the Marshal's body. It was an awful thing, just as sudden and brutal death always is. But worst of all was the way poor Fred Bemis, the Marshal, felt. When he rode back to town, stunned and shaken, he came right to my office. Ted, I tell you, it was awful. Well, awful or not, it wouldn't have happened if the girl hadn't been so cantankerous. And besides my boy, it was in the line of duty. Get the folks around here and let me the gun down women. I'm glad you didn't say defenseless women, because as sorry as I am for Donna Gaffety from what you told us, a moment before that rifle barrel had been pointed right at your heart. Ah, but Chad, I'm a grown man. I'm supposed to know better. I'm supposed to know better than this. You know what I am. I'm no better in a common everyday murder. That's what I am. Now look, Fred, for your sake and for the sake of everybody in town, you've got to get hold of yourself. Oh, I ought to go and stream myself up, that's what. Find a lot of good there to do now. Even a school child knows that two wrongs never made a right. Now, instead of worrying about yourself, Fred, you ought to go over and see how Side Davenport's getting along. Oh, Side's all right. She just got him in the fleshy part of his side, but that poor girl has nothing ever going to do with her any good now. And nothing's going to do you any good unless you go home and take care of yourself. All right, go on, fella. You ride back to your place and get some rest. Cherokee, and I'll be out to see you later in the day. You're wasting your time trying to take care of me, Chad. You're wasting your time on a no-good-low-down murderer. Billy, blue blazes, Chad. That man's upset enough to do himself some harm. I'm not so bothered about what harm the Marshal might do himself as I am what harm that wild-eyed Texan might do to him, trying to square accounts for his wife. You really think so, Chad? I really think so so much that we're going down to your stables, get us a pair of fast horses, and churn up the dust all the way from Dos Rios out to the Gafferty Place. Say, Chad, look. Isn't that someone riding away from Butt Gafferty's place now? Well, I don't see any... Why, George, you're right. And if I'm not mistaken, that's Gafferty streaking for town. Well, he's too far away to see from here, but I'll bet you a case of something fit to drink against a cup of well-water right now that Mr. Gafferty has got blood in his eye and he's out to get the Marshal. Oh, fool. We can't let that happen. We just can't. Hey, Bud. Bud Gafferty. Well, if he heard you, he certainly isn't letting on. Gafferty. Gafferty, rain up. Why, that blasted in capoe? What's he shooting us for? Don't use wasting our breath on him. There's only one thing to do, Cherokee. We've got to rake these ponies and see if we can't get to town before Gafferty does. Come on, with a good half-mile head start and being a lighter man than either Cherokee or I, Bud Gafferty had not too much trouble hitting the stand of spruce on the edge of his place before we could overtake him. Once he was sheltered by the trees, the only thing we could trail him by was the occasional echo of his horses' flying feet as he raced through some canyon and the little spirals of dust kicked up, plunging across an open space as he headed for town. We pounded a long past Amethyst Rock down the draw through Arroyo Blanco and came up over the rise between Chimney Rock and Squirtop to the distant town. But ahead of us, through the thick green meadow, there was no sign of Bud Gafferty. There was no sign of anything except the yellowing tops of the grass moving softly in the morning breeze. Either appeared to the prophets, Chad. He's either outrun us or disappeared. Or, more than likely, backtrack circled and got behind us again. You want to go back and find out? No, don't dare take the chance. We've got to get to the Marshall's Place just as fast as we can. Get up there, you! Get up! There was no time at all to get close to the Marshall's cabin. Midway across the field, we heard a shot coming from what appeared to be a little house ahead of us and which served to lend wings to our horses pounding hooves. There was no sign of Bud Gafferty but we reached the cabin in short order and practically threw ourselves out of our saddle. But I'll be hanged, Chad. That couldn't have come from here. Look there, the Marshall's sitting at the kitchen table with his back to us. Yep, there he is, biggest life. He went to the canyon and the echo made it seem that it came from here. Well, we can send up a few prayers that we got here before Gafferty did. So let's go on inside and warn the Marshall. No, no, Cherokee, we're not going inside. The Marshall's got enough on his mind already without more worries about our suspicions. Then what are we going to do? Well, since nobody knew the Marshall had come home except us, probably Gafferty rode into town to the Marshall's office. So while you stay here to make sure that he doesn't find the Marshall, you're going to leave me out here all alone? I'm going to have to, Cherokee, and all gone and now I'm depending on you. You keep your mouth shut and both eyes open. But Cherokee didn't keep his mouth shut and his eyes open. Tiring of waiting for me and with nothing untoward happening, Cherokee sheltered himself behind the little mud roof cellar and closing his eyes, opened his mouth and took a few swallows out of the bottle he was still carrying of course it would happen just then. And while Cherokee was out of sight and out of action, Bud Gafferty saw his chance and walking lightly crossed from the corral to the cabin window. The Marshall was still seated at the kitchen table. He's brought back a perfect target for any gun and in this case for Bud Gafferty's. All right, you wife murdering, buttered and believe me, I'm not going to miss right between the shoulder blades. Why don't you fall down, you tin horn? Don't just sit there. Fall down, you dead. Fall out of that chair. I'm going to blast you out if I have to. You mad man, you lunatic. Give me that gun. You bet I'll give you this gun here. Now let's see how good you are with an empty gun. Chad, Chad, come on. Gafferty's murdered the Marshall. I've got some news for you. Why don't you leave me alone? I killed him like a set of wood. You got me locked up, I ain't squawking. No, but you may squawk after this. Remember you kept pumping lead into the Marshall's back because he wouldn't fall out of the chair? Yeah, whatever. Now we took the Marshall's body over to the doctor's house. We just came from there. The reason the Marshall didn't fall out of the kitchen chair was because his body was cold. He'd blown his brains out three hours before you got there. So you see, Gafferty, you shot a man who was already dead. Blown his brains out and you've got to let me go. I didn't kill him. That's where you're on, Gafferty. Maybe you won't swing for this, but you'll certainly spend the rest of your life in jail mourning your wife when they convict you of attempted murder. Frontier Town, starring Reed Hadley and featuring Wade Crosby as a Brucell's production. Story and Direction by Paul Franklin. Music written and played by Ivan Zithmars. Be sure to be with us again same time next week for another fine action-adventure story with your favorite young western star, Reed Hadley. And now this is Bill Foreman to tell you that Frontier Town comes to you from Hollywood.