A lone rider with a fancy saddle comes into Prairie Junction playing a doleful melody on his harmonica. He smiles slyly while tearing a wanted poster for Luis Boladas off the wall outside the saloon, where Cheyenne Bodie has just been let go after being sheriff for several months. While they express appreciation for the job he's done, the townsmen have decided he isn't worth $60 a month, so give the job to a cocky 21-year-old local, who promptly gets himself killed by Boladas. The men of Prairie Junction are ready to hang Boladas on the spot but Cheyenne is just as determined to use the rest of his last day as sheriff to see that there's a fair trial. Three strangers in the saloon watch the proceedings with great interest, agree that they've just found their man, and join the posse chasing Cheyenne and Boladas. The quick-thinking Boladas convinces Cheyenne that he'd once saved him from a hangman's noose and, although still determined to see Boladas tried legally, Cheyenne feels obliged to make the posse believe that Boladas is dead so they'll go away. The strangers linger to offer Cheyenne a job in Three Corners, their hometown, which is dying because it has been taken over by wily Clem McCracken and his three dull-witted sons.
There's a detour or two along the way before they all wind up in the deserted streets of Three Corners. McCracken and his simpleminded boys think they have everything under control, having killed the sheriff and bullied everyone else into submission. Everyone, that is, except for the three strangers--Purdie, Dalton, and Emmy Mae, who ride in ahead of Cheyenne and Boladas, having plotted with their two new champions to take back their town. Given the mental deficits in their opponents, it doesn't take long. Unfortunately for Boladas, his true past comes crashing down on him in one last showdown, not with Cheyenne but with a McCracken. With his dying breath, he makes Cheyenne promise to buy Emmy Mae those red shoes he'd vowed to give her when they first met.
Rodolfo Acosta is really good as the charming outlaw who is as ready with a lie as he is with his harmonica. In one of her earliest television roles, young Ellen Burstyn (Ellen McRae) is good as Emmy Mae, who is willing to shanghai Cheyenne to get him to help them and then pretties herself up to ask him to stay on as sheriff of Three Corners. Her cohorts Jim Boles (Dalton) and Willard Waterman (Purdie) play, respectively, a saloon keeper and a barber who step out of their comfort zones to do battle with the McCrackens. Trevor Bardette, who appears to have been born to play grubby old criminal types, cackles his way through the part of Clem McCracken. Clint Walker's Cheyenne, ever ready to inject a note of reason into the conversation, allows himself to be coerced into helping the folks of Three Corners, but he has no qualms about riding away after justice has been done. Emmy Mae will get those red shoes like he promised, but he won't be bringing them back himself. By the way, contrary to another review, Cheyenne doesn't take his shirt off in this episode. Believe me, I'd remember if he had.
There's a detour or two along the way before they all wind up in the deserted streets of Three Corners. McCracken and his simpleminded boys think they have everything under control, having killed the sheriff and bullied everyone else into submission. Everyone, that is, except for the three strangers--Purdie, Dalton, and Emmy Mae, who ride in ahead of Cheyenne and Boladas, having plotted with their two new champions to take back their town. Given the mental deficits in their opponents, it doesn't take long. Unfortunately for Boladas, his true past comes crashing down on him in one last showdown, not with Cheyenne but with a McCracken. With his dying breath, he makes Cheyenne promise to buy Emmy Mae those red shoes he'd vowed to give her when they first met.
Rodolfo Acosta is really good as the charming outlaw who is as ready with a lie as he is with his harmonica. In one of her earliest television roles, young Ellen Burstyn (Ellen McRae) is good as Emmy Mae, who is willing to shanghai Cheyenne to get him to help them and then pretties herself up to ask him to stay on as sheriff of Three Corners. Her cohorts Jim Boles (Dalton) and Willard Waterman (Purdie) play, respectively, a saloon keeper and a barber who step out of their comfort zones to do battle with the McCrackens. Trevor Bardette, who appears to have been born to play grubby old criminal types, cackles his way through the part of Clem McCracken. Clint Walker's Cheyenne, ever ready to inject a note of reason into the conversation, allows himself to be coerced into helping the folks of Three Corners, but he has no qualms about riding away after justice has been done. Emmy Mae will get those red shoes like he promised, but he won't be bringing them back himself. By the way, contrary to another review, Cheyenne doesn't take his shirt off in this episode. Believe me, I'd remember if he had.
