This served as the pilot for the television series The Rifleman (1958) starring Chuck Connors and Johnny Crawford. That series started with a rerun of this episode on September 30, 1958: The Sharpshooter (1958).
Sam Peckinpah originally proposed this storyline as an episode of the TV series Gunsmoke (1955) but the producers of that series said it wouldn't fit that show's format.