Josh Randall is taking a young hoodlum (John Wilder) on a stagecoach to collect his bounty. The stage driver is Ray Teal, who usually played a very nice guy, often as the sheriff on the Bonanza TV series.
Along come the escaped killers, played by John Larch and Warren Oates. They opened this episode with a rather chilling strangulation of an old prospector (Forrest Lewis), when they surprised him as he was cooking his food in his shelter in the rain. Then they lay in wait for Randall and Teal by laying a large tree branch in the path of the stagecoach.
Randall and Larch have a lot of good guy / bad guy give and take. It is fairly obvious that Larch has a big grudge against law enforcement, and people that he thinks do not respect him. Larch takes a liking to the young thug (Wilder) and he is freed from his handcuffs. Oates does a good job as the cold-blooded evil sidekick who does all the killing for Larch.
When the bad guys get near the Mexican border, Larch decides to settle everyone's hash. Teal played his stagecoach driver character as a humble, sincere, and kind guy who is not a friend of Larch and Oates. Larch orders Oates to take Teal by the spring for a drink of water, and that scene is very sinister, especially since there is no spring. Randall and Teal know the score, but they are helpless. I grew up watching Ray Teal play good guy roles, and every time I see this episode I want to cry a little bit. It is sad to watch Teal taken down the path by Warren Oates.
After Oates executes Teal, it is looking grim for Randall. Young Wilder finally realizes he does not want to join the killers, and Randall gets his chance to make things right, and avenge Ray Teal. The shootout is excellent, exciting, fast, and you get it from three angles. Everyone gets shot at least once. It was choreographed like a movie.
