Stolen Horses

Jack Lambert is at his villain best in this episode about a man that seems to steal and kill for fun. It all begins when Tebow (Lambert) rides into a farm where a man has two horses. Tebow asks about buying the horses but instead kills the man and steal the horses.

Because of a witness, Matt and Chester are able to track Tebow to an Indian camp where he sold them the horses. The Chief tells Matt which way Tebow left the camp and the two keep tracking the villain. When Tebow pushes his luck a little too far is when Marshal Dillon is alerted by the Indians where he can find Tebow.

A classic western tale about tracking a killer through the lonely prairie. Lambert, with those squint-eyes, is again excellent as the bad guy that lives by no law and makes the entire episode worthy of a watch. Whenever the series returns to its roots the episode nearly always is a better watch.

(*Marshal Dillon quote*) - "You see, Doc here and Kitty have just invited me out to dinner."

Watching from a distance, Jed Cuff witnesses the murder of Jim Redigo at the hands of a pair of ruthless horse thieves.

Marshal Dillon heads out on an extensive manhunt and tracks down a cowboy named Tebow at a Kiowa camp.

Long before Tim Tebow won the Heisman Trophy in 2007, and the College Football National Championship in 2006 and 2008 with the Florida Gators; a character named Tebow was stealing horses and randomly killing prairie folks in the 1870s.

Tebow is played by career tough-guy Jack Lambert. Lambert studied English Literature in college, and planned on becoming a professor, but caught on as an actor. He was on Gunsmoke seven times. In this episode, Tebow is a homicidal maniac killing people wherever he goes. Lambert had a knack for coming across as a very cruel man. He literally laughs as he kills people.

Jim Redigo is his first victim, a guy just minding his horses when Tebow shows up. Redigo was played by Buck Young, who appeared on Gunsmoke eight times. He was also gunned down by the psychotic brothers in "The Bobsy Twins" episode a year earlier (1960).

Later on, Shirley O'Hara gets a lot of screen time ranting about the competence of Marshal Dillon. She is the angry and upset wife of another victim. For some reason, Gunsmoke would go off on tangents, perhaps to fill up screen time, where nothing happened except that some character got to have a diatribe against Marshal Dillon, or some other rant about some other issue, and then the show would be over, with an ending that the audience just had to imagine on their own.

So Dillon spends extra time listening to Shirley O'Hara complaining about everything, and the surprise end for Tebow comes off-camera.