Harry Townes, who usually plays a wimpy weasel or some other type of cowardly character, is here as Pezzi, the "mild as milk" husband of Cora (played by Alice Backes a WWII veteran of the WAVES), a feisty lady who loves him dearly even though he is gutless.
A couple of neighbor bullies (played by big Harry Swoger and Alan Reed Jr. as his son), allegedly bushwhacked another neighbor in order to buy his land from the widow. Now Swoger & son want to buy Townes' ranch at a rock bottom price. They have been coming by at night and shooting up Townes' home, but Townes is not worried about it. As he says, "when the wind blows, a cow turns its tail to the wind."
Dillon and Chester come by to help Townes, but Townes refuses to press charges. Dillon is so disgusted by Townes that he turns down an offer of coffee and they get back on their horses and leave.
Later Dillon confronts Harry Swoger and his son, and tries to shame them into a gunfight, but they refuse to honor the challenge. At that point Dillon tells Doc, Miss Kitty, and Chester that all he can do now is wait to attend Townes' funeral.
Finally the problem is resolved by blind luck. Townes acts like it was part of his master plan, but nobody can count on anybody riding into a clothesline. It is a freak accident, but everyone would rather think that Townes is some kind of an evil genius, rather than the dumb coward that he really is.
One observation is that Marshal Dillon posts the wanted poster for Johnny Red outside the Marshal's Office, and in the previous episode, Johnny Red was killed. Also in the previous episode, Dillon discovered the three year old wanted poster was no longer valid. Doc Adams had the best moments of the episode, where he cut down Chester's coffee making skills, like he often does. The best part of this episode was a few minutes of Doc Adams.
