marmstrongroper

Lily Merrill starts off the episode with a song as she serenades her patrons goodnight. No sooner has she cleared and closed the Birdcage Saloon when the three members of the Reese Gang rush in and kidnap her. Deputy Johnny McKay comes calling on his evening rounds and the kidnappers take him too. A blindfolded Johnny is sent back into Laramie with a ransom note wanting cash for Lily's return. Marshal Dan Troop pieces together the location of the Reese Gang hideout from what Johnny heard, smelt and felt on his journey back to Laramie. The ransom money is picked up by a gang member and delivered back to the hideout, but Dan and Johnny have already arrived and are staking out the lair. As the ruffians threaten to shoot Lily, Dan and Johnny burst in and gun down the gang members. The episode ends with a great zoom in on Dan's gnarled hand patting Lily's shoulder as he comforts her. Peggie Castle must have loved this action-packed episode as she gets to battle the members of the Reese Gang both verbally and physically, all the while looking great.

Fans of Peggie Castle will be happy that after her minimal involvement in the previous 3 episodes, this storyline starts at 5.00 am in Lily Merrill's boudoir, where she slowly rises from her silk sheets, fully coiffured, to answer an urgent knocking at the back door of the Birdcage Saloon. With Timmo the Barman at her side they open the door to discover Ritt Ketchum whose deathbed confession concerns a man to be hung at noon. Once Marshal Dan Troop arrives to hear the message, he heads off to Cheyenne and must solve a murderous love triangle before the clock strikes 12. Guest stars include Suzanne Storrs, William Fawcett, Pitt Herbert and King Calder.

In 1880, two childhood friends, played by Jim Davis and Robert Karnes, who have grown up poor in New York make a pact to meet up in twenty years to see if they have made their fortunes. One travels West where he has no luck until he meets Peggie Castle in a saloon and finds out her brother owns half the town. He becomes a gunslinger for the brother and marries Peggie Castle making a fortune along the way. His life fulfilled he travels back to his hometown on May 15 1900 to keep his side of the pact but will his friend be there? A top episode of this outstanding series, with periodic interludes from Thomas Mitchell as O. Henry, dictating the story to his amused secretary played by Louise Smith.