Three young men from the Dodge City area travel to Spearville to rob a store there. The store owner catches them in the act and has a shotgun. One of the three, Todd Bishop, shoots the storekeeper. The other two, Mark Stonecipher and a guy we only know as Honker, did not count on anyone being injured because of their actions. When Mark begins to attend to the storekeeper, Bishop shoots him, too. Bishop and Honker then run away.
Despite having a gunshot wound in his shoulder, Mark manages to make it back to the farm where his father, mother, and brother all live. After failing to see eye-to-eye with his overbearing father, Ira, Mark had left the farm to seek his fortunes elsewhere.
Ira Stonecipher is a man consumed with personal pride and stubbornness. He refuses any help from anyone. Earlier when a neighbor stopped to ask if the Stoneciphers needed anything from town, Ira made it clear he wanted no help from anyone.
Upon returning to the farm, Mark and his father immediately begin to argue. The discussion becomes more heated when Ira begins to question his son about the wound in his shoulder. Mark falls into a well the Stoneciphers were digging. He survives the fall, but he is now at the bottom of the well, and, since the rope fell in with him, there is no uncomplicated way out.
To make matters worse, a nearby farmer is in the process of using dynamite to remove tree stumps. The blasting weakens the walls of the well to the point where the well is in danger of collapsing in on Mark.
The other Stonecipher son, Dale, goes to Dodge to get Doc Adams, but discovers Doc is away in Spearville. Although Ira does not want anyone from the town coming to assist, Dale tells Matt Dillon that his brother is trapped at the bottom of a well.
After surveying the situation at the farm, the Marshal has Festus Haggen organize the townspeople to come to the Stonecipher farm to dig another shaft alongside the well so they can tunnel into the well shaft and rescue Mark. At first Ira stubbornly refuses any help, but he eventually relents as he knows there is no hope for Mark otherwise.
Meanwhile, Bishop and Honker find themselves at the Stonecipher farm with the other men from Dodge assisting with the rescue attempt. Both are afraid of what will happen to them if Mark is rescued and their role in the robbery and shooting in Spearville is discovered by Marshal Dillon.
The story now focuses on a race against time as the townspeople work to gain access to Mark before the well collapses or Mark bleeds to death from his gunshot wound. Bishop knows he shot both the storekeeper and Mark, and he is particularly interested in seeing the rescue fail.
This is an interesting, unique story with another outstanding cast of guest stars. My only complaint with this story is the time spent digging and tunneling slows the pace without adding much suspense or drama. There are only so many scenes of people descending and ascending the ladder in the parallel shaft that are necessary. It is also strange that Festus Haggen assumes a supervisory role over the whole project.
Mark Lenard fills the Ira Stonecipher part in his only Gunsmoke appearance. Although he appeared in many guest starring roles primarily in television throughout his career, he is best known for his many appearances as Spock's father, Sarek, in the Star Trek television shows and movies.
Ilka Windish makes her second Gunsmoke appearance as Ira's wife, Vera. She had previously appeared in the Season 10 story "The Pariah" as Rosita Scanzano, matriarch of the Scanzano family and wife to John Dehner's Paolo.
Robert Porter plays Mark Stonecipher. Porter was an interesting individual in real life. He was considered an up-and-coming talent at the time this episode of Gunsmoke was made, but his eclectic bent toward the Method Acting style was often seen as out of place in television. He was a close friend of Zalman King, another frequent Gunsmoke guest, and continued working with him on independent film projects into the mid 1970s before his acting career fizzled.
He doesn't have that much to do in this episode, as he spends most of the time in the well waiting to be rescued. In this episode, he delivers many of his lines in a strange manner lacking much emotion. At times, it seems as though he is reading the lines or merely reciting them from memorization, instead of acting.
Dan Ferrone is the ever-frightened, paranoid Honker. This was the first of nine different Gunsmoke episodes where he appeared. He would soon show up again in Season 13's "The Gunrunners."
Michael Burns plays the other Stonecipher son, Dale. Burns did a lot of television work as a young man in his late teens into his early 20s. He played the recurring character Barnaby West on the series Wagon Train prior to this Gunsmoke role. This was the first of his three appearances in the Gunsmoke series. I will always think of him in the role of "Blue Boy," a guy with a special affinity for dropping acid in the first episode of Dragnet when it was revived in 1967.
Since the men from Dodge City are helping in the rescue effort, the viewer is treated to many of the town stalwarts, Halligan, Nathan Burke, Louie Pheeters, and Lathrop.
In the end, I wouldn't rank this episode among the absolute best, but it is an entertaining story with another interesting cast.
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