George Kennedy fans may have some mixed feelings about this episode. Kennedy, who won fame playing the kind of take-charge fellow one would hope to have on hand during any disaster up to and including the Apocalypse, appears here in a very different role.
Mary Fickett, meanwhile, plays Adella Forsyth, an idealistic if naive young woman who demands Paladin take her to a gold field that has lost its doctor, even though she's only been trained as a nurse. (Clara Barton's work during the American Civil War had already made nursing a proper profession for women to consider, despite the objections apparently shown by Miss Forsyth's religiously-minded brother.)
Miss Forsyth, whose maternal instincts have led her to believe her sole mission in life is to heal the sick and comfort the injured, has only contempt for men who pack guns -- especially men like Paladin, whom she initially observes "indulging in four different vices at the same time".
She's in for rather a rude awakening when she. along with Paladin, encounters a pair of men piling rocks on the corpse of a comrade, one whose demise (as the survivors describe it) strikes Paladin as extremely suspicious.
Eventually Miss Forsyth is forced to re-think her position on several issues; but Paladin, ever the Gentleman, refrains from making any ungallant comment.