User Reviews

...without the word actually being said. After all this is 1959. A man comes to town and says a camp of men have an Indian woman as a slave and are beating her and working her to death. Matt rides out and rescues the woman, at the same time finding out that she is actually white, captured by the Indians ten years before. There was only one reason the Indians captured white women, and it wasn't to teach them English. The woman insists she bring along a child that is with her, a girl named Fawn that she says she has cared for since her Indian mother died. Matt takes them both to Dodge.

When he tries to get a room for them at the Dodge House, the innkeeper refuses to take the girl because she is Indian. The fact is though, she is half Indian. She is the white woman's - Mrs. Phillips' - daughter by an Indian chief. Of course Matt, Kitty, Doc, and Chester are sympathetic, even oddly so considering how such things were perceived in general by those in the old West. But, hey, they are the good guys, after all.

Mrs. Phillips has contacted her husband in Boston to let him know she is alive, and he is on his way to Dodge. What will he do when he gets there? Watch and find out.

This subject involves the theme of rape, biracial children, how some mothers are just as bonded to their children by rape as they would be bound to children of consensual relationships, and the reaction of society to people who are in the end just victims. It was a very well done and interesting episode and I'd recommend it.

Not a review, but an answer to a reviewer's question . Paper sacks were invented and used as early as 1852, so Chester could have had a paper sack.

An enjoyable episode that was at times disturbing and the other times uplifting. The show followed the gambit of emotions to finally arrive at a show that was worth the watch.

Marshal Dillon is alerted to a Indian woman that is being badly used by some buffalo hunters outside of town. When Marshal Dillon investigates he finds that the woman, Mrs Phillips, is actually white and had been kidnapped by the Indians years ago. And to complicate matters Mrs Phillips is also accompanied by her eight year old child, Fawn, which is half Indian.

Matt takes Mrs Phillips back to Dodge where the usual bit of discrimination is placed on the woman having an Indian child. And when the husband, Mr Phillips, arrives from Boston, he is willing to take his wife back but wants nothing to do with the child.

A very intelligent written script that was well done by the cast. It is a sad tale that will have the viewer as upset as Marshal Dillon was to characters in the cast. But fear not, there is something in this story that makes the entire show worthy of a second look. Very entertaining episode.

Note- Marshal Dillon can be savage when needed. Early in this episode Matt has to shoot a man that drew on him. The man's buddies are standing there look when Matt harshly tells them 'You got some burying to do". Nice.

By the late 50's, TV was beginning to risk dealing with sensitive social issues. Here the issue is inter-marriage issuing in a half-Indian child. Mrs. Philips (Stewart) was abducted by Cheyennes, after which she has a child by one of the braves. Now she's escaped only to find rejection from much of Dodge because of her half-breed little girl. Matt befriends her, as does Jep Hunter (Karnes) who's lost his own wife to Indian captivity. However, Mrs. Philips's Boston husband now joins others in rejecting her. Meanwhile, the little girl, Fawn, cowers in uncertainty.

The episode is sensitively done and honest enough to deal with much of Dodge's rejection. There are few surprises. Nonetheless, sincere performances and a thoughtful script make up for the general absence of customary action.

The other reviewers captured the essence of the story but there is something that stands out. Toward the end Mr. Hunter asked Mrs. Philips to marry him to which she agreed to wholeheartedly. But Mrs. Phillips is still married to Mr. Phillips who stated he would divorce her. If Mr. Phillips had to leave on the afternoon train there is no way a divorce could have happened in Dodge leaving Mr. Phillips having to go back to Boston to get his divorce. If memory serves me right a man and a woman living together in that day and age was a serious sin and not allowed and bigamy against the law.