The actual cast of Gunsmoke was barely at all in this episode. The show starts with Festus having a silly argument with Doc Adams. Back when Festus and Doc Adams were first getting to know each other in the early 1960s, they often had interesting discussions that had a humorous bent. Festus was portrayed as a hardcore cowboy, and cunning hill person.
Unfortunately, by the last couple of years of this series, Festus was often depicted as the town goofball that often made dumb remarks, and walked around whistling while his spurs tinkled like he was Tinkerbell.
Like many other episodes of Gunsmoke where Matt Dillon was missing in action, this one features guest actors to carry the slack. David Wayne and Mitch Vogel are an unlikely pairing. Mitch Vogel, who spent the last two years of Bonanza (48 episodes) dragging the show down with his whining negative personality, brings more of the same to Gunsmoke. David Wayne, who usually played nice older characters, plays against his type, by acting as a corrupt alcoholic judge.
Vogel is the dreary son of Ken Swofford. Swofford was on Gunsmoke twelve times as a sleazy character, thug, drunk, bum, cattle rustler, etc. Swofford was on dozens of TV shows from the 1960s to the 1990s, usually as a bad guy. In this episode Swofford plays an angry street bum who gets tossed out of a saloon, and later that night comes back and gets caught stealing money from the murdered saloon owner.
Swofford gets lynched. Vogel was a great choice for Swofford's son. They both had reddish orange hair, and they both played the same type of whiny angry characters. So by the time Marshal Dillon ambles into this episode (for about 90 seconds), all the action is over.
Dillon punts the ball to David Wayne, who is told by the town boss to cover up the killing of the saloon owner, Kate. So we spend 75% of the episode watching David Wayne argue with the town boss, and talking about the meaning of life with Mitch Vogel. Getting to know Vogel should have pushed any alcoholic over the edge, but in this case, the Judge (David Wayne) exposed the town boss in order to help Vogel.