Matt Dillon is traveling from Hays City to Dodge City when he is caught in a blizzard. He finds a cabin where he can take shelter, but the cabin is already inhabited by Hack and Alvy, two murdering, bank-robbing, sadistic psychopaths, and Belle, a woman who lived in the cabin with her father until Hack and Alvy killed him.
Belle tries to help Matt obscure his status as a U. S. Marshal. When Hack finds out Matt's position, he promises to punish Belle by banishing her outside in the blizzard. He devises a plan to kill Marshal Dillon by hitting him in the head and then dumping his body somewhere on the plains, so it appears he was thrown by his horse and froze to death.
This episode features a small, stellar cast. Claude Akins guest stars for the third time in a Gunsmoke episode. He portrays the "leader" of the duo, Hack. It should be no surprise that Akins is appropriately mean and menacing in the role. He fits the role well. Akins appeared in ten Gunsmoke episodes.
Harry Dean Stanton (credited as Dean Stanton, as he often was earlier in his career) makes the first of his eight Gunsmoke appearances with his performance in this episode as the slow-witted Alvy.
Patricia Barry also makes her series debut in this story as Belle. She would return for another two episodes after the series expanded to one-hour episodes.
Occasionally, Gunsmoke ventured into what could be considered the horror genre, and this episode is one example. A familiar premise in horror films is someone or some group seeks help or shelter somewhere not knowing the people there are deranged psychopaths. Hack and Alvy are monsters with no redeemable qualities.
Hack abuses Belle physically and verbally. It is clear the abuse extends well beyond the events depicted in the episode. Note when Belle warns Hack the food she is preparing will be ruined by being overcooked, he tells her to shut up. Later, when she serves the food, he complains about the lousy quality.
Meston adds a touch of sick, almost Tarantino-esque humor when Alvy is talking about his past. (Incidentally, Tarantino's film The Hateful Eight, while thematically quite different, shares some plot elements with this Gunsmoke episode.) He mentions he is the only member of his family "that turned out any good." Hack replies, "You done fine, Alvy. Just fine." It is worth noting that Harry Dean Stanton would later work with the unconventional director David Lynch. It is easy to imagine Stanton's Alvy character in an episode of Twin Peaks or in one of Lynch's films.
(The radio version of this story is far more graphic than the television episode. Alvy is described as more of a freakish character, and the monstrous duo is even more cruel, if possible. Matt says of Alvy, "Too much of him was missing." Since the action cannot be seen, it is described in some graphic details.)
Gunsmoke does not get darker, more disturbing, and surreal than this story, which means the episode may not be suitable for everyone. The first twenty minutes of the episode inside that cabin are the stuff of nightmares.
With that caveat, this episode is a highlight of the entire series. Season 3 of Gunsmoke features some of the most dark stories of the full twenty year run of the series. They do not get any darker than this.