In this episode, the stage comes riding into the ranch with a sick woman, Annie Whitaker, and her son called Skip. Annie has been sick for some time and wants to take the child out to Denver to stay with relatives. The child's father, Leo McCall, had never been around the child plus Annie never wanted Skip around his father due to his treatment of others and his criminal activities. Annie is taking the child to relatives instead of his father and since she is an old friend of Jess, she took the stage that goes past the Sherman ranch.
But Leo has got word that Annie is sick. Now he wants Skip to come live with him and help run the ranch that he has obtain with ill-gotten-gains. Leo has hired some roughs to kidnap the boy but that turns a new leaf when Annie dies at the Sherman ranch. Leo will now just go get the boy since he can claim his only surviving parent.
This brings us to the plot where Leo brings Skip to his ranch with Jess in-tow as basically a prisoner. Jess is trying to show that Leo is not fit to be a parent while Leo is trying to show Skip that he has changed.
The veteran character-actor, John Anderson, was terrific playing the outcast father of the young boy and made the story much better to view. Even though the story was a rather simple plot the way the show comes across makes for an entertaining watch. The only draw-back to the story was that the ending was too quick. It is like the story was approaching a climax but ended suddenly with one quick 'bang'.--- An above average story.