Lucas and his boy realize that one of their calves is missing when the mama and newborn accidentally wanders into the herd of a Lord from England being outfitted by a crooked, no-good foreman and his equally repellent crew (including a young James Coburn). The foreman, Waggoner (Ted de Corsia, a total black hat with no shades of grey), damn near gleefully takes the calf into the herd, without weighing the ramifications even as Lucas (righteous but nonetheless imposing Connors) emerges, taking a whip crack to the face and barely flinching from his irritating stance that he took his calf and will soon test to see if he's right. Of course Lucas maybe shouldn't have allowed his son to tag along when returning to Waggoner's herd with mama cow in hand to see where the calf might be, sure enough locating it when the newborn suckles her teat for milk. Waggoner and his goons soon try to corner and execute him when they realize the rustling has been discovered. The Lord's brother, Ashford (Allen Case), sent to monitor the operations and machinations by Waggoner, keeping inventory and accounting, is forced to accept Waggoner's methods because he is practically powerless to stop him considering he is but a moneyman, not a citizen of the US or owner of the cattle. Waggoner knows that and even goes as far as slap Ashmore across the face at one point when confronted over his rustling! In this episode, Coburn, still not yet the Hollywood star he soon would become, plays second to de Corsia, who isn't bothered by conscience or reason, just taking what isn't his boss', not concerned with the fallout...until he meets his reckoning in the form of Lucas McCain. Young Mark (Johnny Crawford) inadvertently becomes involved as does Ashford when they see that Waggoner and his men are opening fire on Lucas. Ashford eventually does have to truly square with Waggoner, giving Lucas enough time through the distraction (although Lucas is distracted by the danger his son faces) to get a fair chance against three guns firing at him. Coburn was always good as the cool heel, not overstepping or going too over the top while de Corsia is just a stone-cold heavy with no redeeming qualities. The use of the mother cow to find the calf by Lucas once again proves how resourceful and clever he is, and the message at the end when Lucas talks to Mark about using the rifle as a weapon only when there is no other choice was important in letting the audience know that despite being successful in the shootout he didn't want things to escalate to that point. And despite Ashford's alliance to Waggoner, it was nice to see Lucas encouraging him to become a part of the cattle-community, not dissuading him from hanging around if he decided to. There was even a brief scene where Lucas gives his son a little educational lesson when visiting Ashford's office, noticing all the British artifacts from England...Mark was wowed by the suit of armor, particularly. The western plots of shows like "The Rifleman" weren't exactly sophisticated or overtly complex because there were just so many of them so casting and certain elements of formula paramount to the audiences watching them at the time being satisfied remained important. This show always got those right.
Review of The Young Englishman
