This two-part episode was originally titled "Pike," but in syndication it is usually titled "Dirty Sally."
On an extremely windy night in Dodge City, three men break into the Adams Express freight office and blow the safe open with a stick of dynamite. A fourth man is outside the office holding the horses for a quick getaway.
Matt Dillon is out of town, and Festus Haggen is visiting Doc Adams in his office when they hear the explosion. As the bandits ride away, several shots are fired at them by Festus and Newly O'Brien. The man that was minding the horses is hit twice.
The gang makes their way to a shack outside Dodge. Tom Macomb, the leader of the gang, begins to divide the money among himself and the other two uninjured bandits. Macomb assumes the injured man, whose name is Cyrus Pike, will be left behind to bleed to death from his wounds.
Pike has different ideas, however. He removes a pistol hidden in his boot, forces the other three to give up the money, takes their weapons, and scares their horses before he rides away, despite his severe injuries.
Eventually Pike can ride no further. He falls off his horse. He soon sees someone approaching in a wagon drawn by a mule. He stashes the saddle bags containing the money inside an opening in an old tree before passing out.
The wagon is being driven by a tobacco-chewing older woman named Sally Fergus. Sally scavenges the countryside for unbroken bottles and other discarded items she can sell in Dodge. After finding a couple of bottles and taking a swig of whiskey, she spies Pike lying near his horse.
Sally manages to get Pike back to her shack where she performs amateur surgery using crude tools to remove the bullet the outlaw is carrying. She bandages his wounds and travels to Dodge City for supplies to help care for the stranger.
The remainder of the first part of this two-part episode involves Sally trying to get Laudanum for Pike, the efforts of Festus and a posse to find the outlaws, and the three gang members murdering a farmer and stealing his horses to go after Pike.
Versatile veteran actress Jeanette Nolan portrays Sally Fergus. It is difficult to know where to start when describing Nolan's acting career. She began in theater and eventually found work in film roles. She played Lady Macbeth in the 1948 film version of Macbeth directed by Orson Welles. She portrayed the sinister Bertha Duncan in the film noir classic The Big Heat directed by Fritz Lang in 1953.
Nolan found enormous success in television roles as the medium increased in popularity. She appeared in over three hundred television programs during her extensive career. She had an incredible ability to transform herself into profoundly diverse characters. Gunsmoke fans will remember her as Festus's Aunt Thede in the Season 10 episode named after her character. Following this performance as Sally Fergus, she returned to Gunsmoke in Season 17's "P. S. Murry Christmas" as the strict, uncompromising orphanage director Emma Grundy. She played the Sally Fergus character once again later in Season 17's "One for the Road" where she co-starred with Jack Albertson.
Nolan was married to actor John McIntire for 56 years -- a long time by any standards, but especially so for Hollywood. McIntire was a formidable character actor in his own right. Nolan and McIntire would occasionally even co-star together. Actors Tim and Holly McIntire were their children.
The part of Cyrus Pike is played by Dack Rambo. Rambo had appeared earlier in Season 16 as the handsome, smooth-talking villain Ira Pickett in "The Witness." Rambo's only two Gunsmoke appearances take place in the two Season 16 stories. Rambo would eventually become more known for his roles in daytime television soap operas. The previous Gunsmoke episode in original broadcast order is "Lavery." Actor Anthony Costello starred in that episode. Costello and Rambo both died from complications related to AIDS and were among the first celebrities to do so.
This episode marks the last appearance in a Gunsmoke story by familiar character actor Cliff Osmond. He had appeared in five other episodes.
As is often the case with two-part episodes, part one of the story is laying the foundation for the story to be resolved in the second part.
On an extremely windy night in Dodge City, three men break into the Adams Express freight office and blow the safe open with a stick of dynamite. A fourth man is outside the office holding the horses for a quick getaway.
Matt Dillon is out of town, and Festus Haggen is visiting Doc Adams in his office when they hear the explosion. As the bandits ride away, several shots are fired at them by Festus and Newly O'Brien. The man that was minding the horses is hit twice.
The gang makes their way to a shack outside Dodge. Tom Macomb, the leader of the gang, begins to divide the money among himself and the other two uninjured bandits. Macomb assumes the injured man, whose name is Cyrus Pike, will be left behind to bleed to death from his wounds.
Pike has different ideas, however. He removes a pistol hidden in his boot, forces the other three to give up the money, takes their weapons, and scares their horses before he rides away, despite his severe injuries.
Eventually Pike can ride no further. He falls off his horse. He soon sees someone approaching in a wagon drawn by a mule. He stashes the saddle bags containing the money inside an opening in an old tree before passing out.
The wagon is being driven by a tobacco-chewing older woman named Sally Fergus. Sally scavenges the countryside for unbroken bottles and other discarded items she can sell in Dodge. After finding a couple of bottles and taking a swig of whiskey, she spies Pike lying near his horse.
Sally manages to get Pike back to her shack where she performs amateur surgery using crude tools to remove the bullet the outlaw is carrying. She bandages his wounds and travels to Dodge City for supplies to help care for the stranger.
The remainder of the first part of this two-part episode involves Sally trying to get Laudanum for Pike, the efforts of Festus and a posse to find the outlaws, and the three gang members murdering a farmer and stealing his horses to go after Pike.
Versatile veteran actress Jeanette Nolan portrays Sally Fergus. It is difficult to know where to start when describing Nolan's acting career. She began in theater and eventually found work in film roles. She played Lady Macbeth in the 1948 film version of Macbeth directed by Orson Welles. She portrayed the sinister Bertha Duncan in the film noir classic The Big Heat directed by Fritz Lang in 1953.
Nolan found enormous success in television roles as the medium increased in popularity. She appeared in over three hundred television programs during her extensive career. She had an incredible ability to transform herself into profoundly diverse characters. Gunsmoke fans will remember her as Festus's Aunt Thede in the Season 10 episode named after her character. Following this performance as Sally Fergus, she returned to Gunsmoke in Season 17's "P. S. Murry Christmas" as the strict, uncompromising orphanage director Emma Grundy. She played the Sally Fergus character once again later in Season 17's "One for the Road" where she co-starred with Jack Albertson.
Nolan was married to actor John McIntire for 56 years -- a long time by any standards, but especially so for Hollywood. McIntire was a formidable character actor in his own right. Nolan and McIntire would occasionally even co-star together. Actors Tim and Holly McIntire were their children.
The part of Cyrus Pike is played by Dack Rambo. Rambo had appeared earlier in Season 16 as the handsome, smooth-talking villain Ira Pickett in "The Witness." Rambo's only two Gunsmoke appearances take place in the two Season 16 stories. Rambo would eventually become more known for his roles in daytime television soap operas. The previous Gunsmoke episode in original broadcast order is "Lavery." Actor Anthony Costello starred in that episode. Costello and Rambo both died from complications related to AIDS and were among the first celebrities to do so.
This episode marks the last appearance in a Gunsmoke story by familiar character actor Cliff Osmond. He had appeared in five other episodes.
As is often the case with two-part episodes, part one of the story is laying the foundation for the story to be resolved in the second part.
