Bonanza
The Wild West adventures of Ben Cartwright and his sons as they run and defend their Nevada ranch while helping the surrounding community.
Genre: Western
Cast:Lorne Greene , Michael Landon , Dan Blocker , Pernell Roberts , Bill Clark , Victor Sen Yung , Ray Teal , Martha Manor , David Canary , Bob Miles , Bing Russell , Mitch Vogel , Grandon Rhodes , Hal Burton , Troy Melton , Bruno VeSota , Roy Engel , Harry Holcombe
S1.E1 ∙ A Rose for Lotta
Lotta Crabtree is hired by mining tycoon Alpheus Troy to lure one of the Cartwrights into town and hold him for ransom in exchange for Ponderosa timber rights.
S1.E2 ∙ Death on Sun Mountain
The Cartwrights go up against two San Francisco men who plan to get rich by killing off the antelope herds--which the Indians rely on for their food--and selling the meat to Virginia City's swarms of silver miners.
S1.E3 ∙ The Newcomers
The Cartwrights discover an old enemy killing steers on the Ponderosa. Their camp has a sickly woman who needs to get to the high desert country. When an innocent man is killed, Ben decides to boot them all back to California but he gets resistance from the others in the camp and some local miners who now believe Ben is hiding gold.
S1.E4 ∙ The Paiute War
In order to escape punishment for mistreating two Paiute women, a trader blames it on Adam Cartwright. The Paiutes seize Adam and make him a hostage as war erupts between the tribe and a local militia.
S1.E5 ∙ Enter Mark Twain
The Cartwrights help Virginia City reporter Samuel Langhorne Clemens investigate suspected shady goings-on between a railroad company and a local judge.
S1.E6 ∙ The Julia Bulette Story
Little Joe falls in love with an older woman, the owner of the town's saloon/brothel, much to the chagrin of his family, moralizing town leaders, and creating a rival for her affection.
S1.E7 ∙ The Saga of Annie O'Toole
Feisty Annie O'Toole comes to Nevada with her old Da (aka "Himself") to mine silver and winds up feeding the silver miners, shanghaiing Adam Cartwright to be her partner in her tent-kitchen ("The Square Meal") and to be her attorney in Miner's Court when an old enemy challenges her right to her claim.
S1.E8 ∙ The Philip Diedesheimer Story
Philip Diedesheimer, a Pied Piper, is refused payment after he saves Virginia City's silver mines from a cave-in.
S1.E9 ∙ Mr. Henry Comstock
When threatened by a man fraudulently sold a part of the Ponderosa by a Henry T.P. Comstock, the Cartwrights remember when they first met the silver-tongued claim-jumper and his scheme that laid the foundation of Virginia City.
S1.E10 ∙ The Magnificent Adah
When an actress named Adah Menken comes into town, Ben considers marrying her, but his sons have other ideas. Meanwhile, trouble arrives when Adah's old lover, washed-up heavyweight boxer John C. Regan, comes along seeking his former glory.
S1.E11 ∙ The Truckee Strip
Caught in the middle of a longtime family feud over a disputed piece of land, star-crossed lovers Joe Cartwright and Amy Bishop try to convince their stubborn fathers to resolve their differences as tension escalates into violence.
S1.E12 ∙ The Hanging Posse
Little Joe and Adam join a posse bent on catching the murderers of Vannie Johnson. The longer they take to catch them, the more whipped into a lynching party they become, much to the liking of the grieving widower.
S1.E13 ∙ Vendetta
When one of the Morgan brothers is shot and killed by Ben during a bank holdup, they vow revenge. The friends he thought he had in town decide to hide away while a wounded Ben lays up waiting for them to ride into town.
S1.E15 ∙ The Last Hunt
Joe and Hoss shelter a pregnant Indian from a blizzard -- and Shoshones ordered to find her.
S1.E16 ∙ El Toro Grande
After tangling with bandits on the way to California to buy a prized bull for the Ponderosa, Little Joe fends off a pretty senorita and her jealous fiancé, while Hoss discovers that the bull has been spirited away by a little boy who is convinced that the Cartwrights plan to kill and eat his big bovine friend.
S1.E17 ∙ The Outcast
The Cartwrights come to the aid of Leta Malvet when she is ostracized by the community after her father and brother are hanged by a lynch mob for killing two men while trying to rob the stagecoach that they thought carried the Ponderosa's payroll. But Adam is sure that the gang will try again when they find out that the Malvets came up empty-handed and suspects that it's no coincidence when Leta's beau, bad boy Clay Renton, comes back to town.
S1.E18 ∙ A House Divided
Ben tries to uncover the reason gold and silver exporter, Frederick Kyle, has befriended Little Joe before the shadowy businessman's hidden Civil War agenda tears Virginia City, and the Cartwright family, apart.
S1.E19 ∙ The Gunmen
Hoss and Little Joe are mistaken for bloodthirsty hired killers in a small Texas town dominated by two feuding families.
S1.E20 ∙ The Fear Merchants
The Cartwrights come to the aid of a Chinese-American stable hand accused of murder. Opposing them is a manipulative mayoral candidate who wants all "foreigners" to leave Virginia City.
S1.E21 ∙ The Spanish Grant
The Cartwrights try to disprove the validity of a Spanish land grant to stop the De La Cuesta family from seizing part of the Ponderosa and all of the Carson Valley settlers' homestead lands.
S1.E22 ∙ Blood on the Land
Jeb Drummond is a murderous sheep herder that has Adam taken hostage to try and force Ben to sign over a large section of Ponderosa land to him.
S1.E23 ∙ Desert Justice
As is often the case on Bonanza, things are not always as they first seem. Hoss and Adam eventually learn who is the good guy and who is not.
S1.E24 ∙ The Stranger
Inspector Leduque comes from New Orleans to Virginia City to take Ben Cartwright back for a 20-year-old murder. When Ben declares publicly that he is withdrawing from the Governor's race, the townsfolk are upset not just about this but Little Joe has also been accused of gunning down Leduque's deputy in cold blood.
S1.E25 ∙ Escape to Ponderosa
Three deserters escaped from an Army stockade to the Ponderosa. When a Captain comes looking for them, Ben realizes what they've had to deal with and promises to let his good friend in charge of that fort know the real truth.
S1.E26 ∙ The Avenger
Ben and Adam are locked in jail, about to hung for a crime they didn't commit. Joe and Hoss must find out why the witnesses to the alleged crime have perjured themselves before the execution takes place. They receive help from an unexpected source, a drifter called Lassiter who is searching for the men who committed a lynching in Kansas years ago.
S1.E27 ∙ The Last Trophy
An English couple comes to Ponderosa on vacation, but the wife slowly makes it clear that she is disappointed that her husband, a great hunter and "action man" is becoming more peaceful, and not the man she married, though things may change for her after they are kidnapped for ransom along with Adam Cartwright.
S1.E28 ∙ San Francisco
While in San Francisco, two of Ben's hired hands get shanghaied and so does Ben in the process of looking for them.
S1.E29 ∙ Bitter Water
A neighboring rancher, Andy, is good friends with Ben, but his son (Todd) wants to sell their land for mining operations which will spoil the water rights agreement that Andy and Ben made years ago.
S1.E30 ∙ Feet of Clay
A woman dies. Her husband is in prison, and the sheriff needs someone to look after the boy until the boy's uncle can come to claim him. The Cartwrights begin to take care of the boy at the Ponderosa. When the boy arrives at the ranch, he does not know that his father is in prison. The boy learns the truth about his dad, and news reaches the Ponderosa that the convict has escaped from prison. The Cartwrights deal with the possibility that the boy's father may be coming their way.
S1.E31 ∙ Dark Star
While hunting a predator wolf, Little Joe finds a gypsy woman who has been rejected from her people because she is believed to be a witch.
S1.E32 ∙ Death at Dawn
When a powerful gang plagues Virginia City with a murderous protection racket, the Cartwrights are determined to stop it even as it threatens them.
S2.E1 ∙ Showdown
An outlaw gang robs Virginia City's bank and makes off with almost all of its money. The youngest member of the gang manages to get a job on the Ponderosa as a bronc-buster with the intention of informing the bank robbers of any posses that may threaten their hideout. While Ben, Adam and Hoss welcome the newcomer, Little Joe becomes suspicious of his activities.
S2.E2 ∙ The Mission
Charlie Trent used to be an Army scout. Now he's the town drunk. Hoss helps him regain his self-esteem when he has him volunteer to lead a gold-bearing troop through the desert where there's very little water.
S2.E3 ∙ Badge Without Honor
After a U.S. deputy marshal apparently saves Adam's life by gunning down two men who shot at him, he eventually reveals that he's in town to bring a close friend of the Cartwrights to Sacramento to testify in a statewide racketeering trial, but the deputy marshal's motives soon become suspect as to what he really wants to do with the reluctant witness.
S2.E4 ∙ The Mill
The Cartwrights' neighbor Tom Edwards has lived as a paraplegic, ever since an accident involving Ben Cartwright and a gun. His ranch is going to waste. His wife Joyce is a longtime friend of Ben, and Ben decides to help the Edwards couple by making Tom a business proposition: the Cartwrights will build a grain mill on Edwards' land. In return, Ben only wants his investment money back, plus fifteen percent. Tom and his hired hand Ezekiel are suspicious of Ben, but Tom agrees to the deal. The Cartwright men build the mill, but tension begins to rise when Ezekiel makes comments which rekindle Tom's suspicion.
S2.E5 ∙ The Hopefuls
Jacob Darien is leading his family of Quakers through Virginia City. When he is accosted by town roughnecks, Adam Cartwright steps in with the help of his new traveling companion, Sam Bord. Adam offers to escort the wagon train across the Ponderosa, unaware that Sam is planning a robbery.
S2.E6 ∙ Denver McKee
Ranchers are being killed, cattle stolen, and even after former U.S. Deputy Marshal Denver McKee sends posses after the suspects, they are never found. Meanwhile, McKee suspiciously has plenty of money to take care of his daughter and her schooling back East.
S2.E7 ∙ Day of Reckoning
Prejudice erupts on both sides when Ben gives an Indian named Matsou and his wife some of his land, after saving Ben's life from a renegade Indian who almost killed him on the Ponderosa.
S2.E8 ∙ The Abduction
Jennifer Beale is abducted in the hopes her rich father, Joshua, the richest silver baron on the Comstock, will pay a $1M ransom. The plan unravels when the beautiful Della is killed and Hercules, who loves her, finds out who did it.
S2.E9 ∙ Breed of Violence
Dolly Kincaid is so fed up with her extremely dominant, controlling, sheriff father, that she runs away with her boyfriend. She later finds out he is the leader of some murderous bank robbers and when they kidnap Hoss and Joe, she still sticks with him.
S2.E10 ∙ The Last Viking
Gunnar is a long-lost relative of the Cartwright family. When Gunnar arrives at the Ponderosa, the family takes him in for the evening. Gunnar is the brother to one of Ben Cartwright's late wives, Inger. Unbeknownst to the Cartwright family, Gunnar is also the leader of a band of criminals called The Comancheros. Little Joe is visiting his girlfriend away from the ranch. When Little Joe and his girlfriend are kidnapped by The Comancheros, the Cartwrights and Gunnar are forced into a difficult situation.
S2.E11 ∙ The Trail Gang
About to set out on a cattle drive, Ben hires a young drifter named Sam Jackson as one of his drovers. What he doesn't know is that Jackson is really outlaw Johnny Logan, who signed on to the drive because he knew it was going to pass near the town of Waycross, and Logan is determined to kill the Waycross sheriff--who is his father.
S2.E12 ∙ The Savage
Adam rides up on some Indians wanting to harm a white woman they believed was a mountain spirit. He kills them but not before they wound him. The woman nurses him back to health but the rest of the tribe is still out there looking for her.
S2.E13 ∙ Silent Thunder
Angry with the way a beautiful deaf-mute girl is treated by her father, a sheepherder living in a remote mountain cabin, Little Joe takes it upon himself to teach her sign language so they can communicate better. His plan backfires when the young woman falls in love with him and the girl's brutish neighbor resents her lavishing attention on the youngest Cartwright.
S2.E14 ∙ The Ape
Hoss mentors a lonely, mentally challenged man who, with superhuman size and strength, becomes extremely dangerous when angered. These efforts are undermined by a saloon girl who only wants this giant man-child to manipulate him.
S2.E15 ∙ The Blood Line
When 16-year-old Todd Grayson arrives from Boston to Virginia City, he is told that his father has been killed by Ben Cartwright. Ben shot Luke Grayson in self-defense, but Todd won't listen to this. The boy has only one thing in his head: to avenge his father by killing Ben Cartwright.
S2.E16 ∙ The Courtship
Hoss falls prey to the wiles of a beautiful woman with a gambling addiction and refuses to believe she's only interested in his money in spite of Adam's proof to the contrary.
S2.E17 ∙ The Spitfire
After Joe kills a man in self-defense who tried to set fire to the Ponderosa to clear himself some land, he has to take his lively, feisty, wild daughter home, and she and her relatives are now determined to kill Joe.
S2.E18 ∙ The Bride
The Cartwright boys are shocked by the unexpected arrival of a beautiful young woman who claims to be Mrs. Ben Cartwright. But when Ben comes home to the Ponderosa that night, the new bride declares that he is not the man she married and the Cartwrights soon find themselves involved in what could become a fatal case of mistaken identity.
S2.E19 ∙ Bank Run
Hoss and Joe "rob" a bank for altruistic reasons and are pursued not by the law but by a more serious force, Ben and Adam.
S2.E20 ∙ The Fugitive
Adam goes to Mexico to investigate the death of a friend, only to face hostile townspeople and the dead man's wife.
S2.E21 ∙ Vengeance
Hoss accidentally kills Willie the town drunk. His remorse may not be enough to stop Willie's hate-filled brother who only wants revenge even though the townspeople know it wasn't Hoss' fault.
S2.E22 ∙ The Tax Collector
Jock Henry is a very likeable fellow. Ask anyone. When he's given the job of collecting taxes, his peculiar methods of figuring out what people owe causes everyone to reconsider.
S2.E24 ∙ The Dark Gate
Ross Marquette's behavior over the past few months can't be easily explained -- beating his wife, rustling cattle, robbing a stage, killing a man. Adam is determined to find out why his friend is acting so strangely before it's too late.
S2.E25 ∙ The Duke
*SPOILERS* The Cartwrights challenge an arrogant and cruel British prizefighter, the Duke, and his alcoholic manager to a bout with John Heenan (the Benicia Boy), after the Cartwrights' meek friend J.D. gets pulverized by the Duke in a bar-fight. J.D. is adored by saloon girl Marge, but he has been too shy to return her affections. While the Cartwrights wait to see if Heenan will actually take the bout and come from San Francisco, the Duke pursues Marge and assaults her when she rebuffs him. When the manager comes to Marge's rescue, he too is beaten up by the Duke (who, it turns out, is the manager's brother). Infuriated by all this, Hoss Cartwright himself challenges the Duke, and knocks him out in the fourth round of a bare-knuckle fight refereed by Sheriff Roy Coffee. The Duke and his brother-manager reconcile in the humility of defeat, then learn that the Benicia Boy will accept the proposed bout, but only the Duke comes to San Francisco. The Duke apologizes to all he has offended while in Virginia City and heads west to fight Heenan.
S2.E26 ∙ Cutthroat Junction
Jed Trask has been with the Sierra Mail & Stage Lines for many years. When a group of gunmen in the town of Latigo cuts off delivery of the goods and mail, he goes after those responsible with the help of some on the Virginia City council - the Cartwrights.
S2.E27 ∙ The Gift
Little Joe is off to buy a gift for his pa's birthday. He's unaware that where he is heading the local Indians are on the war path and they've got him in their gun sights.
S2.E28 ∙ The Rival
Hoss is riding back from his sweetheart Cameo's house when he comes up on a group of men that have just killed a young couple. Hoss recognizes one of the men as his friend Jim Applegate. Hoss is torn between his friend and the law.
S2.E29 ∙ The Infernal Machine
Hoss helps out a shy inventor who needs financial backing to build a horseless carriage. Things do not go well until a slick promoter sells shares into the new automobile. But things turn sour when the promoter skips town.
S2.E30 ∙ The Thunderhead Swindle
The mines in the Comstock Lode seem tapped out. With the sharp rise in unemployment, the promise of silver found in the thunderhead could mean boom or bust to everyone in Virginia City. Can the Cartwrights make sure that it's kept?
S2.E31 ∙ The Secret
Joe is accused of murdering a girl. Her father and brothers want to hang Joe, and the Cartwrights race to prove his innocence.
S2.E32 ∙ The Dream Riders
Hoss gets diverted by a hydrogen-filled balloon while a family friend robs the Virginia City bank.
S2.E33 ∙ Elizabeth, My Love
At the bedside of a seriously ill Adam, Ben thinks back to his days as a first mate on a sailing ship and his marriage to Adam's mother, Elizabeth Stoddard.
S2.E34 ∙ Sam Hill
The Cartwrights join to help mystical blacksmith Sam Hill save the land his drunk, sea-dog father signed away to an old enemy, discover the circumstances behind his mother's death, and solve the mystery of why a tropical tree flourishes in spite of cold Nevada winters.
S3.E1 ∙ The Smiler
The brother of a man Hoss killed in self-defense says he understands but secretly plans revenge.
S3.E2 ∙ Springtime
When their spring-fever antics injure miserly businessman, Jedediah Milbank, requiring recuperation at the Ponderosa, Ben orders each of his sons to carry out one of Mr. Milbank's seemingly simple tasks, unaware that they may prove impossible for the kind-hearted Cartwright boys to complete.
S3.E3 ∙ The Honor of Cochise
The Cartwrights must try to get help for Adam, seriously wounded by an Apache bullet, and find out why Cochise and his warriors have threatened to kill them all if they don't hand over an army captain taking refuge in their trail camp.
S3.E4 ∙ The Lonely House
Joe Cartwright and the young widow of a family friend are held hostage on her isolated ranch outside Platte City by the same gang that robbed Little Joe in the town bank earlier that day.
S3.E5 ∙ The Burma Rarity
Everyone seems to think he should marry widow Hawkins - except Ben! When he is asked to assist some land buyers to Virginia City, he must put up with all the talk. Then he finds out that the buyers want to sell a rare gem known as the Burma Rarity to finance the land deal. Now Ben must work quickly to find the buyers who left town with widow Hawkins $25K she paid for the gem.
S3.E6 ∙ Broken Ballad
Ed Payson, a reformed gunfighter, has returned to Virginia City to tend some property he owns. When he's welcomed with resistance by some of the townspeople, Adam decides to help him, even though everyone thinks he may have killed Dave, the grocer's son.
S3.E7 ∙ The Many Faces of Gideon Flinch
Jennifer Flinch and her uncle Gideon come to Virginia City on the stage to see a client named Bullet Head Burke. They need to explain why his $5K investment has all been spent. Through a case of mistaken identity, now Bullet Head must figure out who is the real Gideon Flinch.
S3.E8 ∙ The Friendship
The Cartwrights convince the prison warden to free 23-year-old chain-gang convict, Danny Kid, imprisoned since he was an orphan of thirteen, and take him on as a ranch-hand to repay him for saving Little Joe from being dragged to death by a spooked horse.
S3.E9 ∙ The Countess
Unsettling events that could spell financial ruin for the Ponderosa mysteriously coincide with the arrival of a wealthy countess who seems determined to win the love of Ben Cartwright, the man she spurned twenty years before in New Orleans.
S3.E10 ∙ The Horse Breaker
The Cartwrights hope that time and therapy will get bronc breaker, Johnny Lightly, back in the saddle after a bad fall. But Johnny soon faces thinly veiled hostility from the young nurse sent to help him, threats from a rancher who blames Ben Cartwright for his family's calamities, and a growing fear that he may never walk again.
S3.E11 ∙ Day of the Dragon
His search for the two men who kidnapped his bride-to-be, Su Ling, will soon take angry Chinese warlord, General Tsung, from San Francisco to the Ponderosa where Little Joe has been challenged to explain how he won the girl in a poker game.
S3.E12 ∙ The Frenchman
Hoss insults a feisty Frenchman who demands satisfaction with swords, unaware that the little rogue believes himself to be the reincarnation of medieval, outlaw poet Francois Villon and is destined to suffer his namesake's fate of being sentenced to death on the gallows for murder.
S3.E13 ∙ The Tin Badge
Tired of being considered the baby of the family by his older brothers, Little Joe accepts a temporary job of a small town sheriff. But he soon suspects he's been set up and wants answers. Meanwhile, others are plotting a crime that could end in murder.
S3.E14 ∙ Gabrielle
The Cartwrights take in a young orphaned blind girl on Christmas Eve. Will they be able to reunite her with her embittered old grandfather?
S3.E15 ∙ Land Grab
The Cartwrights play host to an eccentric old soldier friend of Ben's while trying to track down a mysterious swindler named Polk who is illegally deeding parcels of the Ponderosa to settlers looking for homesteads.
S3.E16 ∙ The Tall Stranger
A handsome, charismatic con man sweeps Margie Owens off her feet with promises of excitement and adventure, jeopardizing Hoss Cartwright's hopes to wed the pretty rancher's daughter.
S3.E17 ∙ The Lady from Baltimore
Bitterly disappointed in her husband's financial failures, genteel matriarch Deborah Banning travels to visit her friends on the Ponderosa, hoping to turn her family's fortunes around by marrying her only daughter off to a Cartwright son.
S3.E18 ∙ The Ride
When Adam is a witness to a murderous armed robbery by masked assailants, he is absolutely convinced he knows who one of them is, but there's ultimately only one way to prove it.
S3.E19 ∙ The Storm
While visiting the Ponderosa, Ben's old friend, sea Captain Matthew White, is forced to reveal a terrible secret after Little Joe Cartwright falls in love with and plans to wed the Captain's daughter, Laura, once a freckle-faced playmate from Joe's childhood in New Orleans, now grown into a beautiful woman.
S3.E20 ∙ The Auld Sod
The Cartwrights allow a shiftless man to pose as head of the ranch to prevent his Irish mother from learning the truth about him.
S3.E21 ∙ Gift of Water
With tensions with a drought-stricken neighboring flatland rising, the Cartwrights decide to address the problem by helping a stubborn flatland homesteader dig a new well.
S3.E22 ∙ The Jackknife
Searching for missing Ponderosa cattle, Adam Cartwright stops to aid injured rancher, Matt Grant, takes him home and stays to help his wife and son while he recovers. But Adam doesn't know that Matt is part of a gang of rustlers responsible for the missing cattle, and now that Adam can identify him, they want him dead before their next job.
S3.E23 ∙ The Guilty
Tucson gunman, Jack Groat, swore to kill Sheriff Lem Partridge for putting him in prison after a bullet from Groat's gun during a drunken street brawl accidentally killed Sheriff Partridge's wife. Now, 10 years later and fresh out of prison, Groat has tracked retired Lem Partridge to Virginia City and is soon holding Lem's son, Jimmy, and good friend Ben Cartwright hostage. But things go bad and Ben must soon explain to Lem - and try to convince himself - that there was nothing he could have done that day to stop Groat from shooting Jimmy in the back.
S3.E24 ∙ The Wooing of Abigail Jones
The Cartwright boys help cowhand Hank romance reluctant teacher Abigail.
S3.E25 ∙ The Lawmaker
The Cartwrights may have to take the law into their own hands when Virginia City's temporary sheriff, rancher Asa Moran, uses his new badge as a license to kill.
S3.E26 ∙ Look to the Stars
The Cartwrights encourage young genius, Albert Michelson, to pursue his scientific experiments while trying to discover why schoolmaster, George Norton, expelled Albert from school and seems determined to stand in the way of his appointment to the prestigious Annapolis Naval Academy.
S3.E27 ∙ The Gamble
Little Joe is his family's only hope when he escapes from a kangaroo court that has framed the Cartwrights for a bank robbery and sentenced them all to hang.
S3.E28 ∙ The Crucible
After being robbed in the desert, Adam stumbles onto a seemingly chivalrous prospector named Peter Kane, who offers him a mule and supplies for three days work. However, Kane is a demented madman who is interested in psychological torture, hoping to drive a seemingly rational man like Adam to murder. As Ben, Hoss and Little Joe try to retrace the missing Adam's footsteps, Adam must rely on his own wits to defeat Kane.
S3.E29 ∙ Inger, My Love
The back story behind Ben's three wives is up to Inger, Ben's second wife (and mother of Hoss). The story relates the first meeting between Ben and Inger, as Ben and a young Adam were traveling west.
S3.E30 ∙ Blessed Are They
Ben Cartwright and Virginia City's enigmatic new minister work together to decide which set of feuding grandparents, the Mahans or the Clarkes, will have custody of their recently orphaned twin grandchildren.
S3.E31 ∙ The Dowry
A stagecoach carrying Alexander Dubois, his daughter Michele and her fiancé Don Ricardo Fernandez is held up. Her dowry is stolen and Monsieur Dubois is injured trying to get it back. Little Joe brings them all to the Ponderosa where Dubois can recuperate from his wound. Adam and Hoss track the bandits and recover the dowry but the bandits get away and more attempts to steal it are made. The Cartwrights begin to grow suspicious of Don Fernandez and the way he seems to take all of this in stride.
S3.E32 ∙ The Long Night
Adam has a day and a half to deliver a large bankdraft. He is ambushed by an escaped convict. When he is mistaken for one of the escapees by the posse, Adam is hardpressed to prove his identity. All they want to do is hang him.
S3.E33 ∙ The Mountain Girl
Joe is entrusted to see that Grandpa Coomb's deathbed wish is carried out. That his granddaughter is returned to the people she never knew -- the high society Harkers. Joe must teach her to be like them before they arrive as all she's known is the life of a sheepherder living in the mountains.
S3.E34 ∙ The Miracle Maker
Susan's father is killed in a terrible accident she feels responsible for. Her inability to walk is something that Hoss hopes he can help with if the new faith healer in town proves he is more than just a charlatan.
S4.E1 ∙ The First Born
Clay Stafford just arrived in Virginia City but already seems to know who Joe and the Cartwrights are. When he gets a job on their ranch as a cowhand, his past is revealed and hopes it will not affect his new relationship with them, especially Joe.
S4.E2 ∙ The Quest
Wanting to prove his independence and (at the same time) break out of the shadows of his Pa and older brothers, Little Joe sets out to win a lucrative timber contract for the Ponderosa.
S4.E3 ∙ The Artist
Matthew Raine, once a world-class artist, has lost his sight due to disease. When befriended by Ben Cartwright, he realizes he has been feeling sorry for himself all this time and with his friend Ann's help, finds a way to turn his darkness into light.
S4.E4 ∙ A Hot Day for a Hanging
While making a payment delivery, Hoss is wrongfully accused of being a bank robber with the money being his loot.
S4.E5 ∙ The Deserter
An Army Colonel comes to the Ponderosa looking for a man who was under his command, then deserted. The Colonel believes the deserter lives in the vicinity of the Ponderosa. He wants to bring him to Washington for court martial. He shows them a picture and they claim not to know him but it's their neighbor, Bill Winters. Just as the Colonel was leaving he is shot by an arrow. While the Colonel rests, Ben goes to Bill who admits it's true. Ten years ago, the Colonel was tasked with keeping the Indians in line and he decided to do that by raiding them. Bill chose not to follow him and aided some of them to escape but he still raided the Indians and many were killed. He learns that there'll be another attempt on the Colonel so he goes to the Ponderosa and kills the Indian who was sent to kill him. When the Colonel sees Bill, he pulls his gun on him but Ben tells him that he saved his life. He then reveals that Bill is his son. When the Indians learn of Bill's connection to the Colonel, they take him for punishment. His wife, who's one of the Indians he saved tells Ben. Ben asks to speak to the Chief whom he knows. The Colonel knows that the Chief won't give his son back so he offers himself in exchange for his son. Knowing that the Indians will kill him, he asks Ben to speak to the Indians for him.
S4.E6 ∙ The Way Station
Adam finds shelter overnight at a stagecoach way station. There he meets others ranging from a beautiful girl to a dangerous outlaw on the run.
S4.E7 ∙ The War Comes to Washoe
Civil War politics and Little Joe's romance with the daughter of an important Confederate sympathizer bring disagreement and hard feelings with him and Adam, and things don't get any better when there is shady goings on suspected between the girl's father and higher-up Confederate turncoats right before the crucial vote whether or not Nevada should join the Union, where Joe is a delegate.
S4.E8 ∙ Knight Errant
Hoss Cartwright's good deed results in hard feelings when the mail order bride he has volunteered to escort to a neighboring rancher falls in love with him before she reaches her intended groom.
S4.E9 ∙ The Beginning
The Cartwrights find Billy Horn, a young man who was taken captive and raised by the Shoshone. He comes to live with them and befriends them, as they try to re-accustom him to the white man's ways. However, a threat emerges with Milton Tanner, a wealthy landowner who is making a claim for one-third of the Ponderosa. Billy believes that Tanner should be fought head on, as the Indians had taught him, rather than in court, and the Cartwrights are unable to convince him otherwise. Billy decides to confront Tanner himself.
S4.E10 ∙ The Deadly Ones
Mexican freedom fighters loyal to Benito Juárez take over the Ponderosa, gravely wound Little Joe, and force Ben to guide them to a wagon train loaded with gold being smuggled to California by Emperor Maximilian.
S4.E11 ∙ Gallagher's Sons
Will and Charlie bury their father with the help of Hoss. He decides to help them get to their aunt but he finds out soon enough that he's taken on more than he bargained for when he finds out how their pa was killed.
S4.E12 ∙ The Decision
Hoss suffers a life-threatening injury. Only surgery by a doctor in jail for murder can save him.
S4.E13 ∙ The Good Samaritan
A jilted friend of Hoss can't seem to shake the bottle. When a woman and her daughter arrive on the stage the party that was supposed to greet them has left town. Hoss tries to play matchmaker but his friend seems determined to sabotage the whole thing.
S4.E14 ∙ The Jury
Hoss faces scorn and accusations of bribery when he refuses to vote with his fellow jurors to convict a man for murder based solely on the testimony of the victim's brother who witnessed the act on a dark night.
S4.E15 ∙ The Colonel
One of Ben Cartwright's old war buddies who claims to be a business tycoon developing a new territory, woos a wealthy Virginia City widow and jeopardizes a Ponderosa land deal.
S4.E16 ∙ Song in the Dark
Incriminating scratches on cowhand Danny Morgan's arm and his penchant for riding alone through the night strumming his guitar makes him the prime suspect when a woman is found strangled the morning after witnesses heard Danny's voice singing in the dark outside her cabin.
S4.E17 ∙ Elegy for a Hangman
Adam helps an angry young man to confront the "hanging judge" who sentenced his father to death in a high-stakes miscarriage of justice.
S4.E18 ∙ Half a Rogue
Hoss harbors kindred spirit Big Jim Layton on the Ponderosa while trying to clear the wounded mountain man's name from charges of theft and murder.
S4.E19 ∙ The Last Haircut
Little Joe finds himself at the scene of a murder, and befriends the victim's vengeance-minded son.
S4.E20 ∙ Marie, My Love
Ben recounts his adventure in New Orleans during which he met his third wife, the then future mother of Little Joe.
S4.E21 ∙ The Hayburner
Unlucky Hoss loses his valuable Kentucky thoroughbred racehorse in a poker game then schemes with brother Adam to buy it back before the end-of-the-month entry deadline for the Virginia City Sweepstakes race.
S4.E22 ∙ The Actress
Little Joe falls in love with a beautiful woman who aspires to be an actress.
S4.E23 ∙ A Stranger Passed This Way
Bushwacked and suffering from amnesia, Hoss is found wandering down the road by the Vandervorts, an older couple who are happy to take the gentle giant into their family to replace the son they lost. But when Ben comes looking for his missing son, the Vandervorts lie about seeing him and refuse to tell Hoss who he really is, planning to take him to Michigan with them and away from his real family, and the Ponderosa, for good.
S4.E24 ∙ The Way of Aaron
Adam helps a beautiful woman, and her father, a peddler of devout Jewish faith.
S4.E25 ∙ A Woman Lost
An alcoholic saloon girl changes her life with the help of Ben and an ex-prizefighter who falls in love with her.
S4.E26 ∙ Any Friend of Walter's
Attacked by outlaws, Hoss takes cover in a prospector's shack with the old prospector and with Walter, the old man's surprisingly communicative dog.
S4.E27 ∙ Mirror of a Man
One of Ben's ranch hands on the Ponderosa finds his past catching up with him when his twin brother murders a man.
S4.E28 ∙ My Brother's Keeper
During a wolf hunt, Adam accidentally shoots Little Joe, and must find help if Joe is to survive.
S4.E29 ∙ Five into the Wind
A stagecoach accident in a windstorm leaves 5 stranded, after which Little Joe is accused when a man is found murdered with Joe's knife.
S4.E30 ∙ The Saga of Whizzer McGee
Hoss tries to help Whizzer McGee, a man with a short height, short fuse, thin skin, and big ideas.
S4.E31 ∙ Thunder Man
While Ann Wilson and her Uncle Fred are en route to her boyfriend Joe's birthday party, Fred suffers a sudden stroke and is rendered unconscious. A man claiming to be a Good Samaritan stops to help, only to rape and kill Ann. Joe is devastated and vows to track down the killer. While Fred is eventually moved to the Ponderosa to recover (and for his protection against anyone who might want to silence him), Joe undermines Deputy Clem Foster's investigation. Meanwhile, the killer - a munitions expert named William Poole - gets a job on the Ponderosa, since his expertise with a new substance called nitroglycerin can help clear old tree stumps off the ranch. Poole, who is staying with a widowed neighbor named Mrs. Gibson, tries to get at Uncle Fred, but Joe, who has been keeping a bedside vigil, stops him at every turn. Eventually, Joe sees Uncle Fred's hand move and begins questioning him. Fred is only able to scrawl a barely legible message before he goes numb, and suffers a subsequent (and ultimately fatal) stroke. Before Fred dies, Joe manages to figure out the note had something to do with "New Orleans Woman." Joe visits Mrs. Gibson, who produces sheet music to the song. After Joe leaves, Poole returns and Mrs. Gibson eventually realizes that he killed Ann. Poole, knowing he can be identified, kills Mrs. Gibson. Joe later hears an explosion coming from Mrs. Gibson's house and, knowing that Poole had finished his work and was supposed to be on his way, returns to investigate. Upon arrival, he sees Poole carrying Mrs. Gibson's burned corpse into the house, but Joe's suspicions that the explosion was no accident is confirmed when he sees the ripped up sheet music, pieces it back together and fingers Poole as Ann's killer. Poole, who reveals himself as a misogynist, threatens to blow the Ponderosa off the map and throws a vial at Joe, but Joe kills the villain in self-defense.
S4.E32 ∙ Rich Man, Poor Man
When Claude Miller is fired from his latest job, his girl and Little Joe scheme to help him regain his self respect by buying his worthless land. When he involves his brother Hoss to buy some mining claims too, the prior owners blow it up and discover silver - as big as the Comstock lode! But new riches brings out those wanting to get rich too.
S4.E33 ∙ The Boss
Ben confronts a former friend who has become a local strongman after monopolizing the freight business.
S4.E34 ∙ Little Man... Ten Feet Tall
An Italian immigrant and his son seek a new life after fleeing violence in their home country.
S5.E1 ∙ She Walks in Beauty
Hoss falls under the spell of a beautiful shady lady from San Francisco and asks her to be his wife, believing his love can change her even after she tries to seduce his brother Adam.
S5.E2 ∙ A Passion for Justice
Famous author Charles Dickens visits the Ponderosa, and finds himself embroiled in controversy.
S5.E3 ∙ Rain from Heaven
A drought brings a rainmaker with a very sick daughter to Virginia City.
S5.E4 ∙ Twilight Town
Little Joe is attacked by outlaws, but finds that his biggest challenge is fighting his way through the secrets of a town shrouded in mystery.
S5.E5 ∙ The Toy Soldier
Adam helps an alcoholic artist married to a lovely Piute woman to find a new way to help the Piute Indians oppressed by a powerful local rancher.
S5.E6 ∙ A Question of Strength
A stagecoach containing Hoss and two nuns is robbed. Later, one of the badly wounded robbers finds himself in their power.
S5.E7 ∙ Calamity Over the Comstock
Trouble with a capital "T" that rhymes with "C" comes to Virginia City when Little Joe brings young Calamity Jane home to the Ponderosa after rescuing her from a deadly prairie raid.
S5.E8 ∙ Journey Remembered
Ben finds Hoss in the barn waiting for a mare to give birth. Ben can't help but remember that's how Hoss' mother (Inger) was. He then finds an old journal wherein he wrote down their trek West. While Hoss waits, Ben reads it and recalls how their trek was arduous. And Inger was pregnant with Hoss and they had to deal with Indians and a drunken wagon master.
S5.E9 ∙ The Quality of Mercy
Little Joe struggles with his conscience, trying to believe that his friend, Seth Pruitt, did the right thing after Seth admits to the mercy-killing of his fiancée's father when the man was in agony from a broken back and begging for death.
S5.E10 ∙ The Waiting Game
When Frank Dayton is thrown from his horse and killed, his wife Laura tells their daughter, Peggy, that he went on a long trip, preferring to let the little girl hold onto the hope that her daddy would come home again someday. But Laura's plan to shelter Peggy from her father's death is soon challenged when Adam Cartwright comes to call and the pretty widow finds herself falling in love.
S5.E11 ∙ The Legacy
When Ben goes missing and presumed dead after being shot by a poacher he was hunting alone, his sons search for the seemingly likely suspects: three innocent ex-convicts who fear being so suspected.
S5.E12 ∙ Hoss and the Leprechauns
Hoss scares a bear that has treed a green-clad little man, subsequently finds a buried strongbox filled with bags of gold dust and, when both the treasure and its owner disappear, unsuccessfully tries to convince his skeptical family that he'd discovered a leprechaun's hoard. But the whole town goes searching for the mythical men after a newly arrived Irish professor confirms the presence of multiple leprechauns...and their gold!
S5.E13 ∙ The Prime of Life
Ben Cartwright doubts his fitness to run the Ponderosa when his impatience results in a logging camp accident that causes serious injury to himself and an old friend's death.
S5.E14 ∙ The Lila Conrad Story
Adam and Little Joe try to find a fair trial for a saloon girl accused of theft and murder, hiding her from a corrupt sheriff's lynch mob after she stows away in the back of their supply wagon, all while escorting a self-righteous, hard-nosed judge to Virginia City.
S5.E15 ∙ Ponderosa Matador
While Adam relies on his charm and guitar to impress a visiting senorita, Hoss and Little Joe scheme to win her heart in a more south-of-the-border way...a bull fight!
S5.E16 ∙ My Son, My Son
Ben's plans to wed widow Katherine Saunders are jeopardized after her son is accused of murder.
S5.E17 ∙ Alias Joe Cartwright
A stubborn, career army sergeant appears to be his only hope when Little Joe is arrested after being robbed and knocked unconscious by a look-a-like escaped army prisoner and is unable to convince the fort commander that he isn't the man who has been sentenced to face the firing squad.
S5.E18 ∙ The Gentleman from New Orleans
Gullible Hoss meets a flamboyant, cutlass-brandishing drunk claiming to be none other than the notorious pirate Jean Lafitte. Believing Lafitte is who he says he is and remembering that history considered him a patriot for his aid at the Battle of New Orleans, Hoss chooses to treat Lafitte like a hero and invites him to the Ponderosa. While skeptical Ben contacts old friends in New Orleans to try to verify his identity, Lafitte is accused of murder and Hoss must try to find not only the real killer but the answer to the question: who is Jean Lafitte?
S5.E19 ∙ The Cheating Game
Angry with Adam Cartwright for constantly criticizing her decisions and refusing to take the next step in their romance, Laura Dayton becomes easy prey for a handsome grifter.
S5.E20 ∙ Bullet for a Bride
Joe blames himself after a ricocheting bullet from his pistol blinds a young woman and decides that the only way he can atone for the accident is to make her his wife.
S5.E21 ∙ King of the Mountain
Hoss finds himself smack dab in the middle of a mountain family feud when he agrees to be the best man at ornery Big Jim Leyton's wedding.
S5.E22 ∙ Love Me Not
Ben's Pygmalion-like efforts to 'civilize' a young, white woman, raised by a neighboring Paiute Indian tribe, have an unintended result when, instead of choosing a husband from among the eligible young men he has rounded up for her, she falls in love with him.
S5.E23 ∙ The Pure Truth
When Hoss is set up to take the fall for a bank robbery in another town, the help of an eccentric gold prospector appears to be all that stands between him and the real bandit's bullet.
S5.E24 ∙ No Less a Man
Certain that he is too old to stand against a notorious gang of bank robbers when news arrives that Virginia City will soon be next in a long string of successful raids, the terrified townsfolk demand Sheriff Coffee's resignation to make way for a younger lawman.
S5.E25 ∙ Return to Honor
Ben gets word that his nephew Will has been murdered in nearby Pine City. As it turns out, Will has been shot and wounded while on the run from a counterfeiting gang that wants back the engraving plates Will has "appropriated" from them.
S5.E26 ∙ The Saga of Muley Jones
Hoss gets into a fight with a young drifter. When the sheriff breaks up the fight, the stranger introduces himself as Muley Jones, a distant cousin, and bear-hugs Hoss in friendship. The handsome, childish Muley loves to sing and does it at every opportunity. Unfortunately, his singing voice is so booming that it shatters glass with impunity and rattles ANYTHING more solid. Meanwhile, the sheriff is looking for a couple of moonshiners (Jesse White, Strother Martin) who are selling their own liquor to various drinking establishments. Though Muley is just about as dumb as he looks, he provides help to the sheriff in a fashion ... well, just listen to it.
S5.E27 ∙ The Roper
An Army lieutenant comes to the ranch with a wounded prisoner. When Will gets the town doctor, the prisoner's gang shows up and takes them all prisoner. With the promise of a lot of gold, Will tries to delay their departure in the hopes he can save everyone's life including his relatives, Ben Cartwright and his sons.
S5.E28 ∙ A Pink Cloud Comes from Old Cathay
A mix-up in his request for mail-order Chinese fireworks brings Hoss instead a feisty mail-order bride whose militant ideas ignite a workers' rebellion and threaten the completion of a Virginia City railroad project.
S5.E29 ∙ The Companeros
Mateo Ybarra travels to the Ponderosa in the hopes he can enlist the aid of his old friend, Will Cartwright. Little do either know that there are those who are after him to take him back to Mexico for trial and others who don't want to wait that long.
S5.E30 ∙ Enter Thomas Bowers
A famous Italian opera singer is invited to sing at the local Virginia City opera house. One snag: he may resemble on paper a runaway slave they were just notified about; and some of the townspeople want him arrested or worse.
S5.E31 ∙ The Dark Past
Dev's line of work seems ordained given his past. When his quarry's wife turns out to be pregnant, he uses that to trap him, even if it might risk Little Joe's life.
S5.E32 ∙ The Pressure Game
Virginia City gossip and meddling Aunt Lil combine with unexpected attention from another Cartwright to complicate Laura Dayton's already fragile romance with Adam, especially when his preoccupation with Ponderosa business appears to be hiding an unwillingness to marry her.
S5.E33 ∙ Triangle
Laura's and Adam's wedding plans begin to derail when another man's kiss puts doubt in Laura's heart. And a bad fall from the roof of the house Adam is secretly building for their new life together lands Adam in a wheelchair.
S5.E34 ∙ Walter and the Outlaws
Obie is going to visit his sister. The last time he saw her was 16 years ago. While away, Obie entrusts the care of Walter to Hoss. This care includes playing music for Walter, especially the low notes.
S6.E1 ∙ Invention of a Gunfighter
Humiliated by a professional gunslinger in front of a bar crowd that included his girlfriend, timid Johnny Chapman asks Little Joe to teach him how to handle a gun. But, Johnny changes as he gains skill and confidence and Joe soon doesn't recognize his friend in the hard, ruthless man he's become.
S6.E2 ∙ The Hostage
Ben is taken hostage by a gang of four outlaws, who are hoping for a $100,000 ransom from the Cartwrights for his safe return. As his sons formulate a plan to rescue their father, Ben devises one of his own after he senses dissension amongst his captors.
S6.E3 ∙ The Wild One
Hoss wants a wild stallion for breeding. He's having second thoughts about the partner he chose until he meets his wife.
S6.E4 ∙ Thanks for Everything, Friend
Tom Wilson saves Adam from drowning. This begins a friendship he starts to regret when Tom steals a girl from her longtime boyfriend, is found with her father's open strongbox and standing over his dead body.
S6.E5 ∙ Logan's Treasure
After a 20-year stint in prison, Sam Logan is invited to stay at the Ponderosa because Ben believes that his friend doesn't know where the bank's gold is. With three people on the trail of the money, Sam has to decide if his loyalties are with them or his good friend Ben Cartwright.
S6.E6 ∙ The Scapegoat
Hoss rides up on Waldo Watson bungling yet another suicide attempt. He invites him home and the Cartwrights are wondering if they regret that as three men are trailing him and they mean to do him harm.
S6.E7 ∙ A Dime's Worth of Glory
Ben and Adam capture a known outlaw that tried to hold up the stage they were passengers on. A reporter who was also a passenger wants to make them both famous, even if he has to amplify the story. But when they take him to jail at the next town, they are met by an aloof sheriff who doesn't mind regaining his past glory with the help of a little creative writing.
S6.E8 ∙ Square Deal Sam
The Washburns just arrived in town and are looking for work. When Hoss hears about the difficulties they've been through, he invites them to stay at the Ponderosa. After they sell everyone at the ranch a share in a copper mine, the Cartwrights find out the Washburns are not exactly what they appear to be. But this is just the beginning of the yarns Samuel is willing to spin.
S6.E9 ∙ Between Heaven and Earth
Little Joe and his friend Mitch chase a sheep-killing puma into a canyon and Joe climbs a steep slope to get a better look at the terrain. When he slips, dropping his rifle into a rock crevice, Joe is suddenly paralyzed with fear. Mitch calls to him and Joe manages to climb down, but without his rifle. Ashamed, Joe tells no one of his experience and when his attempts to retrieve his rifle fail in panic, Joe's pent-up frustration causes him to behave recklessly. Ben knows something is wrong and confronts his youngest son. Will Joe reveal his secret and let his father give him the help he desperately needs?
S6.E10 ∙ Old Sheba
After Hoss injures traveling circus wrestler, Bearcat Sampson, during an exhibition match, Hoss and 'manager' Little Joe agree that Hoss will take the Bearcat's place in the ring while he recovers; but the circus owner squanders Hoss' winnings and the Cartwrights end up with an unconventional paycheck...Old Sheba, the circus elephant.
S6.E11 ∙ A Man to Admire
When Hoss is framed for murder, he puts his faith in court with his new friend, a lawyer with a worrying taste for alcohol.
S6.E12 ∙ The Underdog
Harry Starr, a half-breed Comanche, is hired by the Cartwrights to work on the Ponderosa. When confronted with the prejudice of other hands he turns the other cheek. Meanwhile someone is stealing horses in the valley...is he involved?
S6.E13 ∙ A Knight to Remember
Arrested for robbing the stagecoach he was riding, Adam can't convince the sheriff that the real bandits were run off by a knight in shining armor who called himself...King Arthur!
S6.E14 ∙ The Saga of Squaw Charlie
Except for the Cartwrights and a little girl, Squaw Charlie has no friends just because he's an Indian. When the girl goes missing, the whole town wants his blood even though all the evidence against him is purely circumstantial.
S6.E15 ∙ The Flapjack Contest
Intending to confront the card-shark who he believes bushwhacked and robbed him, Little Joe instead decides to get his money back by betting the shady gambler that big brother Hoss will win the Founders' Day flapjack eating contest against champion Big Ed Simpson. But Hoss isn't sure that winning the five hundred dollar first prize is worth suffering through his little brother's training program, especially when it includes meals consisting of only carrots, apples and water...and no beer!
S6.E16 ∙ The Far, Far Better Thing
Little Joe and his friend Tuck vie for the affections of pretty Lucy Melviney, a sheltered, naive young woman who soon puts all of their lives in danger when she chooses to believe that real life should mirror what she reads in the pages of her classic romantic novels.
S6.E17 ∙ Woman of Fire
Shakespeare-inspired Adam tries to tame a shrewish senorita while she waits at the Ponderosa for her never-met husband-to-be.
S6.E18 ∙ The Ballerina
A former ballet dancer falls in love while teaching classical dance to the daughter of a traveling violinist. He wants to help her audition for the San Francisco ballet but meets resistance from her father who wants her to keep performing with him.
S6.E19 ∙ The Flannel-Mouth Gun
Worrying that a hired gun may just cause more trouble for the ranchers, Adam Cartwright votes 'no' when the Cattlemen's Association asks ruthless range detective, Sherman Clegg, to stop a region-wide rustling problem; but when tragedy follows and Clegg is accused of murder, Adam appears to be the only one to take the side of the very man he originally opposed.
S6.E20 ∙ The Ponderosa Birdman
Hoss goes above and beyond to help an eccentric, aging inventor and his overly-protective granddaughter realize their dream of manned flight.
S6.E21 ∙ The Search
Adam's search for troublesome look-a-like Tom Burns lands him in the Placerville jail for two murders committed by Burns.
S6.E22 ∙ The Deadliest Game
While his troupe visits the Ponderosa, lonely, aging aerialist Guido Borelli hides his true feelings for his beautiful, young partner, Petina, but is quick to comfort her after a fistfight with her hot-tempered boyfriend, Carlo, lands Little Joe in jail for attempted murder.
S6.E23 ∙ Once a Doctor
Suffering from an infected foot, Hoss finds unexpected relief from Professor Poppy, an itinerant patent-medicine peddler who secretly carries a medical bag. But Hoss soon finds that the professor may really be Doctor P.A. Mundy who is being trailed by a vengeful Englishman claiming that Mundy murdered his wife.
S6.E24 ∙ Right Is the Fourth R
Substitute teacher Adam Cartwright is unprepared for the violent resistance he meets when his research into the territory's history gets him too close to uncovering a long-buried Virginia City secret.
S6.E25 ∙ Hound Dog
The Cartwrights and their cousin Muley Jones tangle with feisty Tracy Ledbetter when she claims Cousin Muley stole her precious pack of baying bird dogs.
S6.E26 ∙ The Trap
Burk knew his wife was sweet on Little Joe so he devises a plan to get rid of him. When his plan backfires, his twin brother, a lawman, returns to marry the widow and get rid of Little Joe for good.
S6.E27 ∙ Dead and Gone
Adam stops Howard Mead from robbing Johann Brunner and his sister Hilda. However, Howard's talent for singing and guitar playing, along with his hard-luck stories, persuade Adam to give him another chance, and Hilda agrees to drop the charges. This may be a mistake, as Howard's talents cannot hide his dark side even as Hilda falls for him.
S6.E28 ∙ A Good Night's Rest
When Hoss' snoring, Adam's guitar playing and Little Joe's courting shenanigans keep a dog-tired Ben Cartwright awake, he rides wearily away from the Ponderosa to try to find a quiet room at the Virginia City hotel; but the wild, frontier town's chaotic night life soon makes him think he would have been better off back at the ranch.
S6.E29 ∙ To Own the World
A rich tycoon who is known for destroying anything that stands in the way of getting what he wants, vows to have the Ponderosa, no matter what the cost.
S6.E30 ∙ Lothario Larkin
The Cartwrights re-acquaint themselves (for better or worse) with a noted womanizer known as Lothario Larkin.
S6.E31 ∙ The Return
Ben Cartwright welcomes a former bank robber back who served 10 years in prison after shooting and paralyzing a bank president, whom wants him out of town, or killed when his wife shows interest in him again.
S6.E32 ∙ Jonah
A ranch hand who saves Hoss's life is offered a job on the Ponderosa, despite a rumor that he's a jinx, a 'jonah.'
S6.E33 ∙ The Spotlight
The ladies on the Entertainment Committee want something a bit different for the town's anniversary celebration. They want a play or maybe Shakespeare. It's voted that Ben has the connections to find just the act the ladies had all ordered.
S6.E34 ∙ Patchwork Man
Hoss meets 'Patch' while doing some menial labor in a deserted town. He invites him to work at the Ponderosa. Hoss soon learns the truth about his past and decides to help him if he'll let him.
S7.E1 ∙ The Debt
Wiley Kane comes to the Ponderosa, along with his sister Annie, offering to work to pay back the debt he feels they owe the Cartwrights from when their father Sam swindled them. Joe tries to teach Annie to read, but Wiley objects to this out of pride. Later Wiley and Annie learn that their father, whom they assumed was dead, is actually locked up in the Virginia City jail.
S7.E2 ∙ The Dilemma
Several Virginia City citizens appoint Ben as a temporary circuit judge. He soon faces a major test when the bank is robbed clean, and an old safe-cracker confesses to the crime - but refuses to tell where he hid the money unless Ben lets him go free.
S7.E3 ∙ The Brass Box
Don Jose Ortega claims to have a brass box full of Spanish land grants, giving him ownership over most of the area around Virginia City, including the Ponderosa. Although Jose is reluctant to pursue his claim, his nephew, bitter over the loss of land in the Mexican War, would like to claim it back. Making things worse, many others living in the area are determined not to lose their land and will resort to any means to stop the Ortegas' claim.
S7.E4 ∙ The Other Son
Clint Watson and his two sons are hired by Ben Cartwright to deliver nitroglycerin to Virginia City. The journey entails hardship, recrimination and tragedy.
S7.E5 ∙ The Lonely Runner
A judge awards itinerant horse breeder Jim Acton's beloved mare to rancher Sam Whipple. Jim tries to buy her back, but Whipple refuses his offer, after which a fight ensues and Jim kills Whipple in self-defense. The Cartwrights want to bring Jim in to make sure he receives a fair trial, but an ambitious and overzealous deputy doesn't care how he brings him in.
S7.E6 ∙ Devil on Her Shoulder
The Cartwrights try to help a religious group that is passing through the Ponderosa, but incur the wrath of the clan's leaders when they come to the defense of one of their members, a young woman whom they accuse of being a witch.
S7.E7 ∙ Found Child
Hoss finds a stagecoach whose passengers have been murdered, except for a little girl who is in a catatonic state due to shock. The Cartwrights take the girl in, hoping to find her relatives, but Hoss is becoming so attached to her he is reluctant to see her go. An uncle of hers is located and arrives in Virginia City, but he has other reasons for being there besides to claim the child.
S7.E8 ∙ The Meredith Smith
After falling off a wagon, a dying friend asks Ben to make sure his large estate is given to a relative since he didn't have a will. After posting an ad in a newspaper, several people come forward to claim it.
S7.E9 ∙ Mighty Is the Word
The Cartwrights are fully aware that Virginia City's new minister is a former gunfighter. But when one of the Ponderosa's ranch hands recognizes him as the man who killed his twin brother, he tries to goad him into a duel.
S7.E10 ∙ The Strange One
While hunting cougar, Joe and Hoss find a young woman unconscious and bring her to the Ponderosa. The girl was abandoned in the wilderness by the wagon train she was traveling with because she is clairvoyant and sees bad events before they happen, and they thus think she is a witch. While recuperating, she predicts a future misfortune for Little Joe.
S7.E11 ∙ The Reluctant Rebel
Hoss catches young Billy Penn working with rustlers, but because Billy stops another member of the gang from shooting him, he doesn't tell the boy's father. Billy is embarrassed and bored by his father's hog farm and yearns for a better and more exciting life. But it won't be so easy breaking away from the rustling gang either.
S7.E12 ∙ Five Sundowns to Sunup
Ben is appointed temporary sheriff after Sheriff Coffee is injured while bringing in one of the Lassiter boys, who has been sentenced to hang. Elizabeth Lassiter, bitter ever since the death of her husband and loss of her ranch, has turned her sons and her foreman into outlaws, and is now threatening to kidnap one Virginia City resident a day and kill them unless her son is freed. Little Joe becomes the third one taken hostage.
S7.E13 ∙ A Natural Wizard
Hoss brings young Skeeter Dexter to live at the Ponderosa after his brutal stepfather leaves the area. Skeeter, a boy with a natural affinity for animals, has had no luck with his home life: his mother is bitter and destitute and has blamed him ever since his father abandoned her.
S7.E14 ∙ All Ye His Saints
Little Michael Thorpe's father is accidentally shot and gravely injured. Believing that only God can save his father, and told by his Indian ranch hand that God lives on a mountain, Michael wanders off onto that mountain, and finds an old hermit who he thus thinks is God.
S7.E15 ∙ The Dublin Lad
Joe is a member of the jury which convicts Terrence O'Toole of murder. O'Toole is sentenced to hang. But despite his own vote, Joe is plagued by doubts about the man's guilt.
S7.E16 ∙ To Kill a Buffalo
Hoss finds a young Indian who's been left to die by his tribe because he is lame. He is brought to the Ponderosa, where the doctor is able to heal his leg so he can walk again. Hoss tries to teach him to overcome his hostility to the white man as well.
S7.E17 ∙ Ride the Wind: Part 1
The Pony Express comes to Virginia City and Little Joe decides to join. Soon Indians react to express riders invading their lands.
S7.E18 ∙ Ride the Wind: Part 2
If the Pony Express is to survive, the growing Indian problem must be addressed. When things get out of hand, it is Ben Cartwright who steps in to save the life of the Indian chief's son and secure a peace treaty.
S7.E19 ∙ Destiny's Child
Ben tries to find jobs for two strangers who helped him when his wagon was bogged down in the mud. Trouble ensues when one of the strangers dies, leaving the other one who is mentally disabled, alone.
S7.E20 ∙ Peace Officer
A band of rowdy young punks accidentally kills a deputy in a barroom brawl. With Sheriff Coffee out of town, the mayor sends for legendary peace officer Wes Dunn to take his place temporarily and track down the gang. But it soon becomes apparent that Dunn is totally ruthless and brutal in the methods he uses to catch them.
S7.E21 ∙ The Code
A gunfighter comes to Virginia City. Little Joe allows his pride to draw him into a challenge. Ben forbids him to participate. Little Joe must decide to obey his father or obey the "code of the West."
S7.E22 ∙ Three Brides for Hoss
An ordinary day on the Ponderosa turns all but ordinary when three mail-order brides arrive claiming they're engaged to Hoss.
S7.E23 ∙ The Emperor Norton
Ben's old friend Joshua Norton is a brilliant inventor who has ideas for a new type of bridge. He is also an eccentric who fancies himself as, and dresses as, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico. When Norton encourages Chinese mine workers to stand up for their rights and higher wages, the mine owner petitions to have him committed, and Ben tries to defend him.
S7.E24 ∙ Her Brother's Keeper
Claire Armory comes to Virginia City to live with her brother Carl, an invalid neighbor of the Cartwrights. Carl encourages Claire to see Ben, and soon Claire and Ben fall in love with each other. But Carl is a manipulative man who uses his condition in order to get Claire to do what he wants, and tries to use her now to get money from Ben. Claire struggles with whether or not to break free from her brother and marry Ben.
S7.E25 ∙ The Trouble with Jamie
Ben's cousin Matthew visits the Ponderosa, along with his ward Elizabeth and his son Jamie. Jamie is a spoiled and arrogant brat who constantly insults both his father and the Cartwrights. When Matthew decides to leave Jamie with the Cartwrights while he and Elizabeth visit San Francisco, Ben has his work cut out for him in teaching the young man a lesson in behavior.
S7.E26 ∙ Shining in Spain
Little Joe falls for beautiful young Wendy Daniels, who has arrived in Virginia City to wait for her father, who plans to start a stage and freight line there. Wendy has nothing but the highest praise for her father, but the town banker receives information that Daniels has not told Wendy the truth about his financial situation, a fact which could deeply disappoint the girl.
S7.E27 ∙ The Genius
Against Ben's better judgment, Hoss hires drunken Will Smith as a ranch hand on the Ponderosa, hoping to straighten him out. It doesn't work out; he is soon fired for drinking on the job. Then Hoss discovers that Smith is actually a famous poet, William Warlock Evans. He determines to help turn Evans around to his former self.
S7.E28 ∙ The Unwritten Commandment
Young Andy Walker wants to be a singer, and a local saloon hostess is anxious to train him. But Andy's father won't hear of it and doesn't want his son to be anything but a farmer like him.
S7.E29 ∙ Big Shadow on the Land
A group of immigrant winegrowers sets up business on the Ponderosa.
S7.E30 ∙ The Fighters
Hoss feels guilty about ending a boxer's career and vows never to fight again. However, his promise is put to the test when Joe is badly beaten.
S7.E31 ∙ Home from the Sea
Adam's old shipmate plots to rob the Cartwrights of gold.
S7.E32 ∙ The Last Mission
Ben joins an old Army buddy on a mission to make peace with the Indians. But Hoss, who is riding along with them, becomes suspicious that Colonel Jarrell is not telling them his real plans.
S7.E33 ∙ A Dollar's Worth of Trouble
Hoss and Little Joe fall victim to a con, involving a gypsy, a beautiful blonde, and a nearsighted gunfighter coming to town.
S8.E1 ∙ Something Hurt, Something Wild
Little Joe is accused of assaulting Laurie Ferguson.
S8.E2 ∙ Horse of a Different Hue
Colonel Robert Fairchild is an old friend of the Cartwright clan and a member of a gang of con artists out to swindle the Cartwrights in a crooked horse race.
S8.E3 ∙ A Time to Step Down
Angered that his longtime friend, Ben Cartwright, would ask him to retire into easier work after 50 years of wrangling, aging ranch-hand Dan Tolliver falls in with two disgruntled drifters who plan to rob the Ponderosa payroll.
S8.E4 ∙ The Pursued: Part 1
The Cartwrights come to the aid of a Mormon rancher being persecuted for his beliefs.
S8.E5 ∙ The Pursued: Part 2
Mormon rancher Heber Clauson is forced out of town by bigots with his two wives -- one of whom needs medical attention.
S8.E6 ∙ To Bloom for Thee
Hoss falls for a cold, indifferent woman with a shady past.
S8.E7 ∙ Credit for a Kill
When it's unclear which of their two bullets, fired simultaneously, brought down a wanted horse thief, Little Joe allows his friend, rancher Morgan Tanner, to take the credit and claim the much needed reward money. But when the outlaw's brothers come to town for his body and revenge, Joe must make a difficult decision that will save his friend, but may destroy their friendship.
S8.E8 ∙ Four Sisters from Boston
Four sisters come from Boston to try to prevent a property left to them by their uncle from being auctioned due to back taxes. They arrive the day of the sale but are short the full amount due. When Ben steps in and pays off all that is due, one of the sisters wonders what's Ben's motive. But are her suspicions aimed in the wrong direction?
S8.E9 ∙ Old Charlie
Charlie is well liked by everyone. He's always full of stories and plans for making money. One day, a man with a reward on his head tries to rob his livery stable and is accidentally killed by his own knife. When the man's family comes to town looking for revenge, Hoss has to try to let everyone know who was actually in that knife fight before Old Charlie gives up his life for the reward.
S8.E10 ∙ Ballad of the Ponderosa
A balladeer blames Ben for the hanging of his father.
S8.E11 ∙ The Oath
Mean Big Charlie Monahan makes his son promise to kill Ben Cartwright after Ben's testimony sends Big Charlie to the gallows for the murder of an old prospector.
S8.E12 ∙ A Real Nice, Friendly Little Town
Special Deputy Hoss goes in search of the gunman who shot Little Joe, tangling with testy townsfolk, two crafty brothers, and their mother, who is more interested in protecting her sons than seeing justice done.
S8.E13 ∙ The Bridegroom
Maggie Dowling's father's indifferent insults about her appearance, and his embarrassing attempts at matchmaking, drive her to despair; but Little Joe intervenes to help her prod widower, Jared Wilson to declare his affections for her.
S8.E14 ∙ Tommy
The Cartwrights protect a deaf-mute boy and his mother from his outlaw stepfather.
S8.E15 ∙ A Christmas Story
A singer returns to Virginia City for Christmas along with his scheming uncle.
S8.E16 ∙ Ponderosa Explosion
Brothers Hoss and Little Joe are sweet-talked by a pair of con men into "investing" in a pair of "exotic" animals who are indeed prolific--they're common rabbits.
S8.E17 ∙ Justice
Joe sets out to avenge the death of his fiancée at the hands of a shy bank clerk who was infatuated with her.
S8.E18 ∙ A Bride for Buford
Hoss must find out if a renowned saloon girl's sudden interest in a miner is for love or his newfound wealth.
S8.E19 ∙ Black Friday
Little Joe puts his life on the line to help sick friend-turned-gunfighter, Steven Friday, who is holed up in a second-story hotel room and waiting a challenge from a gunman, hired by the father of one of Friday's victims to avenge his son's death on the anniversary of the killing - Friday the 13th.
S8.E20 ∙ The Unseen Wound
Ben visits his old friend Paul Rowan, the sheriff of Concho. His wife Katherine says he has been complaining of headaches for six months now. When he starts shooting innocent people he swore to protect, the whole town has to decide how best to keep from killing their good friend.
S8.E21 ∙ Journey to Terror
Initially suspected as being part of the bank-robbing Hollister gang while on his way to visit Tom and Ellie Blackwell's drought-stricken ranch, Little Joe is soon held hostage and his friends terrorized by the real desperadoes on the run to Mexico with a wounded man.
S8.E22 ∙ Amigo
While riding posse after a band of vicious marauders led by a renegade ex-cavalry officer, Ben Cartwright captures a wounded comanchero and tries to protect him from the angry ranchers who want to lynch him, his own gang who wants the money he was carrying for them and an angry Little Joe who lost a friend when his ranch was raided.
S8.E23 ∙ A Woman in the House
Ben has a problem on his hands when the girl he protected from her alcoholic husband mistakes gratitude for love.
S8.E24 ∙ Judgement at Red Creek
A marshal's brother is shot by two men who held up the stage depot. Little Joe joins the posse who follows the trail left by those men. They come upon two men who say they didn't do it but since his brother may die, the marshal seems to have other ideas.
S8.E25 ∙ Joe Cartwright, Detective
After Joe gets hooked on detective novels, he becomes suspicious of two strangers in town. He enlists Hoss' help to convince the deputy and Ben that they're really robbers before it's too late.
S8.E26 ∙ Dark Enough to See the Stars
Ben begins to suspect that the shy young drifter he hired as a ranch hand may be running from the law.
S8.E27 ∙ The Deed and the Dilemma
A bigot complicates Ben's efforts to help an immigrant wine-growing family.
S8.E28 ∙ The Prince
Russian siblings Count Alexis and Countess Elena visit the Ponderosa where a fugitive Russian prince, once a beau to Elena, now leads an outlaw gang intent on the theft of Elena's jewels.
S8.E29 ∙ A Man Without Land
Matt Jeffers is about to lose his land. Back taxes, no water and owes his foreman wages. When his foreman finds water on the land he hatches a scheme to buy the land and stick Little Joe with all the blame.
S8.E30 ∙ Napoleon's Children
A gunslinger who believes he's Napoleon leads an army to terrorize Virginia City.
S8.E31 ∙ The Wormwood Cup
A pretty woman arrives by stage and places this Notice up: "I will pay $1000.00 to the man who kills Joe Cartwright in a fair fight." When he finds out the story behind it, Joe tries to convince her she is wrong. Failing that, someone has already picked up the gauntlet to see Joe Cartwright dead.
S8.E32 ∙ Clarissa
The Cartwrights get more than they bargained for when they welcome snobbish and overbearing Eastern cousin Clarissa.
S8.E33 ∙ Maestro Hoss
A phony fortuneteller tells Hoss that he's a master violinist.
S8.E34 ∙ The Greedy Ones
The Cartwrights fear they may have to fend off a gold-rush when word spreads that an old prospector struck it rich on Ponderosa land.
S9.E1 ∙ Second Chance
Joe and Hoss are out when they are attacked by Indians, Joe hit with an arrow. With Joe needing medical attention, they come across a small wagon train of misfits, heading East. Their only doctor, dying and wanting to see his grandchildren before he dies, helps Little Joe.
S9.E2 ∙ Sense of Duty
Ben's militia troop is reactivated when the Paiute Indian Wabuska is captured and needs to be transported to the nearest fort. The Indians consider him to be a god which makes him very important to their people. When several of the soldiers are killed, the tribal chief sees for himself what they have been dying for.
S9.E3 ∙ The Conquistadores
Gold-panning immigrants are run off their claim. In need of money for the survival of their village, they kidnap Joe and hold him for ransom but their heart just isn't in it.
S9.E4 ∙ Judgment at Olympus
Candy is arrested for an outstanding warrant in Olympus for killing A.Z. Wheelock's son. As Hoss investigates, he finds someone else who may have a motive for putting his son out of the way.
S9.E5 ∙ Night of Reckoning
Donnie Buckler has been shot getting away from a holdup. He buries a portion and then is found by Little Joe. They go to the Ponderosa and fetch the doc but by the time he arrives the Cartwrights have been seized by the rest of the gang. When Donnie doesn't give up the loot's location, the boss decides to use some different leverage - an old girlfriend he hadn't seen in about a year.
S9.E6 ∙ False Witness
Joe, Hoss and Candy drive a herd to Sand Dust. When they go into town to collect their wages, the buyer is robbed and killed with four witnesses to both crimes. When they are put up in the hotel under protective custody, the Slater gang makes several attempts to finish them all off so they can't testify against the one brother they managed to capture.
S9.E7 ∙ The Gentle Ones
When their parents died, Mark's older brother raised him at times like he was breaking a horse. Partly because he was just a kid himself, and others because he didn't know any better. But Mark never doubted his brother's love but he has to show a new girl in town or die trying.
S9.E8 ∙ Desperate Passage
The Cartwrights and Candy come across a town deserted following an Indian attack. The sole survivor is a man locked up in the jail until a woman, claiming to have escaped the attack, turns up.
S9.E9 ∙ The Sure Thing
Ben Cartwright (Lorne Greene) buys a teen-age girl's stallion from her father, Burt Loughlin (Tom Tully), with the intention of letting the girl, Trudy Loughlin (Kim Darby), ride the horse in a high-stakes race, but his plans are upset when the father falls in with Harper (William Bryant), a crooked gambler.
S9.E10 ∙ Showdown at Tahoe
When a gang of robbers decides to escape via Ben Cartwright's steam boat, taking Candy hostage, it's Ben, Hoss and Joe to the rescue.
S9.E11 ∙ Six Black Horses
An old friend of Ben Cartwright comes to town to liven things up.
S9.E12 ∙ Check Rein
The Cartwrights become unwitting pawns in a battle between wealthy rancher Gabriel Bingham and his penniless nephew Jayce Fredericks over the ownership of the valuable black horse Jayce needs to restart his herd and reclaim his ranch.
S9.E13 ∙ Justice Deferred
Not long after bad-tempered Frank Scott is hanged for murdering a young woman in a dark Virginia City alley, witness for the prosecution, Hoss Cartwright, sees a man in a Carson City saloon who looks just like Frank, hears him whistling the same strange tune the killer whistled that fateful night, and begins to fear that his testimony has sent the wrong man to the gallows.
S9.E14 ∙ The Gold Detector
Professor MacNultey is the inventor of a "Willy Wonka like" machine, which he sells to Hoss claiming it has the ability to detect gold. However, all it can really detect is the lie behind the 'gold detection' theory.
S9.E15 ∙ The Trackers
The Virginia City bank is robbed and a clerk killed. Cully Maco, just released from prison, is the only suspect. When the posse catches up to him, he claims he didn't know about the latest incident anymore than he knew who sent him away to prison for 5 years. So who did kill and steal $161,000?
S9.E16 ∙ A Girl Named George
Attorney Cato Troxell is defending his brother against a murder charge. When he's found guilty, Cato threatens the judge in front of witnesses. When the judge is killed in his own barn, Cato is naturally brought up on charges. But several days before, a photographer was hired to take a group photo of the Ponderosa and some hands from several surrounding ranches. But how did Cato get in the picture? Everyone swears he wasn't there.
S9.E17 ∙ The Thirteenth Man
The Cattlemen's Association hires a range detective to put an end to the cattle-rustling affecting all in their area. What they soon learn is that he has a shady past which includes killings with never any witnesses.
S9.E18 ∙ The Burning Sky
When a new employee on the Ponderosa brings his Native American wife, a racist neighbor goes out of his way to stir up trouble against them and the Cartwrights.
S9.E19 ∙ The Price of Salt
The salt bed is now exhausted and the only supply left is in a warehouse and controlled by its new owner. Since everyone needs the salt and they need it now or their cattle will die, the biggest buyer tries to set the price. When a price is reached, they are all up in arms. But the monetary price is nothing to what is finally paid.
S9.E20 ∙ Blood Tie
Ben Cartwright finds himself in a fight for his life when he acts too late on his suspicion that there is more than meets the eye to an amiable, young drifter that Little Joe brought home to the Ponderosa.
S9.E21 ∙ The Crime of Johnny Mule
With Hoss being the lone hold-out during the murder trial of Johnny Mule, he will only have a short time to gather evidence before a new trial is set. But when Johnny breaks out of jail, things look bad.
S9.E22 ∙ The Late Ben Cartwright
When an assassin's bullet strikes him down on the Ponderosa, Ben Cartwright decides to stay "dead" until he can find out who's behind the failed attempt...and why.
S9.E23 ∙ Star Crossed
Candy falls in love with a new arrival but she is being pursued by a blackmailer. When the blackmail plot is revealed, Candy seeks help from the Cartwrights but he returns to the lodging house of his future bride to find her mortally shot.
S9.E24 ∙ Trouble Town
Candy finally leaves the Ponderosa and the Cartwright family to marry his one-time fiancé, Lila, in River Bend. His life changes radically, however, when he arrives in the town and finds himself arrested and thrown in jail for something he didn't do. Getting word of his plight, the Cartwrights travel to River Bend, only to discover that the town is controlled by a murderous, corrupt sheriff and his equally crooked deputy.
S9.E25 ∙ Commitment at Angelus
While in the nearby town of Angelus to treat Candy's injured hand, Little Joe offers horse-wrangling work to an out-of-work miner friend, Steve Regan. But, when a rearing horse accidentally kills Steve, Little Joe and Candy stay to help the grieving widow and instead find themselves embroiled in a dangerous mine strike, resented by the angry Angelus miners, and discovering that there may be real cause to doubt the mine's safety...and their own.
S9.E26 ∙ A Dream to Dream
Hoss gets to play 'Pa' to two children while he visits their home to buy horses from the children's father who spends more time in the saloon than he does with his wife and children.
S9.E27 ∙ In Defense of Honor
Longtime hand 'adopted' into the Cartwright family as a baby decides to return to the Indian tribe to which he was born. Indian haters stir up trouble that puts the new treaty in jeopardy.
S9.E28 ∙ To Die in Darkness
Candy and Ben are imprisoned in a mine for a month by a man set on revenge. Years before, the man was wrongly incarcerated by the testimony of Ben Cartwright.
S9.E29 ∙ The Bottle Fighter
Hoss needs a lawyer but the only one available is an alcoholic. It's up to the Cartwrights and Candy to keep him sober until the trial.
S9.E30 ∙ The Arrival of Eddie
After Eddie returns to town and learns Hoss accidentally shot his father, it's up to Hoss to gain Eddie's forgiveness and make amends, and at the same time foil a blackmail plot.
S9.E31 ∙ The Stronghold
Joe is in charge of selling a herd in Dry Wells to the Farrell brothers but he is swindled out of the cashier's check. Joe returns with Candy and Dude to take back what is his.
S9.E32 ∙ Pride of a Man
Joe steps in as teacher when his school-mistress girlfriend Abby falls from a horse. Joe meets his match when he undertakes to teach the two sons of a hog farmer.
S9.E33 ∙ A Severe Case of Matrimony
When Spanish Gypsies arrive on the Cartwright ranch things get a lot more exciting for Ben, Hoss and Joe as they find themselves the subject of Rosalita's advances.
S9.E34 ∙ Stage Door Johnnies
Joe and Hoss waste time and money chasing after a songstress and her lap dog, especially the latter.
S10.E1 ∙ Different Pines, Same Wind
Little Joe devises a mission to claim some government land that would impede deforestation by a timber baron. He encounters a cantankerous old lady living on the land and Joe finds she is reluctant to file a claim.
S10.E2 ∙ Child
While visiting a remote town to await the arrival of Ben, Little Joe and Candy, Hoss is wrongly arrested for the murder and robbery of a hermit miner. When a lynch mob starts to gather, cowboy Child Barnett breaks Hoss out of jail. Both are chased by a posse whose interest is not justice, but the retrieval of the money that the miner was thought to have stashed away.
S10.E3 ∙ Salute to Yesterday
Candy relives his past when he and the Cartwrights help a Cavalry unit that is pinned down by bandits. In that Cavalry unit is Candy's ex-wife, who he still has feelings for. Her new husband is the Captain of the unit.
S10.E4 ∙ The Real People of Muddy Creek
Only a few brave souls remain in Muddy Creek to help Ben and Little Joe defend a town jail and its occupant from the Harper outlaw gang.
S10.E5 ∙ The Passing of a King
Ben sells a prize bull to an old friend, whose unscrupulous son has taken charge of the ranch from his father. The son double-crosses Ben over the agreed price of the bull, only offering to pay well below the selling price. Upset over the deal, Ben stays in town to seek proper compensation.
S10.E6 ∙ The Last Vote
Hoss and Little Joe turn two old friends against each other and the town upside down when they become competing campaign managers in Virginia City's mayoral race.
S10.E7 ∙ Catch as Catch Can
While in small town Tin Bucket to sell Ponderosa cowhides, Candy is accused of cheating in a card game and the Cartwrights are dogged by a mysterious rumor that claims they have fallen on hard times and are desperate for money.
S10.E8 ∙ Little Girl Lost
Ben receives a "package" shipped via Wells Fargo Express. It is a little girl. She is the daughter of a cousin of Ben. The Cartwrights soon find she is a firebrand who doesn't want to stay on the Ponderosa.
S10.E9 ∙ The Survivors
A white woman, abducted by the Paiutes and thought to be dead, is brought back to Virginia City and reunited with her husband. When it is found she has an Indian baby with a Paiute chief, she is outcast by the towns people and her husband alike. Only the Cartwrights remain her friends.
S10.E10 ∙ Sound of Drums
Recent U.S. citizen and vintner, Georgio Rossi, riles his neighbors and risks government wrath when he allows an Indian family to break treaty and camp on his land; meanwhile, Candy woos pretty Regina Rossi, stirring up some trouble of his own when she and her mother try to take over the smitten ranch hand's life...and Hop Sing's kitchen.
S10.E11 ∙ Queen High
Candy and Little Joe are in a poker game and Candy (with Joe's help) wins 40% of an old stamp mill.
S10.E12 ∙ Yonder Man
Ben's friend Beaudry visits the Ponderosa, meets Noreen, a beautiful girl at the Virginia City saloon, gets into a roust, ends up in jail but Ben gets the instigators to own up and pay for the damages, so he is free. He asks Ben Cartwright for help starting a cattle ranch, without revealing his rustling and political crimes. Deputy Stryker comes to Virginia City from Montana with a warrant looking for Beaudry.
S10.E13 ∙ Mark of Guilt
A town bully humiliates Hop Sing by cutting off his ponytail. Joe goes to deal with the bully. Later the bully ends up dead and Joe is charged with the murder. Hop Sing clears Joe of the murder charges by using an ancient Chinese method for identifying a person's finger prints.
S10.E14 ∙ A World Full of Cannibals
At an old friend's request, Ben agrees to shelter a witness in a government case. He's a witness to several felonies and they've tried to kill him several times already. When he asks to see his wife, he puts them all in danger since she is being watched.
S10.E15 ∙ Sweet Annie Laurie
A beautiful young woman running from a sinister gunman brings danger to the Ponderosa when she hides in Hoss' wagon while he's in Virginia City getting supplies.
S10.E16 ∙ My Friend, My Enemy
To prove Candy's innocence when he is accused of murder, Little Joe and Hoss must track down the only eye-witness to the incident... the Paiute Indian who was trying to steal Candy's horse.
S10.E17 ∙ Mrs. Wharton and the Lesser Breeds
A stubborn British widow hires Candy as an escort, then foils his attempts to retrieve her valuables from thieves.
S10.E18 ∙ Erin
Hoss is rescued from a band of hungry Paiutes rustling Ponderosa cattle after a hard winter by Erin O'Donnell, an Irish woman who was raised by the Sioux and revered by the tribes as a medicine woman and mystic.
S10.E19 ∙ Company of Forgotten Men
Candy is kidnapped by retired Army Sergeant Mike Russell and his band of fellow former soldiers when he uncovers their plan to blast their way into the Carson City Mint to steal the pension they believe they deserve, but never received, from their long years of Army service.
S10.E20 ∙ The Clarion
Ben Cartwright's effort to help friend Ruth Manning defend her ownership of nearby Gunlock's town newspaper, The Clarion, earns him the wrath of a corrupt, powerful judge who wants The Clarion for himself and will do anything to get it.
S10.E21 ∙ The Lady and the Mountain Lion
Ben and the other ranchers are having trouble with a mountain lion killing cattle. Ben and Roy go in hunt of the lion because Hoss and Joe think they both are sparking the magician's daughter. It's causing rivalry and confusion, unaware they're sparking twins.
S10.E22 ∙ Five Candles
Ben is researching county records in the basement of the court house when a mine below collapses. Ben is trapped with a man accused of murder, the chief witness against him, and two others. The accused man insists he's innocent.
S10.E23 ∙ The Wish
Hoss takes two months of leave. He sees a little black boy steal a candle. He learns the boy wants the candle to make a wish. As he gets to know the boy and his family, he decides to try to help the family.
S10.E24 ∙ The Deserter
A seasoned Army sergeant escapes from the stockade accused of cowardice in the face of the enemy. A man helps him escape and is killed; the sergeant is shot. Candy stumbles on him and his squaw wife; he believes him and decides to help, but an Army search party isn't far behind.
S10.E25 ∙ Emily
Little Joe catches a glimpse in town of an old love, not knowing she's now a married woman--and willing to lie Joe into a hangman's noose if he doesn't give her what she wants.
S10.E26 ∙ The Running Man
Candy and Little Joe grapple with a land baron who rules the town of Butlerville. Calvin Butler and his men have been burning out homesteaders - now murder has been added to their list of crimes.
S10.E27 ∙ The Unwanted
An old friend of Ben's, a U.S. Marshal recently retired, is still trying to fix loose ends at the expense of his relationship with his teenage daughter.
S10.E28 ∙ Speak No Evil
Coley Claybourne is unwanted in Virginia City. He announces that his father has died. Then he shows a pouch full of gold that he and his father had discovered. Ben and two other executors must decide what to do with Coley and the mine.
S10.E29 ∙ The Fence
Ben and Hoss are brought under siege with their friend, Sam Masters, and his daughter, Ellen, in an isolated miner's cabin by a former Union Army officer and his men who claim that Sam is really Confederate prisoner of war camp Commander Thomas Andrews who is guilty of Civil War crimes and on the run.
S10.E30 ∙ A Ride in the Sun
Hoss and Little Joe chase a team of con-artists into the desert. There is not enough water for both to continue. Joe pursues while Hoss goes for help.
S11.E1 ∙ Another Windmill to Go
An eccentric Englishman arrives at the Ponderosa, his mode of transportation a land-rowing boat. His aim, as the Cartwrights learn, is to expose and challenge Nevada's silly, obscure laws.
S11.E2 ∙ The Witness
A young woman named Jenny Winters claims to have witnessed a stagecoach robbery which involves one man being killed. After she identifies the culprits as the Logan gang, Ben allows Jenny to stay in protective custody at the Ponderosa. However, the Cartwrights soon learn Jenny is not a very trustworthy person.
S11.E3 ∙ The Silence at Stillwater
Candy is accused of a string of serious crimes, including murder, robbery and arson in Stillwater, and when the Cartwrights come to his defense, the sheriff refuses to cooperate. Even worse: A young boy claims he positively saw the Ponderosa foreman commit those crimes. The Cartwrights work with the boy to jog his memory before an innocent Candy is convicted and sentenced to hang.
S11.E4 ∙ A Lawman's Lot Is Not a Happy One
When Sheriff Roy Coffee and Ben are subpoenaed to testify in a land-sharking trial in San Francisco, Hoss is appointed the acting sheriff of Virginia City. Hoss soon finds plenty of trouble on his hands, namely dealing with reluctant bridegroom Hiram Peabody, who wants to get arrested so as to avoid an impending marriage to an undesirable woman (who has been his pen pal and has never met in person). He also must deal with a smooth-talking salesman who plans to sell shares in a planned resort in Virginia City.
S11.E5 ∙ Anatomy of a Lynching
Will Griner is acquitted of a murder after two key witnesses disappeared before the trial. When a bloodthirsty lynch mob comes after him, thinking him to have silenced the witnesses, Griner goes to the Cartwrights for help.
S11.E6 ∙ To Stop a War
Joe's old friend, Dan Logan, is hired as a range detective to stop a cattle rustling outbreak. While the usual problems arise, Logan's job is jeopardized when a ruthless rancher shoots a suspected rustler in the back and then pins the blame on Logan.
S11.E7 ∙ The Medal
Ben offers moral support to Medal of Honor recipient Matthew Rush when he comes down on his luck. But that's the least of Matthew's problems, for he must also contend with the embittered Nagel clan, who has been transplanted from Georgia after they lost their house and land to Yankees. When the Nagels' daughter, Laurie, falls in love with Matthew, she risks much more than just estrangement from her family and, in the process, the Cartwrights become involved.
S11.E8 ∙ The Stalker
After Candy shoots and kills armed robber James Campbell in self-defense, he learns that he left behind his widow, Lisa, and young son - and a farm to operate. A remorseful Candy decides to help the young woman out, not knowing that Lisa plans to hire a hit-man to kill the Ponderosa's foreman in revenge. However, Lisa learns that Candy has all the qualities that her husband never had and changes her mind, but then they must work together to stop the hit-man from completing his mission.
S11.E9 ∙ Meena
Joe and Candy compete for the attention of pretty Miss Meena Calhoun, who has come to Lynchville alone, leaving her irascible gold-panning father, Luke, at their cabin. While pursuing the young lass, they run into the Potter brothers, a trio of gold-claim jumpers who are convinced that Joe and Candy have more than love on their minds.
S11.E10 ∙ A Darker Shadow
Joe's friend Wade Turner, a storekeeper who is engaged and has been offered a promotion at work, tries to deal with a devastating brain tumor that leaves him with a paralyzing sensitivity to bright light and will soon render him blind. Turner lets his pride get in the way and decides to put off both his marriage and a surgery that could save his sight, but his attitude could be far more costly when a co-worker tries to rob him in a remote area.
S11.E11 ∙ Dead Wrong
During a long ride back to the Ponderosa, thirsty Hoss and Candy stop at the Sunville saloon where Salty Hubbard, known for his tall tales and practical jokes, tells his cronies that Hoss is the notorious bank robber, Big Jack. The town folk initially scoff at Salty's claim but a series of unfortunate events gives the prevarication a ring of truth and there is talk of a hanging. When a contrite Salty admits to Hoss that he lied to impress his friends, Candy thinks of a way to save both Salty's pride and Hoss' life but, as with most best-laid plans, this one goes awry when the real Big Jack comes to town.
S11.E12 ∙ Old Friends
Two men whom Ben once worked with during a gold claim arrive in Virigina City ... on opposite sides of the law. Naturally, Ben is caught in the middle.
S11.E13 ∙ Abner Willoughby's Return
While returning home from a horse-selling trip, Joe is verbally ambushed by seafarer Abner Willoughby, who has returned to Nevada to find a stash of gold he hid 17 years earlier in Glory Hole.
S11.E14 ∙ It's a Small World
Circus midget and new widower George Marshall struggles to deal with the prejudice of Mr. Flint, the town's banker, when he refuses to hire him despite Ben's recommendation.
S11.E15 ∙ Danger Road
Ben needs to transport three large timber beams but the local freight company won't do it. When a new independent freight hauler is approached for the job, Ben recognizes "Gunny" O'Riley, a former soldier in the Mexican-American War, but on the opposite side. Ben finally puts his differences aside and helps Gunny win a lucrative government contract.
S11.E16 ∙ The Big Jackpot
Candy quits his job at the Ponderosa after inheriting a fortune from an old Indian friend. He takes a job as vice president of a land development and promotion firm, unaware that the president is defrauding customers by selling barren desert land in lieu of the fertile farmland he promised them. Candy soon finds out and recruits the Cartwrights to expose the fraud.
S11.E17 ∙ The Trouble with Amy
Ben comes to the aid of Amy Wilder, an eccentric old woman and animal hoarder, when a scheming neighbor wants her declared incompetent so he can purchase her home and property.
S11.E18 ∙ The Lady and the Mark
Former Ponderosa ranch hand Chris Keller seeks refuge at his old workplace after con artists stalk him for his $67,000 fortune. While at the Ponderosa, he meets a beautiful young woman who has plans of her own for the money.
S11.E19 ∙ Is There Any Man Here?
The daughter of Ben's friend Harry Collier, Jennifer, develops a huge crush for the Cartwright patriarch. Ben notes that Jennifer is the same age as oldest son (and long-since departed Adam), but that doesn't matter. It soon does matter when Jennifer's ex-fiancé, a wealthy banker from San Francisco, shows up demanding to take her back - or else it will be the end of the Ponderosa.
S11.E20 ∙ The Law and Billy Burgess
A temporary schoolhouse is opened on the Ponderosa, and one of the students is an angry teen-aged boy named Billy Burgess. After a difficult day at school, Billy angrily wishes that his teacher would die. Sure enough, the teacher is found murdered and Billy is fingered as the suspect. Ben, who has been working to counsel the teen and get at the root of his anger, knows the lad is innocent and comes to his aid - even if Billy insists that he killed his teacher.
S11.E21 ∙ Long Way to Ogden
A ruthless meat packer named Emmett Whitney schemes to monopolize the local cattle industry by buying the rail line that is used to transport the cattle to market, then force the cattle farmers to sell at deeply reduced prices. Ben, championing the smaller farmers and knowing that Whitney could drive many of the Cartwrights' friends out of business, devises a plan to drive Whitney out - even if it means he will lose the Ponderosa if his plan fails.
S11.E22 ∙ Return Engagement
Eleven years after Lotta Crabtree's last stop in Virginia City caused trouble for a young Joe Cartwright, actress Lotta Crabtree's daughter returns for another engagement in the Nevada town. This time, it's Hoss who finds himself in the thick of a murder case when he is accused of killing daughter Lotta's co-star during a performance.
S11.E23 ∙ The Gold Mine
Joe helps a young Mexican boy who has suffered from years of abuse by two sadistic slave owners who now want the lad's gold claim and will do anything to get it.
S11.E24 ∙ Decision at Los Robles
While in Los Robles, Mexico, Ben is critically wounded by the town's cruel boss, John Walker. Ben manages to shoot and kill Walker, but now his son - the splitting image of his father - is hellbent on revenge. While Joe tends to his father's care, he tries in vain to embolden the town's residents, who for years have been intimidated into submission by Walker and his cronies. Eventually, Joe's efforts pay off and the Los Robles residents mount a stand against Walker's gang.
S11.E25 ∙ Caution: Easter Bunny Crossing
In the series' only Easter-themed episode, a Quaker woman convinces Hoss to pose as the Easter bunny for the orphanage. While wearing a rabbit costume, Hoss must try to foil the efforts of a bumbling gang that is plotting to loot the Wells Fargo coach.
S11.E26 ∙ The Horse Traders
Meena Calhoun has gotten engaged to bumbling slacker Virgil Potter, who is now trying to make an honest living in the livery business. Virgil soon finds himself in a heated rivalry with Joe and Hoss, who've opened up a stable of their own.
S11.E27 ∙ What Are Pardners For?
A pair of Easterners have read tall tales about the Wild West and come to Virginia City to live out their dream - be bank robbers in the tradition of their heroes. Hoss somehow becomes involved with their adventures.
S11.E28 ∙ A Matter of Circumstance
Alone at the Ponderosa while everyone else is away on a cattle drive, Joe suffers a compound fracture in his left arm when he is kicked by a horse spooked by a severe thunderstorm. Joe fights to stay conscious and treat his wounds. When he becomes delirious, he fears that gangrene has infected his arm, leaving Joe with a difficult decision: amputate, or not amputate?
S12.E1 ∙ The Night Virginia City Died
A series of destructive fires has Virginia City residents on edge and anxious to catch the arsonist. But Deputy Clem's new love interest seems to know a lot more about the fires than what she's letting on.
S12.E2 ∙ A Matter of Faith
An orphaned rainmaker named Jamie Hunter comes to Virginia City, hoping to help relieve the drought-stricken area. When Jamie's efforts aren't immediately successful, Ben helps the lad fend off the frustrated ranchers.
S12.E3 ∙ The Weary Willies
The Cartwrights lend their support to The Weary Willies, a group of Civil War veterans who are struggling to re-enter society.
S12.E4 ∙ The Wagon
A murder suspect escapes a prison wagon. Sheriff Price Buchanan, who covets an appointment to Deputy U.S. Marshal, finds an injured Hoss. Buchanan, knowing his career is at risk if he fails his appointed duty, arrests Hoss and plans to substitute him in as his prisoner. Hoss befriends a fellow prisoner named Madge Tucker who knows Hoss was falsely arrested. Together, the two scheme to escape the wagon and Buchanan's clutches.
S12.E5 ∙ The Power of Life and Death
Ben and Joe Cartwright are part of a posse that is after Davis, who shot and killed an Army colonel. When Ben and Joe capture Davis in the desert, they are attacked by a rouge Indian tribe, and Ben is seriously wounded. While Joe crosses the desert on foot to seek medical attention (for his pa) and the posse (to take Davis into custody), Ben and Davis must set their differences aside to survive their hostile surroundings.
S12.E6 ∙ Gideon the Good
Gideon Yates, a corrupt lawman whose wife had shot her soon-to-be ex-husband in cold blood, tries to silence the murder's only witness - Little Joe Cartwright.
S12.E7 ∙ The Trouble with Trouble
Hoss unwittingly volunteers to be named sheriff of an aptly named town named Trouble. While dealing with problems that one might expect to associate with the town, he must find a way to capture the nefarious Clanton gang.
S12.E8 ∙ Thornton's Account
After Ben is seriously injured in a horse-riding accident far from home, Joe seeks help from valley settlers who are terrified of a corrupt rancher, Dawson, and his foremen. While Ben suffers from recurring nightmares of Joe being unable to help, Joe tries to persuade Ed Thornton to do the right thing.
S12.E9 ∙ The Love Child
Old-school Zach Randolph refuses to make amends with his gravely ill daughter, Etta, because her son had been born out of wedlock. Joe risks his family's friendship with the Randolphs to set the stubborn old man straight.
S12.E10 ∙ El Jefe
The Cartwrights come to the aid of Mexican farmers in the Prince River vicinity, after they were run off the land by a corrupt tycoon wanting to strip mine the area.
S12.E11 ∙ The Luck of Pepper Shannon
A reformed outlaw named Pepper Shannon comes to the Ponderosa seeking a job. Ben agrees to hire him, but has to keep both Pepper and an impressionable Jamie away from each other - a task that's easier said than done.
S12.E12 ∙ The Impostors
Joe and Hoss pose as stagecoach robbers in an effort to track down their stolen money. However, their plans are forced to change after the wife of one of the robbers shows up.
S12.E13 ∙ Honest John
Honest John, a drifter, is looking for a nest and hopes to settle on the Ponderosa through his rapport with the newly "adopted" Jamie. But John's breakthrough with the boy must be weighed against the seamier side of his character.
S12.E14 ∙ For a Young Lady
Jamie's friend Carrie Sturgis, herself an orphan, is the subject of a heated custody battle between her scheming aunt and uncle, Gifford and Vella Owens, and her gravely ill grandfather. The point of contention: the grandfather owns a gold mine ripe to be harvested, and Carrie is believed to be the heir. The Cartwrights become involved when Jamie rescues Carrie, and the Owens couple want anyone named Cartwright arrested.
S12.E15 ∙ A Single Pilgrim
Hoss is seriously wounded by a member of the Brennan clan, Virginia natives who are settling out West, across the state of Nevada. The Brennans debate whether to seek much-needed medical attention for Hoss or let him die.
S12.E16 ∙ The Gold-Plated Rifle
In this adaptation of the Prodigal Son, Jamie - who is struggling to adjust to life on the Ponderosa and at his new school - damages Ben's valuable rifle. Refusing to take responsibility, he runs away.
S12.E17 ∙ Top Hand
During a cattle drive, Ben finds himself involved in a power struggle between the trail boss the Cartwrights appointed and a fellow rancher's foreman, who schemes to take over the job.
S12.E18 ∙ A Deck of Aces
Ben's dead-on lookalike, the scheming Bradley Meredith, causes serious problems when he poses as the Cartwright patriarch and sells area ranchers' land to the railroad. Ben, who refused to deal with the railroad, must find a way to expose Meredith and convince one and all that he wasn't responsible.
S12.E19 ∙ The Desperado
It's a case of reverse racism, as a white-hating black outlaw couple kidnap Hoss and scheme to kill him.
S12.E20 ∙ The Reluctant American
Leslie and Gillian Harwood come to Nevada from England to take over the operation of a failing ranch near the Ponderosa. They have trouble adjusting to frontier life, which include cattle rustlers who threaten to put them out of business.
S12.E21 ∙ Shadow of a Hero
Gen. Ira Cloninger, an old friend of the Cartwrights, is toasted at a ceremony as a hero and asked to run for governor. Cloninger accepts and Ben enthusiastically backs the candidate - until the investigation of the killing of a young Nez Perce exposes his attitude toward Indians.
S12.E22 ∙ The Silent Killer
When an influenza outbreak strikes the Ponderosa, the treatment methods and philosophy of two women from different generations clash. A nurse named Harriet Clinton believes in old-fashioned methods, while the other nurse, Evangeline Woodtree, has studied up on more recent methods. Not helping matters: Doc Martin backs Harriet, in large part because he believes Evangeline's husband is a fraud.
S12.E23 ∙ Terror at 2:00
A white supremacist named Mr. Ganns plans to disrupt a peace-treaty signing between the people of Virginia City and the Paiutes by massacring the entire town, then pin the blame on the Indian tribe.
S12.E24 ∙ The Stillness Within
Little Joe is blinded by an explosion and wallows in self-pity as he struggles to come to grips with his condition, which may be temporary or permanent. Ben hires a teacher from the Institute for the Blind to help Joe deal with his predicament.
S12.E25 ∙ A Time to Die
Ben's friend, April Christopher, is bitten by a rabid wolf during her visit. With no treatment available, the Cartwrights and April's family struggle to watch her condition deteriorate.
S12.E26 ∙ Winter Kill
During a harsh winter that kills off the stock of many ranchers, Ben offers to test a new breed's endurance by herding a cow from the stock on Sawtooth Mountain. A rival rancher attempts to undermine Ben's plans by having his foreman shoot the cow, then claim it had succumbed to the cold.
S12.E27 ∙ Kingdom of Fear
A delusional mining tycoon has the Cartwrights and Candy arrested on false trespassing charges and sentences them to slave labor at a gold mine.
S12.E28 ∙ An Earthquake Called Callahan
A traveling professional boxer named Tom Callahan is the only person who can prove Dusty Rhodes' innocence when the Ponderosa foreman is falsely jailed. But when Callahan stubbornly refuses to come to Virginia City to provide the alibi, Joe decides to pursue him and do everything he can to bring him back.
S13.E1 ∙ The Grand Swing
Against Ben's orders, Jamie drives a supply wagon on a route he's not supposed to; he loses control and wrecks the wagon. Jamie escapes uninjured but one of the horses is so badly hurt it has to be shot. To teach Jamie a lesson in responsibility, Ben decides to take his "adopted" son on an extended tour of the Ponderosa, to see how various residents and employees deal with their mistakes. The lesson makes an impression on Jamie, who is then asked to carve his name on the "Witness Tree," signifying he is the latest "family member" to take "The Grand Swing" (Hoss and Little Joe had previously made the trip).
S13.E2 ∙ Fallen Woman
Jill Conway is an alcoholic mother whose husband was sent to prison (for robbery) on Hoss' testimony. In a pent-up rage, Jill demands that Hoss look after her son, Petey. Hoss, however, wants Jill to see this as an opportunity to reform herself and is determined to use tough love to help her realize it.
S13.E3 ∙ Bushwhacked!
Two ranchers find a seriously wounded Little Joe in the Nevada desert. As he struggles for life, Joe mumbles incoherently about his surrealistic nightmares about a teepee and a wagon wheel. Ben and Hoss are left to decipher what Joe is talking about and determine what happened.
S13.E4 ∙ Rock-A-Bye Hoss
A "beautiful baby" contest that Hoss is judging quickly turns into a circus, thanks to the fortune-hunting parents who are determined to win at all costs.
S13.E5 ∙ The Prisoners
Little Joe helps an old-time sheriff escort cunning outlaw Hank Simmons to jail. The crafty Simmons kills the sheriff and injures Joe, but Joe turns out to always be one step ahead of Simmons.
S13.E6 ∙ Cassie
The Cartwrights assist Jamie's friend, Cassie O'Casey, and Cassie's mother in dealing with their father and husband, Kevin, who is running a race horse scam. Hoss uses a "fixed" horse race of his own to outwit Kevin.
S13.E7 ∙ Don't Cry, My Son
Virginia City's new doctor, Mark Sloan, is dealt a double-blow when his wife leaves him, blaming him for their baby being stillborn. In the heat of the moment, Sloan kidnaps the baby of another woman.
S13.E8 ∙ Face of Fear
Jamie's girlfriend, Neta Thatcher, witnesses a drifter named Griff Bannon rob and kill a man at a roadside camp. Bannon - who assumes his victim's identity and inherits his fortune - is aware that Neta has witnessed the crime and begins stalking her. Neta is terrified to tell anyone about the crime she witnessed, but has even more problems on her hands: Her tough love father, who refuses to allow her to socialize with the Cartwrights. Meanwhile, Bannon takes a job at the Ponderosa using his victim's identity, and he and Jamie become friends. However, Bannon's cover is quickly blown when Neta fingers him as the killer. Just when Bannon has Jamie and Neta trapped, an unlikely hero saves their lives.
S13.E9 ∙ Blind Hunch
Civil War veteran Will Hewitt returns to Virginia City, blinded and determined to solve the mystery behind the death of his brother.
S13.E10 ∙ The Iron Butterfly
Vengeful Senator Bennett pins the blame on Hoss when his son is killed by his ex-girlfriend, Lola. The Cartwrights do all they can to stop Sen. Bennett from destroying the Ponderosa.
S13.E11 ∙ The Rattlesnake Brigade
Jamie and three of his schoolmates - Lester, Judith and Roberto - are kidnapped after church by the nefarious Doyle gang, whom escaped from a wagon carrying them to prison. Doyle plans to use the teens as bargaining tools to ensure that the authorities will enable his gang's escape to Mexico. After Doyle makes his demands and warns that any attempts by the Cartwrights to interfere will result in the teens' deaths, Ben comes up with a plan to rescue Jamie and his friends, but is constantly undermined by the father of one of the boys, whose plan would surely result in death. Only after the teens' own attempt to escape fails (resulting in Lester being killed) does the father agree to go along with Ben's plan, which ultimately is successful.
S13.E12 ∙ Easy Come, Easy Go
In the third and final episode featuring the Calhouns, Luke is bankrupted after a stock investment gone bad, so he and his daughter Meena move to the Ponderosa until he can get back on his feet. Without Ben's permission, Luke turns the Ponderosa into a casino, with gambling all over the place.
S13.E13 ∙ A Home for Jamie
Ben begins the process to legally adopt Jamie as his son, but the process is complicated when Jamie's maternal grandfather, Ferris Callahan, comes forward wanting custody. Ben must bear the heartbreaking news to Callahan that Jamie has bonded with the Cartwright family.
S13.E14 ∙ Warbonnet
Joe is caught in the middle of a bitter dispute between an aging Native American chief and the man who stole the Indian's warbonnet years ago as a saloon decoration.
S13.E15 ∙ The Lonely Man
In a rare episode with Hop Sing in the spotlight, the Cartwrights' cook is panning for gold during a vacation when he falls in love with a white woman. The relationship blossoms into an engagement, but the marriage never takes place. Ben bears the heartbreaking news that a judge confirms: state law forbids interracial marriage.
S13.E16 ∙ Second Sight
Hoss turns to a clairvoyant named Judith Corman to help in a search for Jamie, who has gotten lost in the high country. However, Judith is reluctant to help out, fearing that her psychic abilities will ruin her engagement to a minister who opposes her gift as witchcraft.
S13.E17 ∙ The Saddle Stiff
Cactus Murphy, an embittered ranch whom Ben fired, suggests that the Cartwright patriarch is getting a little old to "put in a real week's work." Ben's response: Take a job under the assumed name Ben Brown and show Murphy that he is still more than capable of sweating out the job of a rancher.
S13.E18 ∙ Frenzy
Ben's friendship with the Kosovos, a young immigrant family from Serbia, puts him in danger when family patriarch Nick suffers a psychotic snap, goes on a rampage and barricades them in their home. Ben does all he can to reason with Nick, whose wife and son have become deathly afraid of him in the process - especially since the consequences could be deadly if Ben says the wrong thing.
S13.E19 ∙ The Customs of the Country
In a satirical look at unusual, silly laws and customs, Joe and Hoss try to explain to their skeptical father why their delivery run to Agua Santos, Mexico took so long. An unimpressed Ben listens as his sons explain their story, which all started when Joe took his hat off in church and was exasperated when Hoss ran into trouble trying to bail his younger brother out of jail.
S13.E20 ∙ Shanklin
A band of rogue ex-Confederate soldiers comes to the Ponderosa to demand a $25,000 ransom. Hoss tries to disrupt the robbery and is critically wounded by the group's leader, Shanklin. While Jamie escapes and tries to search Virginia City's saloons for Joe, Ben learns that Shanklin is an outstanding surgeon and demands that since he wounded him, he can perform the surgery to save Hoss' life.
S13.E21 ∙ Search in Limbo
The Cartwrights attempt to reconstruct a 24-hour period of Ben's life after he fears he may have been the unknown gunman who shot down Sid Langley, a corrupt real estate broker who has become hated in Virginia City. The reason? Ben had suffered a concussion from an unknown source just before his meeting with Langley and happened to be his last appointment before a critically wounded Langley was found. Oh, and Ben strongly disapproved of Langley's unethical business practices.
S13.E22 ∙ He Was Only Seven
Jamie's 7-year-old friend, Jonah Morgan, is badly wounded when he and Jamie walk into the Virginia City Bank during a robbery by the evil Springer gang. The boy later dies of his injuries. Joe and Jamie accompany Jonah's grief-hardened, paraplegic grandfather on the hunt for Springer and his cronies.
S13.E23 ∙ The Younger Brothers' Younger Brother
It's a case of comic mistaken identity when Hoss - on a delivery run for the Ponderosa - is mistaken as a member of the bumbling Younger Brothers gang. Ben and Joe are eventually able to convince the authorities to let Hoss go, but not after a series of misunderstandings wherein they too are involved with the Youngers' gang.
S13.E24 ∙ A Place to Hide
A friend of Ben's asks to stay at the Ponderosa for a time. Soon Ben discovers the woman is trying to plan a rendezvous with her husband who is a fugitive Confederate officer. Ben must decide where his loyalties lay.
S13.E25 ∙ A Visit to Upright
Ben's ability to close a lucrative cattle purchase with a picky heiress hinges on Hoss and Joe's ability to sell a dilapidated saloon they were duped into buying. However, they are convinced that the shanty contains a hidden treasure.
S13.E26 ∙ One Ace Too Many
In his second attempt to cash in on Ben's good name, crooked lookalike Bradley Meredith learns that the Cartwrights are in Carson City and, posing as Ben, pretends that he is seriously ill and begins to liquidate the Ponderosa's assets. The Cartwrights come just in time to foil Meredith's plans.
S14.E1 ∙ Forever
Candy and Jamie are with Joe when Joe sees his house is on fire. He yells for his wife. Sadly, Alice and her brother are both murdered. Joe and Candy go looking for the killers to bring them to justice.
S14.E2 ∙ Heritage of Anger
Ben helps ex-convict John Dundee re-adjust to society. However, Dundee's boorish attitude complicates matters, and it may have to do with his former business partners framing him for a crime he didn't commit.
S14.E3 ∙ The Initiation
Jamie joins an elite club and endures the initiation rites. However, when a classmate dies due to cardiac arrhythmia during the initiation (touching a piece of ice to his chest, after getting him to believe it was a hot branding iron), the club's president Ted Hoag is blamed. A posse forms to track down Ted and hold him responsible for the hazing. Blood is almost shed, but then Jamie reveals he and the other boys were just as responsible for their friend's death.
S14.E4 ∙ Riot
Ben becomes horrified while inspecting living conditions at the Nevada State Prison. So are the frustrated inmates, who take Ben hostage and make a series of demands to improve conditions. One of the inmates - Griff King - decides to act as a go-between to communicate the prisoners' demands with the state prison board. In the end, Griff is paroled to Ben's custody.
S14.E5 ∙ New Man
In this sequel episode to "Riot," Ben helps parolee Griff King adjust to life outside of prison, giving him a job as a ranch hand. At first, Griff resists the Cartwrights' attempts to rehabilitate him, but he soon grows to appreciate their help and tries to change.
S14.E6 ∙ Ambush at Rio Lobo
Ben and a pregnant woman are held hostage by a gang of robbers, who are plotting a stagecoach robbery and are determined to prevent interference by anyone with the name Cartwright.
S14.E7 ∙ The Twenty-Sixth Grave
Samuel Clemens makes his return to Virginia City, this time offering tall tales over an unsolved murder that was tied to a claim jumping.
S14.E8 ∙ Stallion
Joe is given a beautiful, black stallion for his birthday present, but winds up sacrificing it when he rides to the rescue of a young boy who was accidentally shot by his outlaw father.
S14.E9 ∙ The Hidden Enemy
Dr. James Wills is Virginia City's new town doctor. He's exceptionally gifted and can bring many new procedures to Nevada. However, Dr. Wills is addicted to morphine, which results in trouble - and in the end, tragedy.
S14.E10 ∙ The Sound of Sadness
Griff's friend, widowed farmer Jonathan May, wants to adopt two young orphans, one of whom is unable to talk. When Jonathan is told he cannot adopt the boys, Griff decides to set the adoption agency folks straight on what a loving father is.
S14.E11 ∙ The Bucket Dog
Jamie forms a bond with an Irish Setter he names April. However, April was a runt and - according to its rightful owner - should be put to sleep because it is a disgrace to the breed. When April competes in a field trial, the dog's owner soon learns that it's not the size of the dog that matters, but the size of the fight in the dog.
S14.E12 ∙ First Love
Jamie becomes friends with Kelly Edwards, who is abused by her husband, Dan. The catch: the husband happens to be the new teacher at the Virginia City School, and he quickly becomes unpopular because he belittles the students. Soon, Jamie helps Kelly come out of her shell, which sets none to well with Dan, who orders an end to the friendship.
S14.E13 ∙ The Witness
A man posing as Candy robs one of Ben's elderly business associates. During the robbery, the woman suffers a fatal heart attack. Candy is quickly arrested and brought to trial.
S14.E14 ∙ The Marriage of Theodora Duffy
Unknown to the Cartwrights, Griff is asked to be a government witness in helping to bring a gang of war criminals to justice. Griff is asked to pose as the husband of beautiful Theodora Duffy, who the Cartwrights think Griff had abandoned years ago.
S14.E15 ∙ The Hunter
During a delivery run, Joe meets Cpl. Bill Tanner, who turns out to be a war-deranged madman who enjoys stalking down his helpless victims before killing them. After stealing Joe's horse and his supplies, the psychotic Tanner explains that Joe just became his latest "prey," and that he intends to stalk him down and brutally murder him. With no help in sight, Joe must rely on his wits and intuition to defeat Tanner.
