Gunsmoke 1953-02-14 The Roundup

·30 min·2 clips

Matt Dillon cites Territorial Ordinance Schedule of 1858, Section 721C, to seize Cottonwood Pond.

1. Gunsmoke: Old Time Radio's 'The Roundup' centers on a drought fight over Cottonwood Pond outside Dodge City. 2. William Conrad stars as Matt Dillon, Parley Bear plays Chester, Howard McNair plays Doc, and Georgia Ellis appears as Kitty in the closing credits. 3. The episode asks whether Matt Dillon can enforce the law when Jack Jackson's herd is dying and Dyke Howard's fenced pond is legally protected. 4. Jack Jackson from the Circle Z says his cattle are losing 15 head an hour and need water at Cottonwood Pond. 5. Dyke Howard answers that the pond sits on his ranch, so he can demand a dollar a head a day or sell the herd for three dollars a head. 6. Matt tells Jackson and Howard that the law gives Howard the right to fence his own land, even if the bargain is harsh. 7. Chester warns that Howard is mean and that the fence looks like a setup for a bigger fight. 8. Kitty pushes Matt toward a practical fix, but Matt says he cannot make his own rules without damaging law and order in Dodge City. 9. Chester reports that the railroad cannot get enough cattle cars to move the herd before day after tomorrow. 10. Matt and Chester search an old law book left by a dead Boston lawyer in the jail and puzzle over words like tort, replevin, and statutory malfeasance. 11. Doc helps by reading a territorial ordinance that lets a local administrator declare an acute emergency for a natural catastrophe. 12. Matt treats the drought as that emergency and argues that Cottonwood Pond is a critical facility for keeping cattle alive. 13. Howard refuses to bargain, warns that his men will shoot, and calls Matt's move a possible betrayal. 14. Matt gathers Jackson's riders, swears them in as temporary deputy marshals, and orders them to move the herd through the fence. 15. The standoff spills into a prairie-fire threat when Howard's men set the grass burning and try to stampede the cattle. 16. Heat lightning, smoke, and a shifting wind turn the night into a second crisis, with Matt and Chester working behind the backfire. 17. The episode is a scripted two-act radio drama, with the sponsor break landing between the legal setup and the fence-line action. 18. The dialogue is clipped and stagey, but Doc, Kitty, and Chester keep the banter dry and brisk. 19. Listeners who like classic Western lawmen, drought stakes, and radio-dialogue problem solving will get the most out of it. 20. People wanting modern sound design or a clean standalone ending will probably skip it.

As heard by us

A fenced-off pond turns a drought-struck cattle drive into a test of law, patience, and frontier judgment.

A cattle drive reaches Cottonwood Pond in a hard drought, and the water that should save the herd sits behind Howard's barbed-wire fence. Matt Dillon is left with a problem that will not yield to a fast draw: the animals need water, Howard will not bend, and the marshal has to…

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Why you'd press play

You get drought, a fenced-off pond, and Matt Dillon trying to solve a water crisis with a law book.

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