This is another episode in which two familiar themes collide. Greed for gold proves to be the downfall more than one man and prejudice rears its ugly head. And once again Cheyenne Bodie is thrust in the middle.
His old acquaintance Matt Kilgore has just become sheriff not long after a treaty is signed with the Sioux. When a brave named White Crow rides into town with a bag of gold that he thinks will pay for his sick wife's treatment in faraway Denver, he's accused of having killed two miners for the gold. The townsmen are ready to lynch the hapless brave, but Cheyenne convinces them to give him 24 hours to prove that the man is simply a caring husband, not a ruthless killer. They finally agree because, true to the Old West's sometimes quirky values, it just doesn't seem right to hang a man on Sunday. Unfortunately, White Crow's desperate escape from jail has deadly consequences. Unaware that gold-hungry men are already on the native's trail and although wounded by one of them, Cheyenne goes after him, joined by the sheriff, who ostensibly wants to help.
This is another episode in which being an actual blood brother to the Cheyenne helps Bodie avert a local war. However, it doesn't work out so well for the ersatz Sioux blood brother Kilgore, who is loyal to his adoptive tribe only insofar as he doesn't know where the gold is hidden. When he finds out, his loyalty evaporates and he declares loudly that being white is better after all; alas for him, Chief War Cloud is listening.
As always, the supporting cast is excellent. In the second of his three appearances in "Cheyenne," Peter Breck plays a man whose greed gets the better of him fairly easily. H. M. Wynant is sympathetic as White Crow, whose only motive is to help his ailing wife. One of the most familiar faces in the series, Frank DeKova makes a convincing Sioux chief. Trevor Bardette played just plain despicable better than almost anyone, and he surpasses himself here. It's nice to see Clyde Howdy, Clint Walker's stand-in, get screen credit, although his character, Smith, is hardly creditable. Perennial bad guy Lane Bradford is also good; I suspect that more than once in his career of playing similar characters he was kicked in the shins by kids who believed he was as bad offscreen as he was on, a compliment to his acting.
One of the many qualities that draw us to the character Cheyenne Bodie is his connection with the Native Americans he frequently encountered in his travels. Although he'd lost his parents in an attack on a wagon train, his youth spent with the Cheyenne had caused him to respect the Indians' way of life and their deep-rooted values as well as skills he'd learned from them that served him well through the years. He realized early on that the 'whites' were as much to blame for the carnage that often accompanied encounters with the natives as were the Indians themselves, and he carried that conviction with him after he rejoined white society. He was a diplomat and a friend to both sides, but his sense of justice never wavered no matter who was in the wrong. In real life, Clint Walker embodied all the qualities that made Cheyenne Bodie such a heroic character. The fact that he was also physically impressive and morally grounded help bring the character to life for the legion of fans who to this day consider him to be the Gold Standard for what in modern terms might be called a Superhero.
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