Powerful story that combines some of the better features of the series. Drifters Vaughn Taylor and Joe Maross leave the great outdoors for a few days in Dodge. There they strike up an acquaintanceship with Matt and Kitty. Taylor is an odd duck, obviously unfamiliar with civilized conventions. Still, he's basically a good person just kind of cut loose and drifting on the great American prairie. While in Dodge, someone kills his beloved mule and hogs left at a prairie campsite. He suspects two ornery cusses he and Maross earlier encountered.
Story takes its strength from writer John Meston's vividly offbeat concept of Taylor's character. Though uneducated, he's clearly capable of some penetrating wisdom as the crude metaphor on life and radishes demonstrates. Taylor brings genuine pathos to the role, thus deepening the dramatic impact. (Nonetheless, someone in make-up or wardrobe should be demoted for outfitting the balding Taylor in what may be the worst wig of the series.) The best episodes often put Matt in the position of questioning his job or pondering its effect on others. That way he is humanized and not just a mechanical embodiment of law and order and superior gunplay. That happens here in the very last shot, leaving Matt to wonder about the mysterious ways of the world that elude even the best of us. Fine work from writer Meston and the cast.