Original subtitles

Hyah! Hyah!

In the surging tide of the westward movement,

Wells Fargo provided the first means

of commercial transportation,

stagecoaches.

With the coming of the railroads,

the greater part of the transportation business

was turned over to them.

Wells Fargo continued to operate, however,

working with and for the railroads.

In every train was a Wells Fargo car

carrying the securities and express

entrusted to the firm.

And in the frontier cow towns,

Wells Fargo and the railroad shared a joint office.

I was in Abilene, on business for Wells Fargo,

when word came to me that the office we shared in Amity

with the Kansas-Illinois Railroad had been robbed.

I rode all night and got to Amity

around noon the next day.

Maybe there was a tougher frontier town than Amity,

but if there was, I never heard of it.

This was a town that had it's man for breakfast

each and every day,

sometimes for lunch.

MIKE: I'll be a two-headed monkey if it ain't Jim Hardie.

How're you son?

By golly, I should've known it was you Mike. How are you?

Good. When did you get in?

Came here on in the mornin' train.

Let's go inside here and find out who's playing fast and loose

with the office safe.

Lead the way.

You could hear a lot of arguments

as to who was the all around toughest fighting man

in the Western Frontier.

But anyone who had seen him in action

would be inclined to say the honors belong to Mike Forbes,

Chief Detective for the Kansas-Illinois Railroad.

Where was you when you got hit?

MAN: Well I, I had just opened the safe,

and uh, I was looking inside,

when something clobbered me on the back of the head... that's the last I remember.

You didn't see nobody come in?

I never heard nothin'.

All right, turn back.

It don't fit. You try it, Jim.

That sure settles it up.

Now all we gotta do is find us a lefty who walks soft so nobody can hear him.

Was the safe cleaned out entirely?

Yes. Slicker than a whistle. $3,200 in bills.

Jim, the jasper we're looking for has got a 24-hour head start on us.

Where do you figure he might have hightailed it to?

If he wasn't recognized he probably didn't hightail it anywhere.

Well, that makes sense.

Where does the big money in this town get spent?

Right across the street, Charlie Gill's Grand Central.

Charlie Gill? How long has that scrounger been around here?

Why, he opened for business the day the first herd of cattle from Texas

was driven in the loading bins.

I call.

Five black spades.

Take it all.

Howdy, Charlie. Hello, Mike.

Looks to me like three brothers and a stranger.

MIKE: Do the brothers let you win a small pot now and then, stranger?

That's very funny Mike.

CHARLIE: Who's your friend?

The name's Hardie, Jim Hardie.

MIKE: Jim works for Wells Fargo,

investigating robberies, holdups and the like.

What's the matter stranger, nervous?

What do I got to be nervous about?

We figured your conscience might be botherin' you.

What's goin' on?

Just who do you guys think you're pushing around?

Shut up, Charlie.

CHARLIE: Nobody tells me to shut up.

They don't? Shut up, Charlie, and sit down.

We're looking for a left-handed man.

Walked in and took $3,200 away from our company

a little while ago.

We figured he's either this man is walking around

barefooted or wearing moccasins.

You talk like I'm the man you're looking for.

If there is a bloodstain on that gun you're carrying on your left hand side,

you're the man we want. Let's see it.

Suppose you try taking it from me.

That's the man we want.

Wow!

This is one pot, me and Jim's gonna win.

Sweeten her until she totals $3,200.

Now, just a minute.

Charlie, you've been winning stolen money.

Jim's boss and my boss want it back.

Put it in there.

Luke was our man, all right.

He was left-handed, wore moccasins,

and the butt of his gun had dry blood on it.

After the civil war, railroads began to build westward from Missouri.

Towns sprang up along the railroads,

and soon vast herds of longhorns began to move Northward

along the Chisholm Trail.

It was a long, arduous trip for the cattle

and the men who herded them.

They traveled across parched stretches of arid land,

through Indian country, and across swollen streams.

By the time the cowboys reached the towns along the Kansas railroad,

they were frequently as wild as the cattle they brought with them.

And they often clashed with the lawmen of the towns.

Jim, I sure like working with you.

We hit it off good together, you and me.

Like cheese and apple pie. Yeah, I...

Hey, ain't that Bill Henry?

It's him, all right.

Yeah, he used to be a lot of trouble.

Fast with a gun I hear tell.

Like greased lightning.

Had a run-in with him few years ago.

He was riding with a wild bunch of fence jumpers.

I understand he went to work for his pa and he's reformed now.

They never reform, Jim. Once a bad apple, always a bad apple.

Well, if it ain't Bill Henry. Hello, Charlie.

Heard you had a place here. Did you just come up to trail?

I've been playing wet nurse to two thousand longhorns

for three months now, and I'm sick of it.

Did your pa comin' along on the drive? He sure did.

He's out yonder bedding the herd down

in the flats south of town.

Charlie, tomorrow we drive our cows into the loading pen,

and that's it.

You mean this is your last cattle drive?

Pa sold the ranch, lock stock and barrel.

I've tasted of the dust of Texas for the last time.

Seems to me that calls for a drink. Come on.

Sure does.

Hey, couple of whiskey's.

You let your boy Bill go into town.

But me and the rest of the boys have worked just as hard

as he has if not harder.

We've been on this trail for six weeks.

We swam rivers, we've had four stampede's.

We drunk muddy water and we had spoiled beef.

Now we're entitled to have a little fun.

Aw, you're gonna get your fun all right.

PETE: I'll see to it myself,

that you and the boys have the gosh-darnedest blow out any trail bunch

ever had in this town.

You? Where are you gonna get the money from?

MAGI: You shipped your herd to Chicago.

And we even helped you put them steers on the train.

Now, you know why I shipped that herd to Chicago, McGee.

I can get more money for them up there.

Ah, now don't you worry.

I'm gonna see that you and the boys get paid tomorrow.

With what?

Why, with the money I got for the ranch!

Why, you knew I sold it, didn't you?

Yeah, I heard some talk about it.

But what did you do with the money?

It's in town.

Shipped it to me-self by Wells Fargo.

$50,000 in greenbacks.

It's all right there in that Wells Fargo office just waiting for me.

It better be.

Oh, it's there all right. Now, stop your worryin'.

Tomorrow we'll go into town and pick it up and have ourselves

a little celebration.

All right. I'll tell the boys.

MAN: Oh, no.

Somebody get a doctor.

Doc?

How is he?

Well, he had a pretty bad night. He's still unconscious.

But I think he's tough enough to pull through.

Sure hope so.

If he does comes to, would you let us know?

There's a few questions we gotta ask him.

All right.

From Pete Henry to Pete Henry. It sure don't make sense.

One man gets knifed and another killed.

Just for a few measly books, if it was books in there.

I saw a valuable book once.

Had money pasted on all of the pages.

Now here's the invoice.

Ship by Wells Fargo stagecoach to this office on May the 10th.

That's over a week ago.

No value given to the box, no insurance.

I'll bet a nickel, I can guess who this is.

I'm Pete Henry from Texas.

There is a box of express here for me.

It ain't a box of express no longer. It's just a box.

Robbed! I've been robbed.

Who done it? That's what I wanna know.

Everything I owned was in this box.

Exactly what was in the box, Mr. Henry?

$50,000 in bills.

Bet your bottom dollar that Wells Fargo is gonna make it good.

Wells Fargo will help try to get it back.

We're not gonna be responsible for money shipped in a fashion like that.

Why didn't you have the bank there transfer it to the bank here in Kansas?

Banks! I ain't never been inside one in my life.

I don't trust 'em.

As far as we knew, we were shipping a box of books, nothing more.

If we'd have known it was money, we would've protected it accordingly.

You think I would be fool enough to let anyone know

there was money in there?

No one else knew there was money in that box?

No siree.

That is except my boy, Billy.

Suppose we take a walk over to the coroner's office.

Why for?

Your boy's over there, dead.

We want you to help identify his body.

It was pretty much of a shock to Pete Henry

when he learned that his own son had tried to rob him.

Pete had made big plans for him and Bill.

They were going to move East.

The old man hoped the boy might settle down, become a good citizen.

But those plans exploded in a blast of gunfire,

when Bill Henry jumped his last fence.

MIKE: Uh, we can take turns watching the office

till the new man gets here from Abilene.

I'll handle it for a couple of hours then you can take over.

That's fair enough.

Hey, Jim, you got the same idea as me.

Like what?

Well, it struck me that when Pete Henry found out his money was stole,

he wasn't nearly as surprised as he should have been.

Mean you think he and the boy were in cahoots to steal his own money?

Now, what brought him to that?

Don't know, but there's gotta be an answer somewhere.

I think you may have a point.

To me, the important thing is not Pete Henry or his boy.

Man who walked in there and killed Bill Henry and stole the money.

Well, maybe we can get to the third man through the first two.

That's what they call progression, Jim. I learned it from a book.

See you later.

What're they up to, Marshal?

I don't know and I ain't curious enough to find out.

Where're they dragging him to?

Well, my guess is they're taking him to a tree down at the edge of town.

The hanging tree the folks call it.

Wouldn't that come under the heading of your business?

Lynching? No, not in a town like Amity.

I'll just get myself strung up on a tree too.

You know, I can see why you're wearing a beard there, Marshal.

Well, you sometimes don't like to shave.

You can't stand to look at yourself in the mirror every morning.

Young fella,

when you're lucky enough to grow as old as me, there's a reason.

You gotta follow the rules.

And the first rule is,

don't interfere with a bunch of Texas cowboys

when they got blood in their eyes.

PETE: I can't pay you your wages now boys. I ain't got no money.

MAN: Out of the way, Wells Fargo.

You got old Pete all tied up there like a half-skinned cat.

That's about the size of it.

We caught him trying to sneak out of town without paying us

and we got six months' back wages coming.

So, we're gonna have a little fun for our money.

But I told you, everything I had was stole.

Ask the Wells Fargo man there. He'll tell you.

What about the herd of cattle you were drivin' up?

They're worth money.

Sure it is, but only to Pete.

Right now those cattle are in cattle cars on their way to Chicago.

And Pete's real smart.

He sent them there on consignment

which means he won't get paid for over another month or more.

But I told you McGee, I'll send your wages to you from Chicago soon as I get it.

Sure you would, Pete,

when apples start growing on a cactus bush.

Come on, let's get it over with.

You gonna step aside, Wells Fargo,

or we just stomp a mud-hole in you?

MIKE: Hey, Jim!

Did you ever see me do my fancy shootin'?

How do you like my shootin', Jim? Pretty straight.

And you two rope men, how'd you like it?

Maybe you better take off too, Pete.

Reckon, I will.

Old-timer,

if the riders of yours knew what Jim and me know,

not even my fancy shootin' would've saved you from a necktie party.

I don't know what you're talking about.

I think you do. All the evidence says

that you and your kid planned to steal your own money

just to keep from paying your riders their wages.

You can't prove that.

Well, even if we did have, nothing we could do about it.

It's still that third man we're after, eh, Jim?

Man or men, I don't know which yet.

MIKE: Where's the doc?

Sent him home to get some sleep.

You and I can look after Joe.

Sure we can. How's he doin'?

Pretty good. A little restless.

You had anything to eat? Uh-huh.

Mind taking over here while I go get a bite? Go ahead.

Incidentally, he knows who the third man is. He does?

Yeah.

He's been mumbling.

Mostly it's just a lot of delirious mumbo-jumbo.

Once he did say,

he saw Bill Henry get shot.

Well, then he saw Bill Henry's killer. That's right.

I'll be back.

Hello, Joe.

Jim Hardie was telling me that you saw the man who shot the fellow that knifed you.

Well, I figured you was unconscious all the time

and didn't see nothing.

You know, the doc says, if you lose any more blood you're a dead man, Joe.

So, I guess I'll just loosen the bandage a little.

Just enough to start you bleeding again.

Don't do it, Mike.

Guess I've been underrating you Jim. How'd you know it was me?

There're only two men in this town, fast enough to outdraw Bill Henry.

It had to be one of the two.

Well, figurin' me a fast one, who's the other fast gent?

Me.

Funny how things work out.

I ain't never before done a wrong thing.

But all of a sudden there's $50,000 staring me, right in the face.

And nobody the wiser if I take it.

That's a lot of temptation.

25,000 of it is yours, Jim.

I wouldn't know what to do with that much money.

You would be a rich man.

The trouble with being rich is you never know who you're friends are.

That makes sense. Come on.

All right, Jim. I'll come along with you.

I found the money hidden under the floor boards in Mike's hotel room

and turned it over to Pete Henry.

And when a man showed up to run the Wells Fargo office

until Joe Rivers was on his feet again,

I got out of Amity, fast.

Amity,

the town of peace, quite, brotherly love.

A man might follow the straight and narrow all of his life

if it isn't any strain to him.

Then he comes to a crossroads.

The problem is, which way should I go?

If a man makes the wrong choice the way Mike did,

there's never any turning back.