Episode Details

Originally Aired: June 29, 1958

In Gunsmoke #325, "What the Whisky Drummer Heard," a nervous whiskey salesman named Wilbur Hawkins approaches Marshal Matt Dillon in a Dodge City saloon with an alarming message. Hawkins claims he overheard two men on a train from St. Louis, where one paid the other $300 to kill the marshal. Though the talkative drummer's peculiar manner makes it hard to know if he's credible, Matt doesn't have to wait long to find out. That very night, someone ambushes him outside the marshal's office, and Matt decides to play dead to draw out whoever wants him killed.

With Chester spreading word of the marshal's death throughout Dodge, Matt waits in Doc Adams' office to see who will reveal themselves. When a drifter named Joe Rogers begins bragging at the Long Branch about outdrawing Marshal Dillon, Kitty Russell sees through Chester's act and alerts Matt. The marshal confronts Rogers, but the frightened man claims he was only boasting and swears he didn't pull the trigger. As Matt arrests him, the truth behind the assassination plot begins to emerge.