A man who persuaded the good folks of Dodge to invest their money in a mine is out of prison and back to prove that there really is gold in the mine.

In Matt's absence, Festus is accused of drawing first on a drunken man. Though innocent, Festus leaves town to avoid Matt having to arrest him, and takes refuge across the border with a widow and her son.

Festus has a habit of using the wishbone from a dead chicken for making wishes on. When he comes across Doc Adams, alone and snakebit, he uses that wish to help him, if it can. Meanwhile, Matt searches for three outlaws who held up a stage, killing the driver and guard.

When old Jacob is shot dead in self defense, his loyal Indian partner, John Walking Fox, starts paying for things with $50 gold pieces, and he becomes the talk of the town, and a target for would be robbers.

A mysterious man rides into town and says he is after one of two men responsible for killing his brother. When he starts crowding a stranger in town, Matt must decide how to make sure he doesn't take the law into his own hands.

All of Dodge City is suffering from a drought. A rainmaker (Guy Raymond) tries to put an end to it before the town's public well, their last source of water, runs dry.

Bull Bannock (Alan Hale), retired heavyweight champion of the world, attempts to make a home for himself in Dodge City, and tries to buy Miss Kitty's Longbranch Saloon.

After eight years as a down-on-his-luck farmer, husband & father, and reformed outlaw (Michael Ansara) tries to make ends meet by rejoinning his old gang to rob the Dodge City freight office.

Private detectives use Kitty and the daughter (Kim Darby) of an outlaw to trap the girl's fugitive father (Stephen McNally).

Kitty's conscience is torn between her sense of obligation to a man (James Daly) who saved her life and her concern for the law and Marshal Matt Dillon.