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Bonanza Season 3 Episodes
Season 3 Episode Guide
34 Episodes 1961 - 1962
Episode 1
The Smiler
Sun, Sep 24, 196160 mins
The brother of a man Hoss killed in self-defense says he understands but secretly plans revenge.
Episode 2
Springtime
Sun, Oct 1, 196160 mins
When their spring-fever antics injure miserly businessman, Jedediah Milbank, requiring recuperation at the Ponderosa, Ben orders each of his sons to carry out one of Mr. Milbank's seemingly simple tasks, unaware that they may prove impossible for the kind-hearted Cartwright boys to complete.
Episode 3
The Honor of Cochise
Sun, Oct 8, 196160 mins
The Cartwrights must try to get help for Adam, seriously wounded by an Apache bullet, and find out why Cochise and his warriors have threatened to kill them all if they don't hand over an army captain taking refuge in their trail camp.
Episode 4
The Lonely House
Sun, Oct 15, 1961
Joe Cartwright and the young widow of a family friend are held hostage on her isolated ranch outside Platte City by the same gang that robbed Little Joe in the town bank earlier that day.
Episode 5
The Burma Rarity
Sat, Oct 21, 196160 mins
Everyone seems to think he should marry widow Hawkins - except Ben! When he is asked to assist some land buyers to Virginia City, he must put up with all the talk. Then he finds out that the buyers want to sell a rare gem known as the Burma Rarity to finance the land deal. Now Ben must work quickly to find the buyers who left town with widow Hawkins $25K she paid for the gem.
Episode 6
Broken Ballad
Sun, Oct 29, 196160 mins
Ed Payson, a reformed gunfighter, has returned to Virginia City to tend some property he owns. When he's welcomed with resistance by some of the townspeople, Adam decides to help him, even though everyone thinks he may have killed Dave, a shopkeeper's son.
Episode 7
The Many Faces of Gideon Flinch
Sun, Nov 5, 196160 mins
Jennifer Flinch and her uncle Gideon come to Virginia City on the stage to see a client named Bullet Head Burke. They need to explain why his $5K investment has all been spent. Through a case of mistaken identity, now Bullet Head must figure out who is the real Gideon Flinch.
Episode 8
The Friendship
Sun, Nov 12, 196160 mins
The Cartwrights convince the prison warden to free 23-year-old chain-gang convict, Danny Kid, imprisoned since he was an orphan of thirteen, and take him on as a ranch-hand to repay him for saving Little Joe from being dragged to death by a spooked horse.
Episode 9
The Countess
Sun, Nov 19, 196160 mins
Unsettling events that could spell financial ruin for the Ponderosa mysteriously coincide with the arrival of a wealthy countess who seems determined to win the love of Ben Cartwright, the man she spurned twenty years before in New Orleans.
Episode 10
The Horse Breaker
Sun, Nov 26, 196160 mins
The Cartwrights hope that time and therapy will get bronc breaker, Johnny Lightly, back in the saddle after a bad fall. But Johnny soon faces thinly veiled hostility from the young nurse sent to help him, threats from a rancher who blames Ben Cartwright for his family's calamities, and a growing fear that he may never walk again.
Episode 11
Day of the Dragon
Sun, Dec 3, 196160 mins
His search for the two men who kidnapped his bride-to-be, Su Ling, will soon take angry Chinese warlord, General Tsung, from San Francisco to the Ponderosa where Little Joe has been challenged to explain how he won the girl in a poker game.
Episode 12
The Frenchman
Sun, Dec 10, 196160 mins
Hoss insults a feisty Frenchman who demands satisfaction with swords, unaware that the little rogue believes himself to be the reincarnation of medieval, outlaw poet Francois Villon and is destined to suffer his namesake's fate of being sentenced to death on the gallows for murder.
Episode 13
The Tin Badge
Sun, Dec 17, 196160 mins
Tired of being considered the baby of the family by his older brothers, Little Joe accepts a temporary job of a small town sheriff. But he soon suspects he's been set up and wants answers. Meanwhile, others are plotting a crime that could end in murder.
Episode 14
Gabrielle
Sun, Dec 24, 196160 mins
The Cartwrights take in a young orphaned blind girl on Christmas Eve. Will they be able to reunite her with her embittered old grandfather?
Episode 15
Land Grab
Sun, Dec 31, 196160 mins
The Cartwrights play host to an eccentric old soldier friend of Ben's while trying to track down a mysterious swindler named Polk who is illegally deeding parcels of the Ponderosa to settlers looking for homesteads.
Episode 16
The Tall Stranger
Sun, Jan 7, 196260 mins
A handsome, charismatic con man sweeps Margie Owens off her feet with promises of excitement and adventure, jeopardizing Hoss Cartwright's hopes to wed the pretty rancher's daughter.
Episode 17
The Lady from Baltimore
Sun, Jan 14, 196260 mins
Bitterly disappointed in her husband's financial failures, genteel matriarch Deborah Banning travels to visit her friends on the Ponderosa, hoping to turn her family's fortunes around by marrying her only daughter off to a Cartwright son.
Episode 18
The Ride
Sun, Jan 21, 196260 mins
Because he didn't see the gunman's face, witness Adam Cartwright can't convince his family and the sheriff of his certainty that good friend, Bill Enders, was one of the hooded men responsible for robbing a way station and killing the attendant.
Episode 19
The Storm
Sun, Jan 28, 196260 mins
While visiting the Ponderosa, Ben's old friend, sea Captain Matthew White, is forced to reveal a terrible secret after Little Joe Cartwright falls in love with and plans to wed the Captain's daughter, Laura, once a freckle-faced playmate from Joe's childhood in New Orleans, now grown into a beautiful woman.
Episode 20
The Auld Sod
Sun, Feb 4, 196260 mins
The Cartwrights allow a shiftless man to pose as head of the ranch to prevent his Irish mother from learning the truth about him.
Episode 21
Gift of Water
Sun, Feb 11, 196260 mins
A drought has ravaged the flat lands and Hoss stops to water at the Ganther farm where Jason Ganther is attempting to dig a well and get to water which he believes is just a few further feet down. Hoss decides to help him and they begin drilling for water. Meanwhile ranchers in the high country have started up a vigilante group to keep families from leaving the flat lands and settling in the high country where water is plentiful. Disgusted by the vigilantes the entire Cartwright family soon begins helping the Ganthers. Tensions mount between the two groups as the Cartwrights race against time to find the water before violence erupts.
Episode 22
The Jackknife
Sun, Feb 18, 196260 mins
Searching for missing Ponderosa cattle, Adam Cartwright stops to aid injured rancher, Matt Grant, takes him home and stays to help his wife and son while he recovers. But Adam doesn't know that Matt is part of a gang of rustlers responsible for the missing cattle, and now that Adam can identify him, they want him dead before their next job.
Episode 23
The Guilty
Sun, Feb 25, 196260 mins
Tucson gunman, Jack Groat, swore to kill Sheriff Lem Partridge for putting him in prison after a bullet from Groat's gun during a drunken street brawl accidentally killed Sheriff Partridge's wife. Now, 10 years later and fresh out of prison, Groat has tracked retired Lem Partridge to Virginia City and is soon holding Lem's son, Jimmy, and good friend Ben Cartwright hostage. But things go bad and Ben must soon explain to Lem - and try to convince himself - that there was nothing he could have done that day to stop Groat from shooting Jimmy in the back.
Episode 24
The Wooing of Abigail Jones
Sun, Mar 4, 196260 mins
The Cartwright boys help cowhand Hank romance reluctant teacher Abigail.
Episode 25
The Lawmaker
Sun, Mar 11, 196260 mins
The Cartwrights may have to take the law into their own hands when Virginia City's temporary sheriff, rancher Asa Moran, uses his new badge as a license to kill.
Episode 26
Look to the Stars
Sun, Mar 18, 196260 mins
The Cartwrights encourage young genius, Albert Michelson, to pursue his scientific experiments while trying to discover why schoolmaster, George Norton, expelled Albert from school and seems determined to stand in the way of his appointment to the prestigious Annapolis Naval Academy.
Episode 27
The Gamble
Sun, Apr 1, 196260 mins
When the Cartwrights are framed for bank robbery and murder by the corrupt Sheriff Gains (Charles McGraw)and his deputies, Stan (Ben Johnson) and Clem (Robert Foulk), Little Joe Cartwright (Michael Landon) breaks jail and organizes a fighting force to save his father and brothers from being hanged.
Episode 28
The Crucible
Sun, Apr 8, 196260 mins
After being robbed in the desert, Adam stumbles onto a seemingly chivalrous prospector named Peter Kane, who offers him a mule and supplies for three days work. However, Kane is a demented madman who is interested in psychological torture, hoping to drive a seemingly rational man like Adam to murder. As Ben, Hoss and Little Joe try to retrace the missing Adam's footsteps, Adam must rely on his own wits to defeat Kane.
Episode 29
Inger, My Love
Sun, Apr 15, 196260 mins
While a late-night storm brews over the Ponderosa, Ben Cartwright waits for Hoss to come home for his birthday celebration, trying not to worry about his second son riding through the darkness by reminiscing about meeting, marrying and coming west with his second wife, Hoss's mother, Inger.
Episode 30
Blessed Are They
Sun, Apr 22, 196260 mins
Ben Cartwright and Virginia City's enigmatic new minister work together to decide which set of feuding grandparents, the Mahans or the Clarkes, will have custody of their recently orphaned twin grandchildren.
Episode 31
The Dowry
Sun, Apr 29, 196260 mins
A stagecoach carrying Alexander Dubois, his daughter Michele and her fiancé Don Ricardo Fernandez is held up. Her dowry is stolen and Monsieur Dubois is injured trying to get it back. Little Joe brings them all to the Ponderosa where Dubois can recuperate from his wound. Adam and Hoss track the bandits and recover the dowry but the bandits get away and more attempts to steal it are made. The Cartwrights begin to grow suspicious of Don Fernandez and the way he seems to take all of this in stride.
Episode 32
The Long Night
Sun, May 6, 196260 mins
Adam has a day and a half to deliver a large bankdraft. He is ambushed by an escaped convict. When he is mistaken for one of the escapees by the posse, Adam is hardpressed to prove his identity. All they want to do is hang him.
Episode 33
The Mountain Girl
Sun, May 13, 196260 mins
Joe is entrusted to see that Grandpa Coomb's deathbed wish is carried out. That his granddaughter is returned to the people she never knew -- the high society Harkers. Joe must teach her to be like them before they arrive as all she's known is the life of a sheepherder living in the mountains.
Episode 34
The Miracle Maker
Sun, May 20, 196260 mins
Susan's father is killed in a terrible accident she feels responsible for. Her inability to walk is something that Hoss hopes he can help with if the new faith healer in town proves he is more than just a charlatan.