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Wagon Train Season 8 Episodes
Season 8 Episode Guide
26 Episodes 1964 - 1965
Episode 1
The Bob Stuart Story
Sun, Sep 20, 196460 mins
Ex-Marshal Bob Stuart and his new wife are among three wagons joining Chris Hale's wagon train. Scout Cooper Smith is assigned to escort the new wagons to join up with the main train but there is blood, bad blood, between the scout and the ex-lawman. Entering the mix are old friends from Cooper Smith's past who also have an ax to grind against Bob Stuart. Two of the men are brothers and the younger one is mentally disabled after he was hit over the head by Stuart with a shotgun. They ask Coop about temporary jobs on the wagon train at it travels through some tough country. After explaining they would have to put aside their grudge with Stuart and them agreeing he hires them which Chris okays. Coop soon becomes caught in between the man he was and the man he's become as his friends set out to destroy Bob Stuart and anyone who gets in the way.
Episode 2
The Hide Hunters
Sun, Sep 27, 196460 mins
Hide hunters, hunters who kill buffalo for their hides only, have temporarily joined up with the wagon train. One of their number, Gib Ryker, is a sociopath who enjoys antagonizing young Barnaby West. With the train desperately needing fresh meat, Cooper Smith, along with Barnaby, sets off with the hide hunters to look for buffalo. Along the way Gib continues to bait Barnaby, much to Coop's dismay until Barnaby is forced to defend himself, with disastrous results. Now Barnaby has to face Gib's brother Zach, who's out for revenge.
Episode 3
The John Gillman Story
Sun, Oct 4, 196460 mins
John Gillman is on the run from the law. Shot while trying to evade a two-man posse, he jumps into a river by a waterfall that stops the posse from trailing him or the body. He crawls on shore down river with a leg wound where he is found by Abigail, an angry young orphan girl from the wagon train with a group of orphans hoping to be adopted by the wagon train members. Abigail wants desperately to be adopted, but no one will take her. Abigail takes a shine to John, but he is a bitter man who wants nothing to do with the young girl. John convinces Chris to sell him a horse and saddle with plans to leave as soon as possible. A county official with the orphans, Mr. Moore, still believes John is an outlaw deciding to go for the local law. Abigail warns John about Mr. Moore's plans as does Chris. Slowly Abigail begins to get under John's skin and into his cold heart. Abigail has a hidden terrible secret that will forever change the surly outlaw.
Episode 4
The Race Town Story
Sun, Oct 11, 196460 mins
Bill accompanies Barnaby to Sam Race's tent city of "entertainers", where a girl from the train that Barnaby likes has taken a job, not as a singer, as she had thought, but as a saloon girl. Bill hopes to keep Barnaby out of trouble with the gambling and con games Race runs, but trouble and humiliation is just what they both find.
Episode 5
The Barbara Lindquist Story
Sun, Oct 18, 196460 mins
Cooper Smith is on his way to the town of Washburn to pick up long awaited mail for the wagon train when he stumbles upon a stagecoach robbery in progress. The very proper Miss Barbara Lindquist is on her way to meet her fiancé, mistakes Coop for one of the robbers and ends up forcing him to help her. Further misadventures see Coop wounded and both he and Barbara struggling to get to back to the wagon train for help. Believing his wound will end his days as a scout, Coop finds himself falling in love with Barbara and she with him. But will their love stand the test when Coop receives news that gives him a second chance to remain with the wagon train?
Episode 6
The Brian Conlin Story
Sun, Oct 25, 196460 mins
Brian Conlin walks into Hale's camp, delirious and dehydrated. After he recovers, he leads Coop to his group of Irish immigrants, whose wagons have broken down, and Hale invites them to join the wagon train. However, having been repeatedly turned away from place after place, most members of Conlin's group are slow to trust anyone or accept help.
Episode 7
The Alice Whitetree Story
Sun, Nov 1, 196460 mins
While scouting for the wagon train, Coop spots a girl running through the woods so he chases her down until she falls hitting her head knocking her out. He takes her back to the wagon train where they assume she is half Indian based on her dress but there are no Indians in the area anymore. Chris assumes she was a member of a tribe that was totally wiped out by the whites ten years earlier. When she awakens, she tries to escape but Coop sees her crouching up in a tree finding that she speaks good English when he tries to talk to her. She eventually comes down but with an attachment for Coop which is reciprocated by Coop as she is very attractive. Chris suggests that Coop take her to a mission near Boulder that has other Indians when they pass there in a few days to which Coop agrees. However, Coop soon learns he has a desire to stay with her as he falls for her. While camped a stranger comes into the wagon train grabbing her causing Coop to knock him down. He is the sheriff from Boulder who informs them she is Alice Whitetree who has been in prison for attacking a boy and is now wanted for killing a retired white couple she lived with and stealing $3000. She has a different story.
Episode 8
Those Who Stay Behind
Sun, Nov 8, 196460 mins
As the Hale wagon train reaches various frontier settlements they lose some members of the train but there are usually more wanting to join to go further west. At one such stop Chris runs into the common situation of more wagons wanting to join the train than he can accommodate resulting in disappointed applicants. At this stop the applicant Ben Campbell, ex-convict, and his wife Kate were the next ones on the list. They want to leave quickly to get away from his old criminal partner Jud Fisher who is in jail waiting to be hung. He believes Ben turned him into the law although it is not true. Ben and Kate want to go west for a new start. Their only hope is that overnight a wagon will drop out. When Jud escapes jail, the sheriff sends protection for Ben and Kate. At the same time the two young orphaned Blake brothers are roaming among the wagons. The older boy tom is apprenticed to a blacksmith who beats him and they want to steal away on the train. Mrs. Parkman, the last to join the train, has a secret as does Mr. Landis which may affect the train membership before it leaves.
Episode 9
The Nancy Styles Story
Sun, Nov 22, 196460 mins
Chris Hale is putting together a new one hundred wagon train with approximately 400 people under contract to the Western Trails Company to travel over the Rockies to California. Paul and Jenny Phillips are a young couple who have saved enough money to make the trip when as they join the train find themselves robbed of all their money. They are surprised when a young beautiful woman offers them over $400 to ride with them to Denver. Seeing no harm they accept the offer but it comes apart when Coop reports back that early snow has made the stop at Denver impossible. Instead Chris decides they are heading for Cheyenne. This forces her to reveal her real name, Nancy Styles, to Chris hoping to force him to bend to her will. Her father Frank Styles owns the Western Trails Company so he is Chris' boss. Chris refuses her request so she tries to seduce Paul Phillips which he rejects and Jenny ejects her from their wagon. She is forced to live with the crew but refuses to work to earn her way. Slowly she talks Barnaby who is a year younger and infatuated with her to marry her. Eventually she convinces him to go to Denver with severe consequences.
Episode 10
The Richard Bloodgood Story
Sun, Nov 29, 196460 mins
A blind man called Sangre has joined the wagon train along with his guide. He is actually Coop's boyhood blood brother Richard Bloodgood, and he openly states his plan to kill Coop. Coop gets very hostile and refuses to discuss it whenever Charlie or Barnaby ask the reason Richard wants to kill him, but they know it has to do with the death of a beautiful woman long ago.
Episode 11
The Clay Shelby Story
Sun, Dec 6, 196460 mins
With Hawks ill and Comanches threatening to attack, an Army troop meets up with the wagon train. The Indians appear to greatly outnumber the soldiers, so to give the train hope the troop's lieutenant falsely tells Hale and Coop that there is also a relief column headed their way. Complicating matters even more, a sergeant from the troop recognizes Clay Shelby, a young man on the wagon train traveling with his pregnant wife, as a deserter from back in the Civil War whom he blames for the death of his brother.
Episode 12
Little Girl Lost
Sun, Dec 13, 196460 mins
A little girl, crying each night, appears to be a ghost from The Donner Party. Many people hear her, but she appears each night to Charlie, who questions his own sanity.
Episode 13
The Hector Heatherton Story
Sun, Dec 20, 196460 mins
Charlie's cooking with toadstools and change in sleeping arrangements has lead to very strong dreams and a new itch - to fly. He shares this secretly with Barnaby who mentions that a wagon train member, Hector Heatherton, says he has the same itch and has developed a way to fly. Hector is a cobbler with 7 daughters and a baby son along with wife Harriet who has him henpecked and is fed up with his crazy ideas that keep forcing the family to move. Barnaby frequently visits the family to talk to Hector but Harriet and the oldest daughter, Heather, think he is there because of Heather. Hector provides Charlie with his plans for a flying machine scale model which Barnaby and even Bill join in on helping to build and test. When it is a roaring success, Hector says to scale it up by a factor of ten for a workable model for a human. Heather becomes annoyed with Barnaby's visits that seem to go no where. Chris thinks something is up but his guess is way off the mark as Charlie works up the nerve to actually fly.
Episode 14
The Echo Pass Story
Sun, Jan 3, 196560 mins
While out looking for water Coop and Charlie are stopped by a gang of five, including two women, who are on the run after robbing a bank and killing three lawmen. The leader of the gang shoots Charlie after tying him up, and they take Coop to lead them through a mountain pass to get to California.
Episode 15
The Chottsie Gubenheimer Story
Sun, Jan 10, 196560 mins
Hale finds his old flame Chottsie Gubenheimer (played by John McIntire's real-life wife Jeanette Nolan) working in a gambling house and in an argument with the owner, so he asks her to come with him and join the wagon train. He comes to realize that he's getting more problems than he bargained for.
Episode 16
The Wanda Snow Story
Sun, Jan 17, 196560 mins
Wanda Snow has several times seen events before they have happened, causing several people on the wagon train to accuse her of being a witch. A medicine show peddler/magician gets the idea to use her in his act, but this creates friction between him and his devious partner.
Episode 17
The Isaiah Quickfox Story
Sun, Jan 31, 196560 mins
Coop and Charlie looking for supplies for the wagon train find a town totally deserted except for one old Indian, and four white residents who later return. They learn that the town was deserted because of a plague of bats unleashed from a cave nearby, where a professor, now missing, went searching for a treasure left behind by Spanish priests. The Indian Isaiah Quickfox had led the professor to the cave that was used by the Indians in their rituals for boys becoming men. The rumor is that the bats are all blood eating bats and therefore dangerous. The seven people decide to all go back to the cave to search again for the professor and the treasure, despite the bats, their fear of the bats, and the distrust one of the men has for the old Indian guiding them.
Episode 18
Herman
Sun, Feb 14, 196560 mins
The wagon train comes across old Jamison Hershey and Herman, his 3,000-pound Belgian horse. The old man has made it safely through hostile Indian territory because the tribes are so in awe of his horse. Hershey and Herman are invited to ride with the train, though it becomes apparent that Herman is not able to travel very fast and may hold back the entire group.
Episode 19
The Bonnie Brooke Story
Sun, Feb 21, 196560 mins
During a stopover in a small town Don and Bonnie Brooke stop at the doctor's office so she can be examined. Don is a school teacher who has a job offer out west. The doctor confirms the very beautiful Bonnie is pregnant but tells Don that she will need enhanced care back east to successfully have the baby due to complications. The Brookes are broke having borrowed money from others including Coop to get by but Don now needs a lot of money for her care. Don decides to go to the bank for a loan but they don't know him nor does he have any collateral. While talking to the banker, fellow wagon train member Jack Evans enters who is quite taken with Bonnie. The banker has Don go to the front to fill out a loan application while he talks to Jack who he knows. Jacks has several pieces of jewelry that he has collected that he wants to fence with the banker. After he leaves, the banker refuses the loan request for $1,000. An angry Don knocks out the banker and takes the money from the safe. The banker waking up pulls a gun and shoots Don in the street causing Bonnie to lose her baby as well. Bonnie, not herself, becomes a target and tool of Jack Evans as Barnaby sparks a discussion about crime among the crew.
Episode 20
The Miss Mary Lee McIntosh Story
Sun, Feb 28, 196560 mins
Chris Hale is visiting at a nearby fort where they were celebrating catching the Indian Man Who Steals Horses. During the evening while dark and the guard is changing, photographer Daniel Delaney is taking the Indian's picture using the new flash photography. The flash causes confusion letting the Indian escape stealing Hale's horse and the items he had on it for the crew at the wagon train. Chris returns to the train on a borrowed horse finding a lone wagon with a female driver, Mary Lee McIntosh, separated from the rest of the train. She tells him that Chris Hale charges excessive fees to join his train which she refuses to pay. At camp the crew tells him that they had no luck with her either. She is a school teacher with a load of books planning to open a school out west. She is trying to complete her father's long-term goal who she has tended to her whole life until he died. When her wagon is destroyed in an accident, Chris takes her to a nearby fort where there are no spare wagons so her only option is to team up with Delaney who is there but he is more interested in photographing the Indians some of whom are on the warpath. His tricks put Miss McIntosh and himself in danger.
Episode 21
The Captain Sam Story
Sun, Mar 21, 196560 mins
Tough and headstrong female ferryboat captain Samantha Stewart is asked by her son Johnny and his bride to accompany them on the wagon train to California, where they will board a ship for a Pacific voyage. But actually, Johnny is not telling his proud mother that her doctor has told him that she must stay with a dry climate on land or she will die.
Episode 22
The Betsy Blee Smith Story
Sun, Mar 28, 196560 mins
The wagon train is near a town where Coop had stopped the previous year and met Eloise Blee and her twin sister Betsy who was engaged. The twins are nearly impossible to tell apart as well as being very beautiful. Coop asks Chris and the others who will have to do his work if it is okay to visit her for a day or two as he promised he would if he was in the area. Chris allows it but Coop finds Eloise ran off with a peddler a week after Coop left. The married Betsy's husband C. S. Brown is missing with her about to have a baby. Betsy upon recognizing Coop's initials are C. S. asks Coop to pose as her missing husband which he reluctantly does. When the wagon train crew visits after hearing about his situation from Barnaby, Coop is unable to explain it and his new baby daughter.
Episode 23
The Katy Piper Story
Sun, Apr 11, 196560 mins
Charlie Wooster and Barnaby West have the task of escorting Dr. Katy Piper and her daughters to join up with the Chris Hale wagon train. Barnaby is forced to shoot a masked bandit who has hijacked the Piper wagon and ends up killing the bandit. The bandit turns out to be a teenage boy, and though Barnaby is cleared of any wrong doing, he carries the guilt of the killing and the judge tasks him with telling the boy's mother of the death. His guilt is manifested in the stigma of a constantly bleeding gun hand, though there is no physical wound. Barnaby ultimately quits the train when it's time to visit the dead boys mother. The news has already reached her and she, along with the rest of the town, are ready to kill Barnaby for what he's done. Katy Piper and Cooper Smith arrive in time to prevent Barnaby from being killed but not before the dead boy's twin is shot. With the young man weakened by blood loss Barnaby volunteers to be the donor in a radical procedure called blood transfusion, despite Dr. Piper's warnings that it could be fatal to both. It's Barnaby's chance at redemption or a sure trip to the grave.
Episode 24
The Indian Girl Story
Sun, Apr 18, 196560 mins
Hawk refuses to turn an Indian girl over to Chief Crazy Horse for killing his son and has the support of the wagon train members at first, but when Chief Crazy Horse attacks killing several people, they urge Hawks to give her up instead.
Episode 25
The Silver Lady
Sun, Apr 25, 196560 mins
After coming upon the apparent remains of a stagecoach, Coop tells Hawks the story of the Earp brothers and The Silver Lady, a woman who died in a fiery stagecoach wreck with $20,000 in silver coins melted around her. First assuming her to be singer Anne Reed, a townsman in gave her an elaborate burial service, but then Anne Reed arrived very much alive, and revealed that the real Silver Lady was a saloon girl. The Earps and Doc Holliday investigate who attempted to hold up the stage and caused the accident. And yes, it's not a misprint, Michael Burns is really playing Morgan Earp in this episode rather than his regular role as Barnaby.
Episode 26
The Jarbo Pierce Story
Sun, May 2, 196560 mins
The series' final episode begins and ends with the two characters who stayed with it from beginning to end, as Charlie tells Hawks about his earlier days working for trading post operator Jarbo Pierce. Jarbo, once a wild, hard-drinking man, had become a minister, though he could still take on any man who tried to fight him. When his younger brother Adam arrived at the post Jarbo found himself at odds with him as Adam preferred the wilder ways of life and didn't understand Jarbo's concerns for the Indians he traded with, and began working with a man who wanted to use them as indentured servants in a mine.