Advanced search
- TITLES
- NAMES
- COLLABORATIONS
Search filters
Enter full date
to
or just enter yyyy, or yyyy-mm below
to
to
to
Exclude
Only includes titles with the selected topics
to
In minutes
to
1-250 of 430
- Hoss must find out if a renowned saloon girl's sudden interest in a miner is for love or his newfound wealth.
- A singer returns to Virginia City for Christmas along with his scheming uncle.
- Joe's friend Wade Turner, a storekeeper who is engaged and has been offered a promotion at work, tries to deal with a devastating brain tumor that leaves him with a paralyzing sensitivity to bright light and will soon render him blind. Turner lets his pride get in the way and decides to put off both his marriage and a surgery that could save his sight, but his attitude could be far more costly when a co-worker tries to rob him in a remote area.
- Ben's dead-on lookalike, the scheming Bradley Meredith, causes serious problems when he poses as the Cartwright patriarch and sells area ranchers' land to the railroad. Ben, who refused to deal with the railroad, must find a way to expose Meredith and convince one and all that he wasn't responsible.
- Ben and Adam capture a known outlaw that tried to hold up the stage they were passengers on. A reporter who was also a passenger wants to make them both famous, even if he has to amplify the story. But when they take him to jail at the next town, they are met by an aloof sheriff who doesn't mind regaining his past glory with the help of a little creative writing.
- Hoss and Little Joe fall victim to a con, involving a gypsy, a beautiful blonde, and a nearsighted gunfighter coming to town.
- Hoss gets to play 'Pa' to two children while he visits their home to buy horses from the children's father who spends more time in the saloon than he does with his wife and children.
- Joe is a member of the jury which convicts Terrence O'Toole of murder. O'Toole is sentenced to hang. But despite his own vote, Joe is plagued by doubts about the man's guilt.
- Attorney Cato Troxell is defending his brother against a murder charge. When he's found guilty, Cato threatens the judge in front of witnesses. When the judge is killed in his own barn, Cato is naturally brought up on charges. But several days before, a photographer was hired to take a group photo of the Ponderosa and some hands from several surrounding ranches. But how did Cato get in the picture? Everyone swears he wasn't there.
- When Hoss' snoring, Adam's guitar playing and Little Joe's courting shenanigans keep a dog-tired Ben Cartwright awake, he rides wearily away from the Ponderosa to try to find a quiet room at the Virginia City hotel; but the wild, frontier town's chaotic night life soon makes him think he would have been better off back at the ranch.
- Ben begins the process to legally adopt Jamie as his son, but the process is complicated when Jamie's maternal grandfather, Ferris Callahan, comes forward wanting custody. Ben must bear the heartbreaking news to Callahan that Jamie has bonded with the Cartwright family.
- While making a payment delivery, Hoss is wrongfully accused of being a bank robber with the money being his loot.
- Ben tries to uncover the reason gold and silver exporter, Frederick Kyle, has befriended Little Joe before the shadowy businessman's hidden Civil War agenda tears Virginia City, and the Cartwright family, apart.
- Arrested for robbing the stagecoach he was riding, Adam can't convince the sheriff that the real bandits were run off by a knight in shining armor who called himself...King Arthur!
- When Sheriff Roy Coffee and Ben are subpoenaed to testify in a land-sharking trial in San Francisco, Hoss is appointed the acting sheriff of Virginia City. Hoss soon finds plenty of trouble on his hands, namely dealing with reluctant bridegroom Hiram Peabody, who wants to get arrested so as to avoid an impending marriage to an undesirable woman (who has been his pen pal and has never met in person). He also must deal with a smooth-talking salesman who plans to sell shares in a planned resort in Virginia City.
- When Hoss is framed for murder, he puts his faith in court with his new friend, a lawyer with a worrying taste for alcohol.
- Alone at the Ponderosa while everyone else is away on a cattle drive, Joe suffers a compound fracture in his left arm when he is kicked by a horse spooked by a severe thunderstorm. Joe fights to stay conscious and treat his wounds. When he becomes delirious, he fears that gangrene has infected his arm, leaving Joe with a difficult decision: amputate, or not amputate?
- An orphaned rainmaker named Jamie Hunter comes to Virginia City, hoping to help relieve the drought-stricken area. When Jamie's efforts aren't immediately successful, Ben helps the lad fend off the frustrated ranchers.
- Hoss brings young Skeeter Dexter to live at the Ponderosa after his brutal stepfather leaves the area. Skeeter, a boy with a natural affinity for animals, has had no luck with his home life: his mother is bitter and destitute and has blamed him ever since his father abandoned her.
- Famous author Charles Dickens visits the Ponderosa, and finds himself embroiled in controversy.
- A mix-up in his request for mail-order Chinese fireworks brings Hoss instead a feisty mail-order bride whose militant ideas ignite a workers' rebellion and threaten the completion of a Virginia City railroad project.
- A friend of Ben's asks to stay at the Ponderosa for a time. Soon Ben discovers the woman is trying to plan a rendezvous with her husband who is a fugitive Confederate officer. Ben must decide where his loyalties lay.
- A stagecoach containing Hoss and two nuns is robbed. Later, one of the badly wounded robbers finds himself in their power.
- Special Deputy Hoss goes in search of the gunman who shot Little Joe, tangling with testy townsfolk, two crafty brothers, and their mother, who is more interested in protecting her sons than seeing justice done.
- Hoss and Little Joe chase a team of con-artists into the desert. There is not enough water for both to continue. Joe pursues while Hoss goes for help.
- Lotta Crabtree is hired by mining tycoon Alpheus Troy to lure one of the Cartwrights into town and hold him for ransom in exchange for Ponderosa timber rights.
- When Spanish Gypsies arrive on the Cartwright ranch things get a lot more exciting for Ben, Hoss and Joe as they find themselves the subject of Rosalita's advances.
- Hoss is seriously wounded by a member of the Brennan clan, Virginia natives who are settling out West, across the state of Nevada. The Brennans debate whether to seek much-needed medical attention for Hoss or let him die.
- Bushwacked and suffering from amnesia, Hoss is found wandering down the road by the Vandervorts, an older couple who are happy to take the gentle giant into their family to replace the son they lost. But when Ben comes looking for his missing son, the Vandervorts lie about seeing him and refuse to tell Hoss who he really is, planning to take him to Michigan with them and away from his real family, and the Ponderosa, for good.
- Ben's friend, April Christopher, is bitten by a rabid wolf during her visit. With no treatment available, the Cartwrights and April's family struggle to watch her condition deteriorate.
- Angered that his longtime friend, Ben Cartwright, would ask him to retire into easier work after 50 years of wrangling, aging ranch-hand Dan Tolliver falls in with two disgruntled drifters who plan to rob the Ponderosa payroll.
- Ben's ability to close a lucrative cattle purchase with a picky heiress hinges on Hoss and Joe's ability to sell a dilapidated saloon they were duped into buying. However, they are convinced that the shanty contains a hidden treasure.
- An alcoholic saloon girl changes her life with the help of Ben and an ex-prizefighter who falls in love with her.
- Ben has a problem on his hands when the girl he protected from her alcoholic husband mistakes gratitude for love.
- At an old friend's request, Ben agrees to shelter a witness in a government case. He's a witness to several felonies and they've tried to kill him several times already. When he asks to see his wife, he puts them all in danger since she is being watched.
- While returning home from a horse-selling trip, Joe is verbally ambushed by seafarer Abner Willoughby, who has returned to Nevada to find a stash of gold he hid 17 years earlier in Glory Hole.
- A stubborn, career army sergeant appears to be his only hope when Little Joe is arrested after being robbed and knocked unconscious by a look-a-like escaped army prisoner and is unable to convince the fort commander that he isn't the man who has been sentenced to face the firing squad.
- Little Michael Thorpe's father is accidentally shot and gravely injured. Believing that only God can save his father, and told by his Indian ranch hand that God lives on a mountain, Michael wanders off onto that mountain, and finds an old hermit who he thus thinks is God.
- Ben and a pregnant woman are held hostage by a gang of robbers, who are plotting a stagecoach robbery and are determined to prevent interference by anyone with the name Cartwright.
- While riding posse after a band of vicious marauders led by a renegade ex-cavalry officer, Ben Cartwright captures a wounded comanchero and tries to protect him from the angry ranchers who want to lynch him, his own gang who wants the money he was carrying for them and an angry Little Joe who lost a friend when his ranch was raided.
- A traveling professional boxer named Tom Callahan is the only person who can prove Dusty Rhodes' innocence when the Ponderosa foreman is falsely jailed. But when Callahan stubbornly refuses to come to Virginia City to provide the alibi, Joe decides to pursue him and do everything he can to bring him back.
- Will Griner is acquitted of a murder after two key witnesses disappeared before the trial. When a bloodthirsty lynch mob comes after him, thinking him to have silenced the witnesses, Griner goes to the Cartwrights for help.
- An eccentric Englishman arrives at the Ponderosa, his mode of transportation a land-rowing boat. His aim, as the Cartwrights learn, is to expose and challenge Nevada's silly, obscure laws.
- Attacked by outlaws, Hoss takes cover in a prospector's shack with the old prospector and with Walter, the old man's surprisingly communicative dog.
- After a U.S. deputy marshal apparently saves Adam's life by gunning down two men who shot at him, he eventually reveals that he's in town to bring a close friend of the Cartwrights to Sacramento to testify in a statewide racketeering trial, but the deputy marshal's motives soon become suspect as to what he really wants to do with the reluctant witness.
- A balladeer blames Ben for the hanging of his father.
- Hoss and Joe "rob" a bank for altruistic reasons and are pursued not by the law but by a more serious force, Ben and Adam.
- Little Joe and his friend Mitch chase a sheep-killing puma into a canyon and Joe climbs a steep slope to get a better look at the terrain. When he slips, dropping his rifle into a rock crevice, Joe is suddenly paralyzed with fear. Mitch calls to him and Joe manages to climb down, but without his rifle. Ashamed, Joe tells no one of his experience and when his attempts to retrieve his rifle fail in panic, Joe's pent-up frustration causes him to behave recklessly. Ben knows something is wrong and confronts his youngest son. Will Joe reveal his secret and let his father give him the help he desperately needs?
- A group of immigrant winegrowers sets up business on the Ponderosa.
- A neighboring rancher, Andy, is good friends with Ben, but his son (Todd) wants to sell their land for mining operations which will spoil the water rights agreement that Andy and Ben made years ago.
- Little Joe puts his life on the line to help sick friend-turned-gunfighter, Steven Friday, who is holed up in a second-story hotel room and waiting a challenge from a gunman, hired by the father of one of Friday's victims to avenge his son's death on the anniversary of the killing - Friday the 13th.
- 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.
- Civil War veteran Will Hewitt returns to Virginia City, blinded and determined to solve the mystery behind the death of his brother.
- Ben Cartwright finds himself in a fight for his life when he acts too late on his suspicion that there is more than meets the eye to an amiable, young drifter that Little Joe brought home to the Ponderosa.
- Jeb Drummond is a murderous sheep herder that has Adam taken hostage to try and force Ben to sign over a large section of Ponderosa land to him.
- Dolly Kincaid is so fed up with her extremely dominant, controlling, sheriff father, that she runs away with her boyfriend. She later finds out he is the leader of some murderous bank robbers and when they kidnap Hoss and Joe, she still sticks with him.
- 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.
- Joe blames himself after a ricocheting bullet from his pistol blinds a young woman and decides that the only way he can atone for the accident is to make her his wife.
- Two ranchers find a seriously wounded Little Joe in the Nevada desert. As he struggles for life, Joe mumbles incoherently about his surrealistic nightmares about a teepee and a wagon wheel. Ben and Hoss are left to decipher what Joe is talking about and determine what happened.
- Trouble with a capital "T" that rhymes with "C" comes to Virginia City when Little Joe brings young Calamity Jane home to the Ponderosa after rescuing her from a deadly prairie raid.
- The Cartwrights assist Jamie's friend, Cassie O'Casey, and Cassie's mother in dealing with their father and husband, Kevin, who is running a race horse scam. Hoss uses a "fixed" horse race of his own to outwit Kevin.
- While in small town Tin Bucket to sell Ponderosa cowhides, Candy is accused of cheating in a card game and the Cartwrights are dogged by a mysterious rumor that claims they have fallen on hard times and are desperate for money.
- In the series' only Easter-themed episode, a Quaker woman convinces Hoss to pose as the Easter bunny for the orphanage. While wearing a rabbit costume, Hoss must try to foil the efforts of a bumbling gang that is plotting to loot the Wells Fargo coach.
- The Cartwrights become unwitting pawns in a battle between wealthy rancher Gabriel Bingham and his penniless nephew Jayce Fredericks over the ownership of the valuable black horse Jayce needs to restart his herd and reclaim his ranch.
- While visiting a remote town to await the arrival of Ben, Little Joe and Candy, Hoss is wrongly arrested for the murder and robbery of a hermit miner. When a lynch mob starts to gather, cowboy Child Barnett breaks Hoss out of jail. Both are chased by a posse whose interest is not justice, but the retrieval of the money that the miner was thought to have stashed away.
- The Cartwrights get more than they bargained for when they welcome snobbish and overbearing Eastern cousin Clarissa.
- While in the nearby town of Angelus to treat Candy's injured hand, Little Joe offers horse-wrangling work to an out-of-work miner friend, Steve Regan. But, when a rearing horse accidentally kills Steve, Little Joe and Candy stay to help the grieving widow and instead find themselves embroiled in a dangerous mine strike, resented by the angry Angelus miners, and discovering that there may be real cause to doubt the mine's safety...and their own.
- Candy is kidnapped by retired Army Sergeant Mike Russell and his band of fellow former soldiers when he uncovers their plan to blast their way into the Carson City Mint to steal the pension they believe they deserve, but never received, from their long years of Army service.
- When it's unclear which of their two bullets, fired simultaneously, brought down a wanted horse thief, Little Joe allows his friend, rancher Morgan Tanner, to take the credit and claim the much needed reward money. But when the outlaw's brothers come to town for his body and revenge, Joe must make a difficult decision that will save his friend, but may destroy their friendship.
- Jed Trask has been with the Sierra Mail & Stage Lines for many years. When a group of gunmen in the town of Latigo cuts off delivery of the goods and mail, he goes after those responsible with the help of some on the Virginia City council - the Cartwrights.
- Ben needs to transport three large timber beams but the local freight company won't do it. When a new independent freight hauler is approached for the job, Ben recognizes "Gunny" O'Riley, a former soldier in the Mexican-American War, but on the opposite side. Ben finally puts his differences aside and helps Gunny win a lucrative government contract.
- Ben begins to suspect that the shy young drifter he hired as a ranch hand may be running from the law.
- While hunting a predator wolf, Little Joe finds a gypsy woman who has been rejected from her people because she is believed to be a witch.
- Prejudice erupts on both sides when Ben gives an Indian named Matsou and his wife some of his land, after saving Ben's life from a renegade Indian who almost killed him on the Ponderosa.
- 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.
- During a long ride back to the Ponderosa, thirsty Hoss and Candy stop at the Sunville saloon where Salty Hubbard, known for his tall tales and practical jokes, tells his cronies that Hoss is the notorious bank robber, Big Jack. The town folk initially scoff at Salty's claim but a series of unfortunate events gives the prevarication a ring of truth and there is talk of a hanging. When a contrite Salty admits to Hoss that he lied to impress his friends, Candy thinks of a way to save both Salty's pride and Hoss' life but, as with most best-laid plans, this one goes awry when the real Big Jack comes to town.
- Adam stops Howard Mead from robbing Johann Brunner and his sister Hilda. However, Howard's talent for singing and guitar playing, along with his hard-luck stories, persuade Adam to give him another chance, and Hilda agrees to drop the charges. This may be a mistake, as Howard's talents cannot hide his dark side even as Hilda falls for him.
- When a powerful gang plagues Virginia City with a murderous protection racket, the Cartwrights are determined to stop it even as it threatens them.
- The Cartwrights go up against two San Francisco men who plan to get rich by killing off the antelope herds--which the Indians rely on for their food--and selling the meat to Virginia City's swarms of silver miners.
- While in Los Robles, Mexico, Ben is critically wounded by the town's cruel boss, John Walker. Ben manages to shoot and kill Walker, but now his son - the splitting image of his father - is hellbent on revenge. While Joe tends to his father's care, he tries in vain to embolden the town's residents, who for years have been intimidated into submission by Walker and his cronies. Eventually, Joe's efforts pay off and the Los Robles residents mount a stand against Walker's gang.
- Ranchers are being killed, cattle stolen, and even after former U.S. Deputy Marshal Denver McKee sends posses after the suspects, they are never found. Meanwhile, McKee suspiciously has plenty of money to take care of his daughter and her schooling back East.
- As is often the case on Bonanza, things are not always as they first seem. Hoss and Adam eventually learn who is the good guy and who is not.
- An Army Colonel comes to the Ponderosa looking for a man who was under his command, then deserted. The Colonel believes the deserter lives in the vicinity of the Ponderosa. He wants to bring him to Washington for court martial. He shows them a picture and they claim not to know him but it's their neighbor, Bill Winters. Just as the Colonel was leaving he is shot by an arrow. While the Colonel rests, Ben goes to Bill who admits it's true. Ten years ago, the Colonel was tasked with keeping the Indians in line and he decided to do that by raiding them. Bill chose not to follow him and aided some of them to escape but he still raided the Indians and many were killed. He learns that there'll be another attempt on the Colonel so he goes to the Ponderosa and kills the Indian who was sent to kill him. When the Colonel sees Bill, he pulls his gun on him but Ben tells him that he saved his life. He then reveals that Bill is his son. When the Indians learn of Bill's connection to the Colonel, they take him for punishment. His wife, who's one of the Indians he saved tells Ben. Ben asks to speak to the Chief whom he knows. The Colonel knows that the Chief won't give his son back so he offers himself in exchange for his son. Knowing that the Indians will kill him, he asks Ben to speak to the Indians for him.
- A seasoned Army sergeant escapes from the stockade accused of cowardice in the face of the enemy. A man helps him escape and is killed; the sergeant is shot. Candy stumbles on him and his squaw wife; he believes him and decides to help, but an Army search party isn't far behind.
- The Cartwrights and Candy come across a town deserted following an Indian attack. The sole survivor is a man locked up in the jail until a woman, claiming to have escaped the attack, turns up.
- Ben tries to find jobs for two strangers who helped him when his wagon was bogged down in the mud. Trouble ensues when one of the strangers dies, leaving the other one who is mentally disabled, alone.
- The Cartwrights try to help a religious group that is passing through the Ponderosa, but incur the wrath of the clan's leaders when they come to the defense of one of their members, a young woman whom they accuse of being a witch.
- Little Joe devises a mission to claim some government land that would impede deforestation by a timber baron. He encounters a cantankerous old lady living on the land and Joe finds she is reluctant to file a claim.
- Virginia City's new doctor, Mark Sloan, is dealt a double-blow when his wife leaves him, blaming him for their baby being stillborn. In the heat of the moment, Sloan kidnaps the baby of another woman.
- In the third and final episode featuring the Calhouns, Luke is bankrupted after a stock investment gone bad, so he and his daughter Meena move to the Ponderosa until he can get back on his feet. Without Ben's permission, Luke turns the Ponderosa into a casino, with gambling all over the place.
- The Cartwrights come to the aid of Mexican farmers in the Prince River vicinity, after they were run off the land by a corrupt tycoon wanting to strip mine the area.
- After tangling with bandits on the way to California to buy a prized bull for the Ponderosa, Little Joe fends off a pretty senorita and her jealous fiancé, while Hoss discovers that the bull has been spirited away by a little boy who is convinced that the Cartwrights plan to kill and eat his big bovine friend.
- Adam helps an angry young man to confront the "hanging judge" who sentenced his father to death in a high-stakes miscarriage of justice.
- At the bedside of a seriously ill Adam, Ben thinks back to his days as a first mate on a sailing ship and his marriage to Adam's mother, Elizabeth Stoddard.
- Little Joe catches a glimpse in town of an old love, not knowing she's now a married woman--and willing to lie Joe into a hangman's noose if he doesn't give her what she wants.
- The Cartwrights help Virginia City reporter Samuel Langhorne Clemens investigate suspected shady goings-on between a railroad company and a local judge.
- A famous Italian opera singer is invited to sing at the local Virginia City opera house. One snag: he may resemble on paper a runaway slave they were just notified about; and some of the townspeople want him arrested or worse.
- Hoss is rescued from a band of hungry Paiutes rustling Ponderosa cattle after a hard winter by Erin O'Donnell, an Irish woman who was raised by the Sioux and revered by the tribes as a medicine woman and mystic.
- Three deserters escaped from an Army stockade to the Ponderosa. When a Captain comes looking for them, Ben realizes what they've had to deal with and promises to let his good friend in charge of that fort know the real truth.
- Jamie's girlfriend, Neta Thatcher, witnesses a drifter named Griff Bannon rob and kill a man at a roadside camp. Bannon - who assumes his victim's identity and inherits his fortune - is aware that Neta has witnessed the crime and begins stalking her. Neta is terrified to tell anyone about the crime she witnessed, but has even more problems on her hands: Her tough love father, who refuses to allow her to socialize with the Cartwrights. Meanwhile, Bannon takes a job at the Ponderosa using his victim's identity, and he and Jamie become friends. However, Bannon's cover is quickly blown when Neta fingers him as the killer. Just when Bannon has Jamie and Neta trapped, an unlikely hero saves their lives.
- Jill Conway is an alcoholic mother whose husband was sent to prison (for robbery) on Hoss' testimony. In a pent-up rage, Jill demands that Hoss look after her son, Petey. Hoss, however, wants Jill to see this as an opportunity to reform herself and is determined to use tough love to help her realize it.
- Joe, Hoss and Candy drive a herd to Sand Dust. When they go into town to collect their wages, the buyer is robbed and killed with four witnesses to both crimes. When they are put up in the hotel under protective custody, the Slater gang makes several attempts to finish them all off so they can't testify against the one brother they managed to capture.
- A woman dies. Her husband is in prison, and the sheriff needs someone to look after the boy until the boy's uncle can come to claim him. The Cartwrights begin to take care of the boy at the Ponderosa. When the boy arrives at the ranch, he does not know that his father is in prison. The boy learns the truth about his dad, and news reaches the Ponderosa that the convict has escaped from prison. The Cartwrights deal with the possibility that the boy's father may be coming their way.
- Jamie becomes friends with Kelly Edwards, who is abused by her husband, Dan. The catch: the husband happens to be the new teacher at the Virginia City School, and he quickly becomes unpopular because he belittles the students. Soon, Jamie helps Kelly come out of her shell, which sets none to well with Dan, who orders an end to the friendship.
- Ben is researching county records in the basement of the court house when a mine below collapses. Ben is trapped with a man accused of murder, the chief witness against him, and two others. The accused man insists he's innocent.
- Ben is appointed temporary sheriff after Sheriff Coffee is injured while bringing in one of the Lassiter boys, who has been sentenced to hang. Elizabeth Lassiter, bitter ever since the death of her husband and loss of her ranch, has turned her sons and her foreman into outlaws, and is now threatening to kidnap one Virginia City resident a day and kill them unless her son is freed. Little Joe becomes the third one taken hostage.
- A stagecoach accident in a windstorm leaves 5 stranded, after which Little Joe is accused when a man is found murdered with Joe's knife.
- Jamie's friend Carrie Sturgis, herself an orphan, is the subject of a heated custody battle between her scheming aunt and uncle, Gifford and Vella Owens, and her gravely ill grandfather. The point of contention: the grandfather owns a gold mine ripe to be harvested, and Carrie is believed to be the heir. The Cartwrights become involved when Jamie rescues Carrie, and the Owens couple want anyone named Cartwright arrested.
- Candy and Jamie are with Joe when Joe sees his house is on fire. He yells for his wife. Sadly, Alice and her brother are both murdered. Joe and Candy go looking for the killers to bring them to justice.
- Hoss comes upon a stagecoach whose passengers have been murdered, except for a little girl who's in a catatonic state due to shock. The Cartwrights take the girl in, hoping to find her relatives, but Hoss becomes so attached to her that he's reluctant to let her go. An uncle of hers is located and arrives in Virginia City to claim the child, but he has an ulterior motive.
- Four sisters come from Boston to try to prevent a property left to them by their uncle from being auctioned due to back taxes. They arrive the day of the sale but are short the full amount due. When Ben steps in and pays off all that is due, one of the sisters wonders what's Ben's motive. But are her suspicions aimed in the wrong direction?
- Ben's friendship with the Kosovos, a young immigrant family from Serbia, puts him in danger when family patriarch Nick suffers a psychotic snap, goes on a rampage and barricades them in their home. Ben does all he can to reason with Nick, whose wife and son have become deathly afraid of him in the process - especially since the consequences could be deadly if Ben says the wrong thing.
- The Cartwrights take in a young orphaned blind girl on Christmas Eve. Will they be able to reunite her with her embittered old grandfather?
- Will and Charlie bury their father with the help of Hoss. He decides to help them get to their aunt but he finds out soon enough that he's taken on more than he bargained for when he finds out how their pa was killed.
- Gideon Yates, a corrupt lawman whose wife had shot her soon-to-be ex-husband in cold blood, tries to silence the murder's only witness - Little Joe Cartwright.
- With tensions with a drought-stricken neighboring flatland rising, the Cartwrights decide to address the problem by helping a stubborn flatland homesteader dig a new well.
- Hoss harbors kindred spirit Big Jim Layton on the Ponderosa while trying to clear the wounded mountain man's name from charges of theft and murder.
- Jamie's 7-year-old friend, Jonah Morgan, is badly wounded when he and Jamie walk into the Virginia City Bank during a robbery by the evil Springer gang. The boy later dies of his injuries. Joe and Jamie accompany Jonah's grief-hardened, paraplegic grandfather on the hunt for Springer and his cronies.
- Claire Armory comes to Virginia City to live with her brother Carl, an invalid neighbor of the Cartwrights. Carl encourages Claire to see Ben, and soon Claire and Ben fall in love with each other. But Carl is a manipulative man who uses his condition in order to get Claire to do what he wants, and tries to use her now to get money from Ben. Claire struggles with whether or not to break free from her brother and marry Ben.
- Ben helps ex-convict John Dundee re-adjust to society. However, Dundee's boorish attitude complicates matters, and it may have to do with his former business partners framing him for a crime he didn't commit.
- Adam's old shipmate plots to rob the Cartwrights of gold.
- Honest John, a drifter, is looking for a nest and hopes to settle on the Ponderosa through his rapport with the newly "adopted" Jamie. But John's breakthrough with the boy must be weighed against the seamier side of his character.
- Colonel Robert Fairchild is an old friend of the Cartwright clan and a member of a gang of con artists out to swindle the Cartwrights in a crooked horse race.
- Hoss scares a bear that has treed a green-clad little man, subsequently finds a buried strongbox filled with bags of gold dust and, when both the treasure and its owner disappear, unsuccessfully tries to convince his skeptical family that he'd discovered a leprechaun's hoard. But the whole town goes searching for the mythical men after a newly arrived Irish professor confirms the presence of multiple leprechauns...and their gold!
- The Cartwrights and their cousin Muley Jones tangle with feisty Tracy Ledbetter when she claims Cousin Muley stole her precious pack of baying bird dogs.
- Longtime hand 'adopted' into the Cartwright family as a baby decides to return to the Indian tribe to which he was born. Indian haters stir up trouble that puts the new treaty in jeopardy.
- The back story behind Ben's three wives is up to Inger, Ben's second wife (and mother of Hoss). The story relates the first meeting between Ben and Inger, as Ben and a young Adam were traveling west.
- Humiliated by a professional gunslinger in front of a bar crowd that included his girlfriend, timid Johnny Chapman asks Little Joe to teach him how to handle a gun. But, Johnny changes as he gains skill and confidence and Joe soon doesn't recognize his friend in the hard, ruthless man he's become.
- The daughter of Ben's friend Harry Collier, Jennifer, develops a huge crush for the Cartwright patriarch. Ben notes that Jennifer is the same age as oldest son (and long-since departed Adam), but that doesn't matter. It soon does matter when Jennifer's ex-fiancé, a wealthy banker from San Francisco, shows up demanding to take her back - or else it will be the end of the Ponderosa.
- Circus midget and new widower George Marshall struggles to deal with the prejudice of Mr. Flint, the town's banker, when he refuses to hire him despite Ben's recommendation.
- After Joe gets hooked on detective novels, he becomes suspicious of two strangers in town. He enlists Hoss' help to convince the deputy and Ben that they're really robbers before it's too late.
- Ben finds Hoss in the barn waiting for a mare to give birth. Ben can't help but remember that's how Hoss' mother (Inger) was. He then finds an old journal wherein he wrote down their trek West. While Hoss waits, Ben reads it and recalls how their trek was arduous. And Inger was pregnant with Hoss and they had to deal with Indians and a drunken wagon master.
- Initially suspected as being part of the bank-robbing Hollister gang while on his way to visit Tom and Ellie Blackwell's drought-stricken ranch, Little Joe is soon held hostage and his friends terrorized by the real desperadoes on the run to Mexico with a wounded man.
- Candy is arrested for an outstanding warrant in Olympus for killing A.Z. Wheelock's son. As Hoss investigates, he finds someone else who may have a motive for putting his son out of the way.
- A marshal's brother is shot by two men who held up the stage depot. Little Joe joins the posse who follows the trail left by those men. They come upon two men who say they didn't do it but since his brother may die, the marshal seems to have other ideas.
- Joe sets out to avenge the death of his fiancée at the hands of a shy bank clerk who was infatuated with her.
- Not long after bad-tempered Frank Scott is hanged for murdering a young woman in a dark Virginia City alley, witness for the prosecution, Hoss Cartwright, sees a man in a Carson City saloon who looks just like Frank, hears him whistling the same strange tune the killer whistled that fateful night, and begins to fear that his testimony has sent the wrong man to the gallows.
- Hoss finds himself smack dab in the middle of a mountain family feud when he agrees to be the best man at ornery Big Jim Leyton's wedding.
- A delusional mining tycoon has the Cartwrights and Candy arrested on false trespassing charges and sentences them to slave labor at a gold mine.
- Hoss Cartwright's good deed results in hard feelings when the mail order bride he has volunteered to escort to a neighboring rancher falls in love with him before she reaches her intended groom.
- 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.
- Ben receives a "package" shipped via Wells Fargo Express. It is a little girl. She is the daughter of a cousin of Ben. The Cartwrights soon find she is a firebrand who doesn't want to stay on the Ponderosa.
- An Italian immigrant and his son seek a new life after fleeing violence in their home country.
- After a 20-year stint in prison, Sam Logan is invited to stay at the Ponderosa because Ben believes that his friend doesn't know where the bank's gold is. With three people on the trail of the money, Sam has to decide if his loyalties are with them or his good friend Ben Cartwright.
- A ruthless meat packer named Emmett Whitney schemes to monopolize the local cattle industry by buying the rail line that is used to transport the cattle to market, then force the cattle farmers to sell at deeply reduced prices. Ben, championing the smaller farmers and knowing that Whitney could drive many of the Cartwrights' friends out of business, devises a plan to drive Whitney out - even if it means he will lose the Ponderosa if his plan fails.
- 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.
- The Cartwrights re-acquaint themselves (for better or worse) with a noted womanizer known as Lothario Larkin.
- Ben's Pygmalion-like efforts to 'civilize' a young, white woman, raised by a neighboring Paiute Indian tribe, have an unintended result when, instead of choosing a husband from among the eligible young men he has rounded up for her, she falls in love with him.
- A phony fortuneteller tells Hoss that he's a master violinist.
- Ben recounts his adventure in New Orleans during which he met his third wife, the then future mother of Little Joe.
- A town bully humiliates Hop Sing by cutting off his ponytail. Joe goes to deal with the bully. Later the bully ends up dead and Joe is charged with the murder. Hop Sing clears Joe of the murder charges by using an ancient Chinese method for identifying a person's finger prints.
- Joe and Candy compete for the attention of pretty Miss Meena Calhoun, who has come to Lynchville alone, leaving her irascible gold-panning father, Luke, at their cabin. While pursuing the young lass, they run into the Potter brothers, a trio of gold-claim jumpers who are convinced that Joe and Candy have more than love on their minds.
- The Cartwrights are fully aware that Virginia City's new minister is a former gunfighter. But when one of the Ponderosa's ranch hands recognizes him as the man who killed his twin brother, he tries to goad him into a duel.
- One of Ben's ranch hands on the Ponderosa finds his past catching up with him when his twin brother murders a man.
- When threatened by a man fraudulently sold a part of the Ponderosa by a Henry T.P. Comstock, the Cartwrights remember when they first met the silver-tongued claim-jumper and his scheme that laid the foundation of Virginia City.
- A stubborn British widow hires Candy as an escort, then foils his attempts to retrieve her valuables from thieves.
- During a wolf hunt, Adam accidentally shoots Little Joe, and must find help if Joe is to survive.
- To prove Candy's innocence when he is accused of murder, Little Joe and Hoss must track down the only eye-witness to the incident... the Paiute Indian who was trying to steal Candy's horse.
- Ben's plans to wed widow Katherine Saunders are jeopardized after her son is accused of murder.
- A gunslinger who believes he's Napoleon leads an army to terrorize Virginia City.
- In this sequel episode to "Riot," Ben helps parolee Griff King adjust to life outside of prison, giving him a job as a ranch hand. At first, Griff resists the Cartwrights' attempts to rehabilitate him, but he soon grows to appreciate their help and tries to change.
- Donnie Buckler has been shot getting away from a holdup. He buries a portion and then is found by Little Joe. They go to the Ponderosa and fetch the doc but by the time he arrives the Cartwrights have been seized by the rest of the gang. When Donnie doesn't give up the loot's location, the boss decides to use some different leverage - an old girlfriend he hadn't seen in about a year.
- Certain that he is too old to stand against a notorious gang of bank robbers when news arrives that Virginia City will soon be next in a long string of successful raids, the terrified townsfolk demand Sheriff Coffee's resignation to make way for a younger lawman.
- Charlie is well liked by everyone. He's always full of stories and plans for making money. One day, a man with a reward on his head tries to rob his livery stable and is accidentally killed by his own knife. When the man's family comes to town looking for revenge, Hoss has to try to let everyone know who was actually in that knife fight before Old Charlie gives up his life for the reward.
- Two men whom Ben once worked with during a gold claim arrive in Virigina City ... on opposite sides of the law. Naturally, Ben is caught in the middle.
- After Hoss injures traveling circus wrestler, Bearcat Sampson, during an exhibition match, Hoss and 'manager' Little Joe agree that Hoss will take the Bearcat's place in the ring while he recovers; but the circus owner squanders Hoss' winnings and the Cartwrights end up with an unconventional paycheck...Old Sheba, the circus elephant.
- Suffering from an infected foot, Hoss finds unexpected relief from Professor Poppy, an itinerant patent-medicine peddler who secretly carries a medical bag. But Hoss soon finds that the professor may really be Doctor P.A. Mundy who is being trailed by a vengeful Englishman claiming that Mundy murdered his wife.
- In his second attempt to cash in on Ben's good name, crooked lookalike Bradley Meredith learns that the Cartwrights are in Carson City and, posing as Ben, pretends that he is seriously ill and begins to liquidate the Ponderosa's assets. The Cartwrights come just in time to foil Meredith's plans.
- Hoss meets 'Patch' while doing some menial labor in a deserted town. He invites him to work at the Ponderosa. Hoss soon learns the truth about his past and decides to help him if he'll let him.
- A band of rowdy young punks accidentally kills a deputy in a barroom brawl. With Sheriff Coffee out of town, the mayor sends for legendary peace officer Wes Dunn to take his place temporarily and track down the gang. But it soon becomes apparent that Dunn is totally ruthless and brutal in the methods he uses to catch them.
- Brothers Hoss and Little Joe are sweet-talked by a pair of con men into "investing" in a pair of "exotic" animals who are indeed prolific--they're common rabbits.
- While Adam relies on his charm and guitar to impress a visiting senorita, Hoss and Little Joe scheme to win her heart in a more south-of-the-border way...a bull fight!
- Joe steps in as teacher when his school-mistress girlfriend Abby falls from a horse. Joe meets his match when he undertakes to teach the two sons of a hog farmer.
- Candy and Little Joe are in a poker game and Candy (with Joe's help) wins 40% of an old stamp mill.
- A drought brings a rainmaker with a very sick daughter to Virginia City.
- Eleven years after Lotta Crabtree's last stop in Virginia City caused trouble for a young Joe Cartwright, actress Lotta Crabtree's daughter returns for another engagement in the Nevada town. This time, it's Hoss who finds himself in the thick of a murder case when he is accused of killing daughter Lotta's co-star during a performance.
- Ben gets word that his nephew Will has been murdered in nearby Pine City. As it turns out, Will has been shot and wounded while on the run from a counterfeiting gang that wants back the engraving plates Will has "appropriated" from them.
- When Claude Miller is fired from his latest job, his girl and Little Joe scheme to help him regain his self respect by buying his worthless land. When he involves his brother Hoss to buy some mining claims too, the prior owners blow it up and discover silver - as big as the Comstock lode! But new riches brings out those wanting to get rich too.
- The Pony Express comes to Virginia City and Little Joe decides to join. Soon Indians react to express riders invading their lands.
- If the Pony Express is to survive, the growing Indian problem must be addressed. When things get out of hand, it is Ben Cartwright who steps in to save the life of the Indian chief's son and secure a peace treaty.
- Substitute teacher Adam Cartwright is unprepared for the violent resistance he meets when his research into the territory's history gets him too close to uncovering a long-buried Virginia City secret.
- Ben becomes horrified while inspecting living conditions at the Nevada State Prison. So are the frustrated inmates, who take Ben hostage and make a series of demands to improve conditions. One of the inmates - Griff King - decides to act as a go-between to communicate the prisoners' demands with the state prison board. In the end, Griff is paroled to Ben's custody.
- A "beautiful baby" contest that Hoss is judging quickly turns into a circus, thanks to the fortune-hunting parents who are determined to win at all costs.
- Candy relives his past when he and the Cartwrights help a Cavalry unit that is pinned down by bandits. In that Cavalry unit is Candy's ex-wife, who he still has feelings for. Her new husband is the Captain of the unit.
- The Cartwrights join to help mystical blacksmith Sam Hill save the land his drunk, sea-dog father signed away to an old enemy, discover the circumstances behind his mother's death, and solve the mystery of why a tropical tree flourishes in spite of cold Nevada winters.
- While in San Francisco, two of Ben's hired hands get shanghaied and so does Ben in the process of looking for them.
- The Cartwrights attempt to reconstruct a 24-hour period of Ben's life after he fears he may have been the unknown gunman who shot down Sid Langley, a corrupt real estate broker who has become hated in Virginia City. The reason? Ben had suffered a concussion from an unknown source just before his meeting with Langley and happened to be his last appointment before a critically wounded Langley was found. Oh, and Ben strongly disapproved of Langley's unethical business practices.
- Joe and Hoss are out when they are attacked by Indians, Joe hit with an arrow. With Joe needing medical attention, they come across a small wagon train of misfits, heading East. Their only doctor, dying and wanting to see his grandchildren before he dies, helps Little Joe.
- Hoss turns to a clairvoyant named Judith Corman to help in a search for Jamie, who has gotten lost in the high country. However, Judith is reluctant to help out, fearing that her psychic abilities will ruin her engagement to a minister who opposes her gift as witchcraft.
- Ben's militia troop is reactivated when the Paiute Indian Wabuska is captured and needs to be transported to the nearest fort. The Indians consider him to be a god which makes him very important to their people. When several of the soldiers are killed, the tribal chief sees for himself what they have been dying for.
- Gen. Ira Cloninger, an old friend of the Cartwrights, is toasted at a ceremony as a hero and asked to run for governor. Cloninger accepts and Ben enthusiastically backs the candidate - until the investigation of the killing of a young Nez Perce exposes his attitude toward Indians.
- A band of rogue ex-Confederate soldiers comes to the Ponderosa to demand a $25,000 ransom. Hoss tries to disrupt the robbery and is critically wounded by the group's leader, Shanklin. While Jamie escapes and tries to search Virginia City's saloons for Joe, Ben learns that Shanklin is an outstanding surgeon and demands that since he wounded him, he can perform the surgery to save Hoss' life.
- Hoss falls under the spell of a beautiful shady lady from San Francisco and asks her to be his wife, believing his love can change her even after she tries to seduce his brother Adam.
- Little Joe falls for beautiful young Wendy Daniels, who has arrived in Virginia City to wait for her father, who plans to start a stage and freight line there. Wendy has nothing but the highest praise for her father, but the town banker receives information that Daniels has not told Wendy the truth about his financial situation, a fact which could deeply disappoint the girl.
- An outlaw gang robs Virginia City's bank and makes off with almost all of its money. The youngest member of the gang manages to get a job on the Ponderosa as a bronc-buster with the intention of informing the bank robbers of any posses that may threaten their hideout. While Ben, Adam and Hoss welcome the newcomer, Little Joe becomes suspicious of his activities.
- When a gang of robbers decides to escape via Ben Cartwright's steam boat, taking Candy hostage, it's Ben, Hoss and Joe to the rescue.
- Angry with the way a beautiful deaf-mute girl is treated by her father, a sheepherder living in a remote mountain cabin, Little Joe takes it upon himself to teach her sign language so they can communicate better. His plan backfires when the young woman falls in love with him and the girl's brutish neighbor resents her lavishing attention on the youngest Cartwright.
- An old friend of Ben Cartwright comes to town to liven things up.
- Little Joe is accused of assaulting Laurie Ferguson.
- Incriminating scratches on cowhand Danny Morgan's arm and his penchant for riding alone through the night strumming his guitar makes him the prime suspect when a woman is found strangled the morning after witnesses heard Danny's voice singing in the dark outside her cabin.
- Coley Claybourne is unwanted in Virginia City. He announces that his father has died. Then he shows a pouch full of gold that he and his father had discovered. Ben and two other executors must decide what to do with Coley and the mine.
- 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.
- The Washburns just arrived in town and are looking for work. When Hoss hears about the difficulties they've been through, he invites them to stay at the Ponderosa. After they sell everyone at the ranch a share in a copper mine, the Cartwrights find out the Washburns are not exactly what they appear to be. But this is just the beginning of the yarns Samuel is willing to spin.
- Joe and Hoss waste time and money chasing after a songstress and her lap dog, especially the latter.
- Joe is given a beautiful, black stallion for his birthday present, but winds up sacrificing it when he rides to the rescue of a young boy who was accidentally shot by his outlaw father.
- Candy falls in love with a new arrival but she is being pursued by a blackmailer. When the blackmail plot is revealed, Candy seeks help from the Cartwrights.
- A beautiful young woman running from a sinister gunman brings danger to the Ponderosa when she hides in Hoss' wagon while he's in Virginia City getting supplies.
- Jock Henry is a very likeable fellow. Ask anyone. When he's given the job of collecting taxes, his peculiar methods of figuring out what people owe causes everyone to reconsider.
- A white supremacist named Mr. Ganns plans to disrupt a peace-treaty signing between the people of Virginia City and the Paiutes by massacring the entire town, then pin the blame on the Indian tribe.
- Tom Wilson saves Adam from drowning. This begins a friendship he starts to regret when Tom steals a girl from her longtime boyfriend, is found with her father's open strongbox and standing over his dead body.
- Jennifer Beale is abducted in the hopes her rich father, Joshua, the richest silver baron on the Comstock, will pay a $1M ransom. The plan unravels when the beautiful Della is killed and Hercules, who loves her, finds out who did it.
- Little Joe falls in love with a beautiful woman who aspires to be an actress.
- Hoss mentors a lonely, mentally challenged man who, with superhuman size and strength, becomes extremely dangerous when angered. These efforts are undermined by a saloon girl who only wants this giant man-child to manipulate him.
- After Eddie returns to town and learns Hoss accidentally shot his father, it's up to Hoss to gain Eddie's forgiveness and make amends, and at the same time foil a blackmail plot.
- Matthew Raine, once a world-class artist, has lost his sight due to disease. When befriended by Ben Cartwright, he realizes he has been feeling sorry for himself all this time and with his friend Ann's help, finds a way to turn his darkness into light.
- The Cartwrights allow a shiftless man to pose as head of the ranch to prevent his Irish mother from learning the truth about him.
- Ben and Adam are locked in jail, about to hung for a crime they didn't commit. Joe and Hoss must find out why the witnesses to the alleged crime have perjured themselves before the execution takes place. They receive help from an unexpected source, a drifter called Lassiter who is searching for the men who committed a lynching in Kansas years ago.
- A former ballet dancer falls in love while teaching classical dance to the daughter of a traveling violinist. He wants to help her audition for the San Francisco ballet but meets resistance from her father who wants her to keep performing with him.
- The Cartwrights find Billy Horn, a young man who was taken captive and raised by the Shoshone. He comes to live with them and befriends them, as they try to re-accustom him to the white man's ways. However, a threat emerges with Milton Tanner, a wealthy landowner who is making a claim for one-third of the Ponderosa. Billy believes that Tanner should be fought head on, as the Indians had taught him, rather than in court, and the Cartwrights are unable to convince him otherwise. Billy decides to confront Tanner himself.
- Candy quits his job at the Ponderosa after inheriting a fortune from an old Indian friend. He takes a job as vice president of a land development and promotion firm, unaware that the president is defrauding customers by selling barren desert land in lieu of the fertile farmland he promised them. Candy soon finds out and recruits the Cartwrights to expose the fraud.
- When 16-year-old Todd Grayson arrives from Boston to Virginia City, he is told that his father has been killed by Ben Cartwright. Ben shot Luke Grayson in self-defense, but Todd won't listen to this. The boy has only one thing in his head: to avenge his father by killing Ben Cartwright.
- Ben confronts a former friend who has become a local strongman after monopolizing the freight business.
- Hoss needs a lawyer but the only one available is an alcoholic. It's up to the Cartwrights and Candy to keep him sober until the trial.
- Don Jose Ortega claims to have a brass box full of Spanish land grants, giving him ownership over most of the area around Virginia City, including the Ponderosa. Although Jose is reluctant to pursue his claim, his nephew, bitter over the loss of land in the Mexican War, would like to claim it back. Making things worse, many others living in the area are determined not to lose their land and will resort to any means to stop the Ortegas' claim.
- The Cartwright boys are shocked by the unexpected arrival of a beautiful young woman who claims to be Mrs. Ben Cartwright. But when Ben comes home to the Ponderosa that night, the new bride declares that he is not the man she married and the Cartwrights soon find themselves involved in what could become a fatal case of mistaken identity.
- Maggie Dowling's father's indifferent insults about her appearance, and his embarrassing attempts at matchmaking, drive her to despair; but Little Joe intervenes to help her prod widower, Jared Wilson to declare his affections for her.
- Jamie forms a bond with an Irish Setter he names April. However, April was a runt and - according to its rightful owner - should be put to sleep because it is a disgrace to the breed. When April competes in a field trial, the dog's owner soon learns that it's not the size of the dog that matters, but the size of the fight in the dog.
- 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.
- When a new employee on the Ponderosa brings his Native American wife, a racist neighbor goes out of his way to stir up trouble against them and the Cartwrights.
- Angry with Adam Cartwright for constantly criticizing her decisions and refusing to take the next step in their romance, Laura Dayton becomes easy prey for a handsome grifter.
- Ben Cartwright's effort to help friend Ruth Manning defend her ownership of nearby Gunlock's town newspaper, The Clarion, earns him the wrath of a corrupt, powerful judge who wants The Clarion for himself and will do anything to get it.
- A gunfighter comes to Virginia City. Little Joe allows his pride to draw him into a challenge. Ben forbids him to participate. Little Joe must decide to obey his father or obey the "code of the West."
- One of Ben Cartwright's old war buddies who claims to be a business tycoon developing a new territory, woos a wealthy Virginia City widow and jeopardizes a Ponderosa land deal.
- Mateo Ybarra travels to the Ponderosa in the hopes he can enlist the aid of his old friend, Will Cartwright. Little do either know that there are those who are after him to take him back to Mexico for trial and others who don't want to wait that long.
- Gold-panning immigrants are run off their claim. In need of money for the survival of their village, they kidnap Joe and hold him for ransom but their heart just isn't in it.
- 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.
- Hoss falls prey to the wiles of a beautiful woman with a gambling addiction and refuses to believe she's only interested in his money in spite of Adam's proof to the contrary.
- With Hoss being the lone hold-out during the murder trial of Johnny Mule, he will only have a short time to gather evidence before a new trial is set. But when Johnny breaks out of jail, things look bad.
- 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.
- In a satirical look at unusual, silly laws and customs, Joe and Hoss try to explain to their skeptical father why their delivery run to Agua Santos, Mexico took so long. An unimpressed Ben listens as his sons explain their story, which all started when Joe took his hat off in church and was exasperated when Hoss ran into trouble trying to bail his younger brother out of jail.
- Ross Marquette's behavior over the past few months can't be easily explained -- beating his wife, rustling cattle, robbing a stage, killing a man. Adam is determined to find out why his friend is acting so strangely before it's too late.
- Dev's line of work seems ordained given his past. When his quarry's wife turns out to be pregnant, he uses that to trap him, even if it might risk Little Joe's life.
- While his troupe visits the Ponderosa, lonely, aging aerialist Guido Borelli hides his true feelings for his beautiful, young partner, Petina, but is quick to comfort her after a fistfight with her hot-tempered boyfriend, Carlo, lands Little Joe in jail for attempted murder.
- Mexican freedom fighters loyal to Benito Juárez take over the Ponderosa, gravely wound Little Joe, and force Ben to guide them to a wagon train loaded with gold being smuggled to California by Emperor Maximilian.
- Wiley Kane comes to the Ponderosa, along with his sister Annie, offering to work to pay back the debt he feels they owe the Cartwrights from when their father Sam swindled them. Joe tries to teach Annie to read, but Wiley objects to this out of pride. Later Wiley and Annie learn that their father, whom they assumed was dead, is actually locked up in the Virginia City jail.
- Hoss suffers a life-threatening injury. Only surgery by a doctor in jail for murder can save him.
- A bigot complicates Ben's efforts to help an immigrant wine-growing family.
- It's a case of reverse racism, as a white-hating black outlaw couple kidnap Hoss and scheme to kill him.
- Several Virginia City citizens appoint Ben as a temporary circuit judge. He soon faces a major test when the bank is robbed clean, and an old safe-cracker confesses to the crime - but refuses to tell where he hid the money unless Ben lets him go free.
- 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.