When a nasty, belligerent gunfighter named Nate Springer shows up in Dodge City, Matt Dillon assumes Springer intends to kill someone, but he wants to know who hired the gunfighter and why. The longer Springer is in town, the more curious everyone becomes. Instead of acting like a confident, determined assassin, Springer lashes out at people and behaves in a tentative manner.
This episode is a vehicle for John Dehner to show his elite acting ability. Dehner carries the show as the Nate Springer character. The prolific actor must have been the hardest working person in television during the late 1950s and early 1960s, because it seems as though he appears in every television series airing during that time period. This first episode of Season 3 appearance is already Dehner's fourth in the Gunsmoke series, and he has never been better.
(Dehner was also a frequent actor on the radio version of Gunsmoke. He provided the voice for many characters during the show's run.)
Jess Kirkpatrick makes another appearance as barber Frank Teeters, and Howard Culver plays hotel clerk Howie Uzzell again. (In what must have been an error, Culver's character is listed as "Jim Uzzell" in the credits. During the episode, Chester calls him "Howard," and he was frequently addressed as "Howie.")
This story shares some thematic elements with the late Season 2 episode "Who Lives by the Sword." Both stories deal with gunfighters who struggle with a loss of confidence.