On Christmas eve, an embittered rancher wants revenge on Pawnee Indians who he thinks kidnapped his son several years before.

Richard Boone as Paladin is on the road with 4 others when a man in the distance yells to them and then falls off a ledge in an 'impossible to get to space.' John Hoyt plays a doctor who begins to assume the man is dead, but really, everyone is unsure, and worried. The entire episode concerns the issue of mercy killing. Richard Rust plays a young man named Corey who is deathly afraid of heights but who tries to get down to the man to make certain. At one point, they even feel perhaps they should shoot the man just in case he's alive. This episode shows exactly why the show is called a psychological drama western. It is very intense and intellectual, with superb acting. The other two characters are a man who hides his fear by constantly laughing and a man who cannot stop saying he cannot take risks because he has a family.

After encountering a woman burying her fiancee in an unmarked grave, Paladin is persuaded to go after the deceased's killer.

After local boozing champ Big Fontana cheats Paladin in a drink-off, sickly Boise Peabody convinced he'll die by morning, challenges the sneaky fast draw to a shootout.