Bonanza

- Season 6

(1964)

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.

Ben is taken hostage by a gang of four outlaws, who are hoping for a $100,000 ransom from the Cartwrights for his safe return. As his sons formulate a plan to rescue their father, Ben devises one of his own after he senses dissension amongst his captors.

Hoss wants a wild stallion for breeding. He's having second thoughts about the partner he chose until he meets his wife.

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.

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.

Hoss rides up on Waldo Watson bungling yet another suicide attempt. He invites him home and the Cartwrights are wondering if they regret that as three men are trailing him and they mean to do him harm.

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.

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.

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 ...

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.

When Hoss is framed for murder, he puts his faith in court with his new friend, a lawyer with a worrying taste for alcohol.

Harry Starr, a half-breed Comanche, is hired by the Cartwrights to work on the Ponderosa. When confronted with the prejudice of other hands he turns the other cheek. Meanwhile someone is stealing horses in the valley...is he involved?

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!

Except for the Cartwrights and a little girl, Squaw Charlie has no friends just because he's an Indian. When the girl goes missing, the whole town wants his blood even though all the evidence against him is purely circumstantial.

Intending to confront the card-shark who he believes bushwhacked and robbed him, Little Joe instead decides to get his money back by betting the shady gambler that big brother Hoss will win the Founders' Day flapjack eating contest against champion Big Ed Simpson. But Hoss isn't sure that winning the five hundred dollar first prize is worth suffering through his little brother's training program, especially when it includes meals consisting of only carrots, apples and water...and no beer!

Little Joe and his friend Tuck vie for the affections of pretty Lucy Melviney, a sheltered, naive young woman who soon puts all of their lives in danger when she chooses to believe that real life should mirror what she reads in the pages of her classic romantic novels.

Shakespeare-inspired Adam tries to tame a shrewish senorita while she waits at the Ponderosa for her never-met husband-to-be.

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.

Worrying that a hired gun may just cause more trouble for the ranchers, Adam Cartwright votes 'no' when the Cattlemen's Association asks ruthless range detective, Sherman Clegg, to stop a region-wide rustling problem; but when tragedy follows and Clegg is accused of murder, Adam appears to be the only one to take the side of the very man he originally opposed.

Hoss goes above and beyond to help an eccentric, aging inventor and his overly-protective granddaughter realize their dream of manned flight.

Adam's search for troublesome look-a-like Tom Burns lands him in the Placerville jail for two murders committed by Burns.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Burk knew his wife was sweet on Little Joe so he devises a plan to get rid of him. When his plan backfires, his twin brother, a lawman, returns to marry the widow and get rid of Little Joe for good.

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 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.

A rich tycoon who is known for destroying anything that stands in the way of getting what he wants, vows to have the Ponderosa, no matter what the cost.

The Cartwrights re-acquaint themselves (for better or worse) with a noted womanizer known as Lothario Larkin.

Ben Cartwright welcomes a former bank robber back who served 10 years in prison after shooting and paralyzing a bank president, whom wants him out of town, or killed when his wife shows interest in him again.

A ranch hand who saves Hoss's life is offered a job on the Ponderosa, despite a rumor that he's a jinx, a 'jonah.'

The ladies on the Entertainment Committee want something a bit different for the town's anniversary celebration. They want a play or maybe Shakespeare. It's voted that Ben has the connections to find just the act the ladies had all ordered.

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.