Tales of Wells Fargo

- Season 6

(1961)

Jim and his foreman, Jeb Gaine, are busy moving onto the ranch purchased from Ovie and her two lovely daughters when the Wells Fargo agent is called back to service to retrieve plates used to counterfeit bonds. Hardie learns the plates were stolen by a group of former Confederate soldiers who plan to print enough worthless bonds that the United States economy would fall into shambles.

A man sentenced to a ten-year prison term has released and is out to avenge himself upon the man who put him there - Jim Hardie.

Acting on a tip that an outlaw gang may attack a gold shipment, Hardie and McCloud try to persuade group of stagecoach passengers to take the next stage so they can better protect the cargo. Each passenger has their own reasons for continuing the dangerous journey, and Hardie fears that the reasons of more than one are highway robbery.

Ex-convict Davey Hewitt is thrown off the train in Gloribee. He meets two members of his old outlaw gang who try to convince him to join them in robbing a bank that contains a large gold shipment for Wells Fargo. Meanwhile Jessamie, the handicapped daughter of Hewitt's new employer tries to convince him to go straight.

Hardie negotiates a new stagecoach route through Indian land with the local chief who is satisfied with the outcome. The tribe's young men, led by the warrior Red Knife, are looking for an excuse to return to the warpath.

Two gunmen rob a Wells Fargo train compartment and then hide the money in the baggage of a fellow passenger, a clown whose stage name is Mr. Mute. When the clown unexpectedly decides to disembark from the train in Gloribee to perform at the town fair, the criminals must scramble to retrieve their ill-gotten loot before the money bags are discovered.

Jeremiah Logart, a former friend of Hardie's, is prevented from robbing a Wells Fargo office by Jim and his men. After a gun battle, Jim and Beau pursue of the remaining gang members and trail Jeremiah to the remote ranch of a widow and her two young children.

The estranged wife of a washed-up boxer returns to Gloribee to obtain custody of the couple's only child. Needing quick cash for legal fees, the boxer challenges the Frisco Kid, an up-and-coming pugilist, to a fight and wins, only to discover that the fight was fixed so that the Kid's crooked manager and his stooge could clean-up on side bets.

Hardie and McCloud capture Matt Blackner, an aging outlaw who is suffering from heart disease. He agrees to turn the money he stole from a Wells Fargo stagecoach if he's allowed to visit his wife and daughter before he's thrown in prison. Blackner's last days aren't to be happy ones - his wife is dead, his daughter despises him and his former gang members are trailing him to get their share of the hidden loot.

A veteran Wells Fargo stationmaster, about to retire, never gets the chance when two thieves stab him in the back and ransack the safe. Hardie suspects the killer is a part-time employee who disappeared after the robbery; Caleb Timmons and his sons want to find the man, too, since he ran off with Caleb's wife.

Three dance hall girls are being transported to Nevada to serve as witnesses in the murder investigation of a Wells Fargo agent. The subject of the investigation has no desire for the girls to testify and goes to great lengths to see that they don't arrive, including raiding Jim Hardie's ranch where the women are staying pending suitable escort.

Jamie Coburn, a member of Birch Morgan's notorious outlaw gang, agrees to turn himself in and help Wells Fargo capture the outlaw leader. Hardie allows the gunslinger to visit his ailing mother, but when Jamie returns home he learns his mother has died and his wife wants nothing to do with him in spite of the hefty reward Wells Fargo has paid for Jamie's assistance.

The theft of a diamond necklace from a Wells Fargo stage sends Jim Hardie to New Orleans where his investigation reveals several dark secrets of a prominent family. Beau is permanently transferred to the Kansas City office.

Frank Lambert is furious when his kid brother, Wally, rides into his camp asking that the older man return the money he stole from Wells Fargo. He becomes even angrier when he learns that Jim Hardie followed Wally to arrest him. Meanwhile, Jeb Gaine becomes upset when his friends and neighbors lavish affection on him on his 60th birthday.

A former governor of a Mexican province flees to San Francisco with his family's money to buy guns for the revolutionaries. A gang of former Mexican soldiers operating with stolen papers plan to steal the money with the unwitting assistance of Wells-Fargo.

An old flame of Jim Hardie's, now a famous concert singer, returns to California on a concert tour. The singer's father knows his daughter still carries a torch for Hardie and wants her to decide once and for all whether she'll be a chanteuse or a rancher's wife. Meanwhile her maid plots to steal her employer's fabulous collection of jewelry.

Jeb's brother, Sergeant Gaine, discovers that three of his men have been falsely convicted in a drumhead court-martial for desertion to cover up for their commanding officer's illegal attack on a band of Piute Indians that resulted in the deaths of Wells Fargo stagecoach passengers. Hardie and Prentiss, the governor's agent, must act quickly to save the condemned men before Colonel Bledsoe can silence the potential witnesses against him by executing the soldiers.

Katherine Murdock, a writer from New England, is hired by Wells Fargo to write a series of articles about the West and her first research stop is in Gloribee. Hardie discovers that she had already made up her mind that the West is nothing but a violent wasteland and a series of brushes with lawlessness does little to change her attitude. It takes chance meeting with a honorable outlaw for her to consider altering her preconceived notions.

An ex-convict burning with the desire to avenge himself upon a judge who he insists falsely convicted him takes over a way-station and hijacks the stagecoach that Jim Hardie and an assortment of passengers are traveling in.

Hardie investigates a stagecoach hold-up and discovers only a single letter was stolen. He learns that the letter was sent from a woman who fled an arranged marriage with a brutal land baron to an itinerant painter. The two men race to find the woman first - the painter to marry her and the land baron to disfigure his ex-fiancée.

Cattle drovers waiting to deliver their beef to the railhead at Gloribee are making life miserable for the townspeople, but Jim Hardie won't accept the stock until they're cleared by a veterinarian. The local doctor died under suspicious circumstances and Hardie convinces his son, also a vet, to examine the stock and help solve the older man's death.

Gloribee has a new schoolteacher named Brad Axton - a good man with a dark past that finally catches up to him.

A blizzard forces the stagecoach in which Jim, Jeb and Tina are traveling to seek shelter in a ghost town. Investigating a light shining in the building that formerly served as the town's hotel, the passengers discover the town's last two residents barricaded against the expected onslaught of an escaped prisoner who is out for revenge.

Tina is attracted to a gun thug. Even though everyone else sees his true nature, she is blinded by love until she too sees his violent nature firsthand.

In a sudden move to protect his own life, Jim Hardie has to wound -- mortally -- a young hellion of the town who has participated in a Wells Fargo stage holdup. Hellion or no, the youth is well-liked and his mother is influential and wealthy. Jim comes under some odium for the shooting and in the town there's talk of lynching him. When the boy dies, his mother's foreman comes to kill Jim with his bare hands. They struggle, Jim knocks his assailant out, but finds himself 'roped' by the townspeople who have found the courage to hang him then and there.

Jim Hardie is taking Lou Reese in for robbery. However, not all goes as planned. Normalie Hall once was nearly hanged because of betrayal by Reese, and Hall wants to take Reese away from Jim and hang him in revenge. Jim can't give his prisoner up, so he and Reese move into the mountains to a town where Reese is known and revered for heroism in an Indian attack. Jim keeps a low profile, not revealing his identity as a Wells Fargo agent in a town favorable to Reese. Hall and his men block the pass and pin Jim down. Hall comes to Reese by night with a deal to let him go ...

Gunfighter Billy Trent books passage on a Wells Fargo stage heading to Oregon, a trip which will take nine days. He is being followed by a gang trying to collect a $500 bounty on him. Since Jim Hardie can't dissuade Trent from taking the stage, he rides along to protect the other passengers from being caught in the crossfire.

The shipment of large sums of money by Wells Fargo down the Mississippi brings Jim Hardie and Jeb Gaine to New Orleans. They uncover a plan to hijack the money. But the architect of the robbery may be a trusted Wells Fargo employee.

The episode opens with two men breaking into a ranch house and kidnaps Swede Lowell's wife Helen and daughter Kathy. They also take a picture of Swede from a picture frame. Jim meets a train in Gloribee with special Diamond drill bits for a mine in the mountains. Also on the train is Swede, a friend of Jim, with his mules to haul the drill bits to the mine. A new gal in town, Marie, talks her way into joining Jim and Swede to the mine to "take care of her injured brother". At The first night camp Marie shows the picture to Swede and tells him to follow orders or Helen...

Hardie concludes that a woman found wandering who has amnesia is a witness to a stage coach robbery. He takes her to the scene of the robbery, hoping she'll regain her memory.

Hardie hires The Great Reardon, a mind-reading act, to serve as the entertainment at Wells Fargo's 15th anniversary celebration. Reardon's act always involved trickery, but now he plans to use his wife's "powers" to swindle a mine owner out of $10,000 by claiming to be able to reveal the location of a missing vein of gold ore.

Two vengeful brothers hold their former jailer captive in a barb-wire enclosure.

Hardie and a group of stage passengers are trapped in a way station and surrounded by bandits. But the passengers may be the bigger threat to Jim's survival.

Jim Hardie finds his life's love in the series finale.