The Rifleman

- Season 4

(1961)

In Mexico to buy a seed-bull, Lucas and Mark McCain fall prey to bandits. These bandits strip Lucas of his shirt, hat, and boots. Then they tie him to a tree and leave him to die while they ride off with his kidnapped son.

Mark gets a job at the livery stable in North Fork. Lucas is concerned that Mark will not get his home chores done on time.

Lucas is asked to stand guard when $50,000 is transferred from a specially designed stagecoach strongbox to the North Fork Bank's vault. Sloan, a former bank clerk plans to rob the shipment with a couple of henchman and uses the general store as a base to launch their attack. Meanwhile, Milly and Mark are held captive in a back room, helpless to prevent the heist.

A prison wagon stops at the McCain ranch. One of the guards asks Lucas for a bottle of alcohol. He refuses. Later the guards return and take Lucas prisoner.

Mark gets a job from a neighbor who he initialed shied away from because of his facial scars. When his military past is revealed, Mark has to decide if his new friend has been lying or is the man on his trail seeking vengeance justified.

Lucas witnesses a shooting while repairing fencing on his property. When the man who did it is arrested, he is prepared to testify at the trial. Bribery and threats to his family and self are tried but may just backfire on the accused.

An ex-army officer and the other an eccentric cavalier, two of Lucas' oldest friends, ask him to observe a chess match to prevent any cheating.

An eccentric man who pretends he's Abe Lincoln spends a weekend with Lucas and Mark. He finds himself in trouble when he gets in a fight with a man in the saloon and breaks the man's arm.

Grandpa Fogarty lives in a rundown old farmhouse with his young grandson Woody. The McCains are neighbors and Lucas repeatedly tries to get the old man to send the boy to the local school. He refuses, leading some of the ladies in North Fork to think he's not fit to be raising a child and that Woody should be taken from him. Grandpa is dead set against it until he learns that someone from his past may be gunning for him. As much as it hurts him, he decides to give up the boy without any explanation.

Lucas and Mark meet Mark Twain. Later they find out that he has a sad secret.

North Fork has a problem. A man named John Holliver wants revenge for something that happened five years ago.

Two mountain men ride by the McCain ranch and one, Ambrose, is enamored with Lucas' rifle. He tries to trade for it but Lucas won't trade. He is set on getting the gun and later that night they return to ranch and try to steal it. In the scuffle Gorwin is accidentally killed. Lucas returns his horse to his people in the high country but Ambrose has lied about what happened to Gorwin and the hill people hold Lucas accountable. A trial is called and Lucas is found guilty of murder and sentenced to five years labor to pay for Mrs. Morgan's loss.

A man is sitting at a table in a corner of the saloon in North Fork. He is watching the time and waiting. Later, he waits on a trail until Mark rides up. He tricks Mark into coming with him.

When Mark goes missing during a hunting trip, Lucas tries to get help to look for his missing son. Before he gets very far, both Lucas and Mark are taken hostage by Skull Ranch - a haven for outlaws.

Lucas and Mark take in a young woman and her brother after the brother comes down with measles. But rumors are flying around that the young woman is a princess - not merely a woman who's yearning to be a farmer.

At night Micah stops by the North Fork jail to check on a prisoner named Charlie Gordo. Charlie does not want to go to Yuma prison to be hanged. He threatens Micah by telling him that if he tries to make him go, he will kill him.

A friend from Lucas' Army days buys a farm near North Fork. His daughter attracts a lot of curiosity since she's very beautiful and very deaf.

A gun fighter wanna-be travels all the way from England to meet Lucas, believing that killing Lucas will give him the reputation and respect he needs.

The stage arrives in North Fork, and a young lady gets off. She is Sally Walker, a niece of Milly. When Mark sees Sally, he is instantly smitten and stopped in his tracks by her good looks.

Lucas is acting deputy in Northfork while Micah is away on business. When the bank is robbed Lucas shoots and seriously wounds the robber during his getaway. The robber is Rudy Gray from Salinas and when Lucas wires the sheriff of Salinas the telegraph is intercepted by an unscrupulous clerk and his friend Dave Foley. Foley decides to travel to Northfork impersonating Rudy's brother and bring his body back to Salinas before Lucas can find out there is a $2,000 reward on his head.

A super fast, black gunman who killed the 5 men the law allowed to murder his father years ago, demands that deputy McCain symbolically throw his badge in the dirt.

A reliable eye-witness rides into North Fork and accuses Lucas McCain of cattle rustling and cold blooded murder.

When Mark and Lucas meet Micah on the trail while transporting a prisoner for execution, Mark discovers the prisoner is a man who saved his life three years earlier. Lucas gets angry when Mark helps the condemned prisoner escape.

Mark and Milly are shocked when Lucas begins gambling. They don't know that Lucas is "undercover" trying to catch a man at cheating. Lucas must do this in order to save his friend's farm.

While riding out on the range, Mark befriends a blind man with a grudge against another man. When the man in question forces Lucas to kill his cattle because of disease, Mark seeks revenge and is shocked at the results.

A retired lawman's irrational jealousy threatens not only to destroy his marriage, but also to make him an easy target for someone who wants him dead. And as usual, Lucas finds himself right in the middle of all this drama.

It's an interesting day in North Fork when a woman and her son arrive on a stagecoach. Before too long she sees Micah and thinks that he is her long lost husband.

The town has a new minister - a mortal enemy of Lucas McCain, whom he vowed to kill if he ever saw him again. Now Lucas must face the conflicts inside himself and comes to terms with the past.

Lucas and Mark ride into North Fork after a two week hunting trip to discover that Micah is no longer Marshal. Worse then that, they have a new Marshal who is crooked and allows outlaws to deputy.

A man rides into North Fork. When he sees Lucas, he reminds him that they met in training camp during the Civil War. Upon hearing them talking, Milly asks the man whether he knew her brother, who died in the Battle of Bull Run.

While Lucas is riding to Red Creek, two men who are in hiding see him. One of the men shoots Lucas in the head, knocking him off of his horse, and almost killing him.

A former neighbor of the McCain's is released from jail after serving his sentence for stage coach robbery, but the money was never found. Lucas agrees to let the man work for him, but the new work hand holds a secret.