The Rifleman Season 1 poster

Season guide

The Rifleman Season 1 — Episodes and Where to Watch

40 episodes · first aired 1958-09-30

TMDB does not provide a season overview.

Episode guide

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Episode 1: The Sharpshooter

1958-09-3030 min

Lucas McCain and his son Mark arrive in North Fork, New Mexico. Looking to start a new life, they come across a ranch to their liking, which is for sale. Lucas enters a Turkey Shoot in hopes of winning the down payment for the ranch. Jim Lewis, the man who runs North Fork, has bet on Vernon, a young gun he brought in, to win. When talk of Lucas' reputation back in the Nations circulates around town, Mr. Lewis gets nervous and he makes trouble for Lucas by threatening Mark's life.

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Episode 2: Home Ranch

1958-10-0730 min

Two hired hands of a wealthy cattleman, who has been using the ranch for grazing his cattle, demand that Lucas move out. When Lucas refuses, he is beaten and dragged and then the ranch house is burned down. They left Lucas and Mark with the burning house and rode off with Lucas' rifle. Leaving Mark to tend to the animals, Lucas tracks them down and confronts their boss, Mr. Jackford.

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Episode 3: End of a Young Gun

1958-10-1430 min

Lucas is forced to give refuge to Will Fulton, a young bank robber, who was injured while saving Mark's life. While staying at the McCain ranch Will gets a taste of a life better than the one he's been leading. He's met a girl and grows tired of a life on the run.

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Episode 4: The Marshal

1958-10-2130 min

Micah Torrance, a once famous lawman, is introduced as a drunken derelict, who stumbles into North Fork. Micah, nursing an arm crippled in a gunfight, is hired by Lucas to help out at the ranch. Three outlaws ride into town looking for revenge against Micah. When they kill the sheriff, it's up to Lucas and Micah to protect North Fork. Micah becomes North Fork's full-time Marshal.

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Episode 5: The Brother-in-Law

1958-10-2830 min

Mark's uncle, Johnny Gibb, a big time rodeo rider, comes to visit. While Mark idolizes his uncle, Lucas discovers that Johnny is on the run from the law for an Express Office Robbery.

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Episode 6: Eight Hours to Die

1958-11-0430 min

Judge Burton seeks justice against the hangman who hanged his son; the Judge, who sentenced his son; and Lucas, the man who caught his son.

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Episode 7: Duel of Honor

1958-11-1130 min

When an Italian Count arrives in North Fork, his strange attire attracts the attention of Groder, a town bully. Groder, trying to have fun with this stranger, destroys some of the Counts currency, mocks him, and tries to humiliate him. Eventually, the Count challenges Groder to a duel and asks Lucas to be his Second.

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Episode 8: The Safe Guard

1958-10-1830 min

Floyd Doniger comes to North Fork, looking to start a new life. He's got a steady job as the guard at the new bank and he's entertaining ideas of settling down on a spread of his own. Also arriving in North Fork are three men who followed the bank's new safe, figuring any town needing a safe like that must have money to put into it.

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Episode 9: The Sister

1958-11-2530 min

Rebecca Snipe is returning to North Fork after a long visit away. Before her stage leaves, she overhears a man saying he's going to North Fork to kill a big man with a big mouth. Upon Rebecca's arrival in North Fork, Mark becomes smitten with her and gets it in his head to play matchmaker between her and his pa.

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Episode 10: New Orleans Menace

1958-12-2630 min

Tiffauges, a wealthy and sadistic Frenchman, who is used to getting whatever he wants, decides he wishes to purchase the McCain Ranch. Tiffauges' lead man, Xavier, proclaims Lucas to be muy macho, and does not believe Lucas will give in so easily. Xavier and the other men are tiring of being subjected to Tiffauges' whippings and cruel treatment. Lucas plays on the men's longing for freedom to keep his ranch.

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Episode 11: The Apprentice Sheriff

1958-12-0930 min

Dan Willard is filling in as temporary marshal while Micah is away. Meanwhile, some Texas cowhands are in North Fork looking for fun and relaxation, but Dan keeps coming down hard on them, which leads to blowback.

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Episode 12: Young Englishman

1958-12-1630 min

Lucas accuses the young foreman of a neighboring ranch of rustling one of his calves.

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Episode 13: The Angry Gun

1958-12-2330 min

Lucas and Mark return from a cattle sale when their stagecoach is robbed by three outlaws led by sharpshooter Johnny Cotton (Vic Morrow). Lucas sends Mark on in the stagecoach while he goes after the outlaws on foot without his rifle.

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Episode 14: The Gaucho

1958-12-3030 min

There’s prejudice all around, when Rumson moves away from North Fork, having sold his property to the Argentez family, who are originally from Argentina. Curge, who was outbid for the property, is upset because Rumson sold out to a "peppergut". Meanwhile, Manolo, the son of the Argentinian, has a problem with his sister being with a “gringo”.

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Episode 15: The Pet

1959-01-0630 min

Ward Haskins guns down Joe Flecker, who has evidence that could be used to blackmail him. Haskins thinks the information was given to Lucas, since he brought Flecker to the doctor before he died. Later, Haskins rides out to the ranch and is bitten by Flecker's horse, which is now believed to have anthrax.

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Episode 16: The Sheridan Story

1959-01-1330 min

When Frank Blandon, a man with only one good arm, wanders onto the ranch, Lucas gives him a job. This leads to major complications later.

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Episode 17: The Retired Gun

1959-01-2030 min

Wes Carney and his wife Clair want to settle down and they figure North Fork might do fine. Wes is a well known gunfighter, who has promised Clair that he would hang up his guns for good. The Carney's want to live a simple, honest life and the Feed and Grain Store, which is up for sale, seems like it might work for them. Carney's reputation and the news that he's settling down brings troublemakers to North Fork.

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Episode 18: The Photographer

1959-01-2730 min

Abel Goss, the photographer who took Lucas' wedding photograph, is in North Fork doing a portrait of Mark standing in the street. When Goss sees Colonel Whiteside and his sidekick, Jamison, he recognizes them as the butchers who tortured him, and others, while he was captive in their POW camp.

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Episode 19: Shivaree

1959-02-0330 min

Aaron Pelser's wagon train comes across a pair of young boys on a buck board heading west and he invites them to join the train. When he finds out that one of the boys was actually a girl and the two claimed to be headed to Yuma to get married, Pelser and his crowd force them to be married in North Fork.

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Episode 20: The Deadeye Kid

1959-02-1030 min

McCain befriends Donnel O'Mahoney, a tough kid from Brooklyn, and arranges with two men for the young man to continue his travels on their wagon, but then one of them is murdered and the other accuses the boy of having done it.

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Episode 21: The Indian

1959-02-1730 min

U.S. Marshal Sam Buckhart arrives in North Fork in search of renegade Indians suspected of the brutal killing of a Texas Ranger and his family, but the townspeople are suspicious of him when they discover that he too is an Indian.

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Episode 22: The Boarding House

1959-02-2430 min

Reformed card sharp Julia Massini now runs a respectable boarding house in North Fork, but Sid Fallon is threatening to reveal her sordid past unless she lets him turn the establishment into a saloon and gambling hall.

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Episode 23: The Second Witness

1959-03-3030 min

Lucas puts his life in jeopardy when he agrees to testify in a murder case where the first witness was killed before he could testify, and the killer is still at large.

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Episode 24: The Trade

1959-03-1030 min

Outlaw Sam Morley falls in love with a young woman who has a serious illness, and asks Lucas to turn him in for the reward and then use the money to pay for her medical care.

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Episode 25: One Went to Denver

1959-03-1730 min

Lucas welcomes his old friend Tom Birch, who once saved his life, unaware that the man is now a bank robber who is on the run with his gang.

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Episode 26: The Deadly Wait

1959-03-2430 min

Dan Nowry, released from Yuma prison, arrives in North Fork intent on getting even with Marshal Torrance,who helped send him to jail.

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Episode 27: The Wrong Man

1959-03-3130 min

Young Mark McCain is eager to help lawman Jay Jefferson, who has arrived in North Fork intent on killing an outlaw for the reward, whether he is the right man or not.

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Episode 28: The Challenge

1959-04-0730 min

When escaped convicts hold up the general store in North Fork and take Marshal Torrance hostage, Lucas comes to the rescue.

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Episode 29: The Hawk

1959-04-1430 min

Young Mark manages to capture a hawk, but then falls into danger from a rattlesnake. When a stranger comes to his rescue, the grateful Mark invites the man home, unaware that he is on the run from the law.

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Episode 30: Three-Legged Terror

1959-04-2130 min

When a rambunctious teenager wrecks a schoolroom, Lucas McCain, as a member of the North Fork school board, asks the boy's reluctant uncle to pay for the damages.

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Episode 31: The Angry Man

1959-04-2830 min

The McCains try to be tolerant of their embittered neighbor Abel MacDonald, who tels Lucas to keep off his land and won't allow his son to become friends with Mark, but they decide he's gone too far when he won't allow his injured boy to get medical treatment.

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Episode 32: The Woman

1959-05-0530 min

An unfounded rumor causes North Fork's outspoken feminist schoolteacher to be attacked by a mob of angry townspeople.

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Episode 33: The Money Gun

1959-05-1230 min

When his employer begins to suspect him of embezzlement, bookkeeper Asa Manning decides to hire a professional gunman to take care of the problem.

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Episode 34: A Matter of Faith

1959-05-1930 min

Although a drought has forced local cowhands to seek work on a railroad construction project, railraod executives are afraid that their workers will desert them if they believe an old man's claim to have found a way to make rain.

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Episode 35: Blood Brothers

1959-05-2630 min

Lucas McCain gives blood to save a dying man and is surprised by Marshal Torrance's odd behavior toward the man. Then three men arrive from a nearby town and demand custody of the stranger.

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Episode 36: Stranger at Night

1959-06-2030 min

Mark's finding of the body of a murder victim starts Lucas, his friend Artemus, and Marshal Torrance on a search for the killer.

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Episode 37: The Raid

1959-06-0930 min

When renegade Apaches wound Lucas and kidnap Mark, Marshal Torrance joins with U.S. Marshal Sam Buckhart to form a rescue posse.

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Episode 38: Outlaw's Inheritance

1959-06-1630 min

Lucas is the town's representative to the railroad commission until an infamous train robber dies and leaves his ill-gotten wealth to Lucas. Lucas must clear his name and stop the reckless ambition of his replacement.

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Episode 39: Boomerang

1959-06-2330 min

When a rancher dies after the bank forecloses the mortgage on his property, his son blames the banker for his father's death.

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Episode 40: The Mind Reader

1959-06-3030 min

When a wealthy rancher is killed, Mark suggests that they seek the aid of a mind reader to identify the murderer.

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