Sheep Dog: Gunsmoke (May 12, 1957)

“Sheep Dog” is an episode of Gunsmoke, the old-time radio show, first broadcast May 12, 1957. Listen free on Stupid Potato.

Listen to Gunsmoke free, live around the clock: every episode, in the order it first aired. No sign-up.

What happens

Marshal Dillon must arrest Allan, the son of Jeff Barkus, a sheep herder, after the boy shoots a man named Peterson during a poker game in town. Allan is accused of cheating at cards and attempted murder, but his father struggles to accept that his son has committed such a crime and contemplates whether to turn him in or help him escape.

Dodge City and the surrounding prairie where Jeff Barkus tends his sheep flock

Characters: Matt Dillon, Chester, Jeff Barkus, Allan Barkus, Doc, Miles, Rick Kelso, Peterson

Listen for: The tension between a marshal's duty to the law and his sympathy for a family facing tragedy; the threat of mob justice forming in town as Rick Kelso stirs up trouble.

Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.