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My second dipping into the world of Rawhide was no less fruitful than the last. After years of telling my parents that I hated Westerns, I'm coming to the conclusion that that isn't the case at all (my first clue should have been when I began to like High Noon and the Magnificent 7).
In these episodes we learn that women on the Plains were, for better or worse, evil; especially if Rowdy becomes interested in one of them. In the first of the anti-woman set, the crew find a woman standing next to a burning house; she explains that it was her house, her parents died of a disease, and she didn't want to bury them and get it herself. They offer to take her with them to the nearest town, which she agreed to do. Of course, all if not what it seems and, after flirting heavily with Rowdy, its discovered that she is part of a gang which wants to steal the Cattle Drive's payroll!
Rowdy contines his bad luck in the next episode, where they find a woman baking candy and singing in a house surrounded by dead Indians. Despite her acting crazy, a show, it quickly becomes obvious that she poisoned the natives out of revenge for the slaying of her husband. Unfortuantely, Rowdy has once again fallen for the woman and decided to escort her back to the East coast for her own safety. Everythinh comes out in the open when she runs into her sister an dbrother in law, and is then shot by the cheif of the Deleware Tribe out of revenge for the killing of his brother.
The depiction of Indians in this episode is, although not wholly negative, hardly politically correct. The tribe, although Christian, is shown to be friendly but childlike. Of course, this is still much better than the women of these episodes which are shifty, coniving and secretive; they bring nothing but disorder and strife to the all-male world ofthe Cattle Drive.