Episode
The High Chaparral: Champion of the Western World
Overview
Billy Blue Cannon plans to earn money for an expensive silver saddle by boxing. Billy Blue learns Killian and his ranch hands have entered every event in the Fourth of July rodeo to win the saddle, so the High Chaparral wranglers compete trying to help Blue, but they fail. Desperate for funds, Blue works out for five dollars with champion Paddy O'Bannion's opponent, but breaks the man's jaw. Buck convinces Blue he must fight the champ if he hopes to buy the saddle. Blue learns O'Bannion needs the fight money to marry and is torn between mixed reactions.
Details
- Series
- The High Chaparral
- Season
- Season 1
- Episode
- Episode 21
- Air date
- 1968-02-04
- Runtime
- 52 min
Episode context
Champion of the Western World is Episode 21 in Season 1 of The High Chaparral. It aired on 1968-02-04. The runtime is 52 min.
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Episode 20: The Kinsman
The Cannons care for a wounded relative who repays them by stealing the ranch payroll.
Uncle Dan Brookes arrives suddenly after a 15-year absence seeking safety in the heavily fortified ranch. He conceals the fact he is wanted dead or alive for murder and has been shot by bounty hunters Mace and Gurney. When Buck hires the bounty hunters as ranch hands, Brookes saves his own skin by offering to help Mace and Gurney steal the Cannon payroll.
Episode 22: Ride the Savage Land
Buck and Manolito invade the Apache stronghold to rescuer a captive white girl.
Ann, an Apache slave for five years, is rescued by Buck and Manolito as she flees from her captors, but her frail sister Olive is recaptured. John asks a passing Army detachment for aid, but the unit is massacred before it can help. Buck and Manolito ride unarmed into the Apache stronghold prepared to buy the girl's freedom, but the Apache chief and the medicine man offer to let them go free with the girl if Manolito can survive a test of courage.
More episodes from this season
Episode 19: Gold Is Where You Leave It
John Cannon drives gold seekers from an abandoned mine on his land and they retaliate by plotting to kill the Cannons.
Lije Driskill, Johnny Faro and Shorty Bleeson fail in an attempt to kill Buck, Sam and Victoria, who are driving back to the ranch with dynamite to use at the mine. Driskill and his companions then raid the ranch and drive off the cattle. Buck, mistaking a friendly kiss from Victoria, leaves to dynamite the mine, and plans to make it his final job for John. Billy Blue rides to help Buck. but is captured by Driskill, who plans to kill the young m
Episode 23: Bad Day for a Thirst
Buck Cannon jeopardizes his life, when he tries to turn two Apaches into wranglers.
Sourdough and Saddleblanket quickly become valuable hands. When an Apache war party kills three ranchers and kidnaps the two Indian wranglers, all but Buck believes the two Apaches are killers and have reverted to their old ways. The High Chaparral group tracks the war party to an Army fort the Indians have captured and where Buck lies seriously wounded beyond reach of his comrades. Almost dying of thirst, Buck's only chance for survival lies in an appeal to his Indian wranglers inside the fort to turn on their fellow Apaches.
Episode 18: Survival
John Cannon and Billy Blue are captured by Apaches far from home and made to face death from lack of water.
John and Billy force a wounded Indian, Klosen, to lead them toward water but the Apache escapes. Buck and Manolito catch a glimpse of a war party wearing John's and Billy's hats but harsh desert winds make it impossible to track the missing pair. When John and Billy do find water, renegade Chief Soldado ties them to a rock to die of thirst.
Episode 24: Tiger by the Tail
Ricardo Montalban guest-stars as a wounded bandit leader who is captured by the Cannons and tells them his followers will destroy them unless he is released.
When El Tigre's brother, Rafael, threatens to attack the ranch to free the notorious bandit, John Cannon has difficulty persuading his wranglers to hold the outlaw for trial in Tucson. During the attack Victoria frees El Tigre when he promises to leave peacefully and to stop the bloodshed, but he shows his true colors by making John his captive.
Episode 17: The Assassins
An Apache renegade and his followers plan to kill Cochise's peace representative in the Cannon ranch house and start a new Indian war.
Medicine man Nock-Ay-Del explains that Cochise will agree to live peacefully if John Cannon offers sufficient gifts. Buck warns against a death trap when an outpost guard is killed during negotiations. Sub-chief Soldado and three warriors move in towards the ranch house to accomplish their purpose.
Episode 25: The Peacemaker
Billy Blue Cannon quits the ranch after a quarrel with his father and leads a peace representative of the President to Cochise.
On the trail Blue falls in love with Kelly's adopted Apache daughter, Moonfire. Kelly, an idealistic dreamer, meets Cochise's demands for a strip of land separating the High Chaparral from Tucson. This would cut the Cannons' supply route and threaten them with bankruptcy. John, angered by the peace terms and his son's choice of a wife, prepares to defend the ranch against the Apaches.
Episode 16: The Firing Wall
Fernando Lamas guest-stars as a Mexican bandit turned revolutionary who captures and prepares to execute the Cannon Ranch hands to prove his power.
Manolito is jailed by El Caudillo, the Mexican bandit, when Conchita lures the group across the border. Billy Blue Cannon is allowed to escape, and he returns with El Caudillo's old enemy, Don Sebastian, and the entire group, except ranch hand Pedro, then is jailed. Hope for escape fades when El Caudillo prepares to shoot the group before frightened villagers to prove his power and to force them to join his revolution to conquer Mexico.
Episode 26: The Hair Hunter
A bounty on Apache scalps disrupts peace between the Cannons and the Indians.
When Apache raids close Judah Austin's mine, he offers Stoner a bounty for Indian scalps despite John Cannon's objections. Stoner's son Chad is wounded in an attack on the Apaches and turns against his father while recuperating at the High Chaparral ranch.
Episode 15: The Terrorist
Henry Silva guest-stars as a revolutionary who plans to assassinate Benito Juarez, exiled President of Mexico, on the Cannon Ranch.
Manolito frees his old friend Santos from a Mexican jail, where he has been imprisoned by the French as a terrorist for Juarez. Santos and his sister, Pilar, are taken to the Cannon Ranch where Victoria arranges for Juarez to plan an invasion of Mexico. Manolito learns Santos has turned traitor and plans to conquer French-ruled Mexico himself. Before Manolito can warn his friends, Santos's followers take over the ranch and prepare to kill Juarez upon his arrival.
Episode 27: A Joyful Noise
Ramon Novarro, silent film notable is guest star as Padre Guillermo, who flees Mexico to escape the vendetta of a twisted killer.
The padre is accompanied by two nuns and Maria. John Cannon agrees to protect the group when Maria's demented fiancé Ramon, who has plundered the padre's Mexican convent, arrives on the scene. Maria rides into the desert intent on sacrificing herself to prevent more bloodshed. Manolito finds Maria, but is trapped with the girl by Ramon.