Theodore Bikel plays a burned out doctor who is running away from the incredibly nasty character played by Robert F. Simon. Simon is upset that Bikel did not save the life of his much younger Indian wife, when she was giving birth. Simon is not only angry that his wife died, but that he had to buy the young Indian woman from the tribe, so he lost his money too.
Simon was great at playing nasty, unreasonable, vile characters, and this is right up there. Simon verbally abuses and beats his adult sons into trying to bushwhack or murder Bikel. They don't have much enthusiasm for it, but Simon never stops talking about how much the doctor deserves to die.
One of his sons is played by a young Lee Majors (later on he was Heath on Big Valley). Another son is played by Roger Ewing. He would return as Marshall Dillon's part-time deputy in the next season (11, episode 3).
Bikel spends every scene on some variation of a death monologue, feeling sorry for himself, and resigned to his fate. Simon engages every scene in a revenge speech, ranting over and over again about how much he loved his wife, and why Bikel must die because he is a bad doctor. Both of them overwork every scene, and it goes from Bikel to Simon over and over again. Just ponderously depressingly boring.
Even worse is that Bikel is singing and playing acoustic guitar after every sad lonely monologue. Talk about too much!! Bikel was not just a guest actor, but he was a singer too. Back in the 1960s, Bikel released several records focused on singing Russian, gypsy, and Jewish folk songs. In 1969 he began playing Tevye on production of Fiddler on the Roof. The role had been named famous by Zero Mostel and Chaim Topol (who was also in the 1971 movie).