Little Joe is his family's only hope when he escapes from a kangaroo court that has framed the Cartwrights for a bank robbery and sentenced them all to hang.

The Cartwrights encourage young genius, Albert Michelson, to pursue his scientific experiments while trying to discover why schoolmaster, George Norton, expelled Albert from school and seems determined to stand in the way of his appointment to the prestigious Annapolis Naval Academy.

The Cartwrights may have to take the law into their own hands when Virginia City's temporary sheriff, rancher Asa Moran, uses his new badge as a license to kill.

The Cartwright boys help cowhand Hank romance reluctant teacher Abigail.

Tucson gunman, Jack Groat, swore to kill Sheriff Lem Partridge for putting him in prison after a bullet from Groat's gun during a drunken street brawl accidentally killed Sheriff Partridge's wife. Now, 10 years later and fresh out of prison, Groat has tracked retired Lem Partridge to Virginia City and is soon holding Lem's son, Jimmy, and good friend Ben Cartwright hostage. But things go bad and Ben must soon explain to Lem - and try to convince himself - that there was nothing he could have done that day to stop Groat from shooting Jimmy in the back.

The Cartwrights go hunting for a gang of cattle rustlers. Adam comes across an injured man, Matthew Grant, who he assumes is one of the thieves. Knowing that Ben will shoot the criminal on sight, Adam tries to convince Grant to confess to his crimes and turn himself over to the authorities.

On his way home, Hoss stops for water at the house of drought stricken family member Jason Gant. While attempting to build a well it caves in on Jason and Hoss saves him. Afterwards Hoss is determined to help Jason strike water.

The Cartwrights are dumbfounded when the mother of town drunk Danny Lynch arrives on the Ponderosa to see the land that her son apparently owns, as he said in letters to her. They seek out Danny to tell her the truth.

While visiting the Ponderosa, Ben's old friend, sea Captain Matthew White, is forced to reveal a terrible secret after Little Joe Cartwright falls in love with and plans to wed the Captain's daughter, Laura, once a freckle-faced playmate from Joe's childhood in New Orleans, now grown into a beautiful woman.

When Adam is a witness to a murderous armed robbery by masked assailants, he is absolutely convinced he knows who one of them is, but there's ultimately only one way to prove it.

Bitterly disappointed in her husband's financial failures, genteel matriarch Deborah Banning travels to visit her friends on the Ponderosa, hoping to turn her family's fortunes around by marrying her only daughter off to a Cartwright son.

The woman that Hoss is smitten with turns down his marriage proposal when a stranger in town sweet talks her with the promise of excitement and adventure. However, Hoss soon discovers that the man is only after her money and is asked by her father to go save her after she runs away with the new man.

The Cartwrights play host to an eccentric old soldier friend of Ben's while trying to track down a mysterious swindler named Polk who is illegally deeding parcels of the Ponderosa to settlers looking for homesteads.

Hoss comes across a blind girl named Gabrielle who was recently orphaned when her parents died in an overturned wagon. When he brings her back to the Ponderosa, the Cartwright's set out to find her a loving home, but she has her sights set to go live with her grandfather: an old hermit who wants nothing to do with her or anyone else.

While in Rubicon, Joe is offered the position of sheriff. When he tells his family, they don't take him seriously which angers him, so he takes the job.

A man claiming to be the reincarnation of french poet Francois Villon and his sister get kicked out of the hotel. Joe and Hoss bring them to the Ponderosa where Joe falls in love with Francois' sister Eloise.

The Cartwrights must try to get help for Adam, seriously wounded by an Apache bullet, and find out why Cochise and his warriors have threatened to kill them all if they don't hand over an army captain taking refuge in their trail camp.

When their spring-fever antics injure miserly businessman, Jedediah Milbank, requiring recuperation at the Ponderosa, Ben orders each of his sons to carry out one of Mr. Milbank's seemingly simple tasks, unaware that they may prove impossible for the kind-hearted Cartwright boys to complete.

The brother of a man Hoss killed in self-defense says he understands but secretly plans revenge.