The Making of Guns of Ponderosa -- Part VII

Ponderosa was a company town. Directly or indirectly, most of the townspeople earned their living from the Comstock Log and Lumber Company. In my boyhood days, the McNary general store is where even people from Show Low, 15 miles away, went for dry goods, especially work clothes. The only hospital in the area was in McNary (read Ponderosa), too, and I had a hernia repaired there in 1955.

Thus, when Matt Stryker starts making things difficult for Nate Cahill and his cohorts, Cahill naturally turns his attention toward the major company in town. A rat tells Nate of a large amount of money to be sent to Wells Fargo in Holbrook. So Nate decides to rob the train, as that's the logical way to send a big bunch of cash. Not.