At Home with Dutch
Harold MacDougal
- Mission giver
- Harold MacDougal
- Location
- Cochinay
- Starts at
- Blackwater
- Ends at
- Blackwater
- Unlocked by
- Not stated
Player notes
John Marston visits Harold MacDougal in Blackwater when Nastas arrives with word of Dutch van der Linde. Dutch and his gang are hiding in the hills of Cochinay, where they are attracting young men from the reservation. MacDougal, Nastas and John ride out together. On the journey, they pass hunters pursuing buffalo, prompting MacDougal and Nastas to argue over the animals' fate.
At Cochinay, MacDougal loses his nerve and heads back, leaving John with Nastas. Nastas guides him up the snow-covered cliffs and through an abandoned mine. A crazed miner attacks Nastas and cuts his arm before Nastas kills him. Explosives roll through the mine, forcing John outside to deal with waiting gang members. Nastas is too badly hurt to continue and sends John on alone.
John climbs higher through the mountains, killing a grizzly bear and a cougar on the way. At the summit, he finds Helaku watching Dutch's camp. John silently removes the scout and takes his binoculars, then uses them to search the camp. Dutch emerges from a tent and kills a lawman. He notices John, fires at him and hits the binoculars, knocking him unconscious.
John wakes in Blackwater with MacDougal and Nastas. MacDougal is distressed by what happened, while Nastas confirms that Dutch is gathering followers in the mountains. John leaves them after recovering from Dutch's shot.
Trivia
- โOddly enough, though Dutch gets a direct hit on the binoculars, they are fine for the rest of the game.
- โReplay the mission after completing the storyline. Kill the bear and go to the checkpoint where the cougar is, kill the cougar and step in the checkpoint. Don't go to the next checkpoint but jump off to the cliff to commit suicide. Select "Retry from checkpoint" and you will now spawn back at the cougar spot. The bear, however, is back alive. Descend to the bear location. The bear is now tame and won't attack you; he will just stand there and walk around. The bear will not even attack you if you shoot/punch it. This can be useful if you are on Master Hunter Rank 8, in which you'll need to kill a bear with the hunting knife and collect a bear pelt. Be aware that the cougar may have respawned once you resume your way up the cliffs. Killing the bear with a high-powered weapon, such as the Buffalo Rifle, can also be useful if you are on Sharpshooter Rank 7, in which you'll need to kill 3 bears each with one shot. Last but not least, skinning the bear can be useful for the Achievement/Trophy Bearly Legal, in which you'll have to kill and skin 18 grizzly bears.
- โAfter killing the cougar, John must climb a series of ledges going north. Once he has done that, there will be a ledge he must climb going west. Climb the ledge, and just a few feet in front of John will be a bald eagle that will fly off when you get close. You can shoot and kill the bird, but you won't be able to take any feathers (you can take feathers if you shoot it from below, it will fall off to where the cougar is).
- โThis is the first mission in which the player encounters snow. It is also one of the few missions to require the player to neutralize an enemy without alerting anyone to their presence, another being The Great Mexican Train Robbery.
- โIt is actually possible for the cougar to become friendly. Simply push the cougar off the ledge and it should survive the fall. Afterwards the cougar will simply wander around and ignore the player.
- โWhen encountering the cougar go to a point where you can see it, but it is not attacking you, then throw a stick of dynamite at it to receive the scrap for the Expert Hunter Outfit.
- โThis is the only time the player may see Cochinay operating like an ordinary settlement.
- โThe initial ledge which Nastas helps Marston climb cannot be grabbed in normal gameplay, even if the player manages a build some sort of leverage (Like dead horses).
- โIf John shoots an animal while riding to Cochinay, Nastas will call him a "bastard".
- โThe miner who attacks Nastas is actually the Red Dead Multiplayer character Quick Tom Candle.
- โIn the opening cutscene, MacDougal offers John a syringe of cocaine, saying "It entirely restores the ego. Takes one back to a primal state." However, at least in Freudian psychology, the ego represents the opposite of a primal state, which is actually referred to as the "id".
Mission data from Red Dead Wiki, CC BY-SA. Not affiliated with Rockstar Games.
Last verified September 14, 2026