John Wayne Adventure Comics #18

John Wayne faces off against a creature called the Panther Man in a cave confrontation. After a desperate chase, Wayne corners the monster and defeats it, only to discover that a man named Bill Kefis was behind the threat, having sought revenge for his son's death. The story concludes with Wayne pursuing Kefis across the desert landscape, where Kefis becomes lost and dies of thirst and starvation in the scorching wasteland, his quarter-million dollars in gold left stranded with his body.