Lash LaRue Western #12

Roving marshal Lash LaRue stumbles onto a midnight ambush where mysterious varmints set fire to a wagon train and send it over a cliff—then discovers one of those same owlhoots working for the newly elected mayor of Bighorn, Red Mathers, prompting Lash to suspect the election itself was rigged. With Jeff Howard, the man who should have won, Lash uncovers evidence of ballot tampering and sets a clever trap to prove whether Mathers was part of the scheme.

Molasses Mouth stumbles through a downpour at his usual leisurely pace, leaving onlookers baffled—until he reveals his peculiar logic for staying dry in "Dry Humorist," a humorous western tale from 1951. This quick-witted joke plays on frontier folk wisdom gone hilariously wrong.

Wagon Wheels finds himself in hot water when a game warden catches him fishing for trout during the closed season—but the quick-thinking cowpoke claims he was actually angling for suckers, which are fair game year-round. When the warden spots the trout Wagon Wheels has caught, our hero scrambles to explain his way out of trouble with a tall tale about how those fish ended up tied to his line.

Lash LaRue arrives in Bedino County to investigate a string of ranchers' deaths that locals are calling accidents—but the roving marshal suspects something far more sinister is at work. When an old man nearly drowns in the Alcode River after a suspicious encounter, Lash pieces together a pattern of greed and murder tied to the river lands themselves. Now he must outmaneuver a killer who's willing to eliminate anyone standing between him and total control of the county.

Lash LaRue stands guard over Forge's grain warehouse while the criminal Rinty plots to steal the valuable shipment, but a scheme involving knockout drops and a traitorous insider threatens to leave the lawman helpless. When circumstances force Squinty into the role of backup guard—armed with the new eyeglasses Lash insisted he wear—the unlikely hero must find the courage to stop the grain thieves before they make off with the goods. A western tale where clear sight, both literal and moral, proves just as important as a quick draw.

Rockhead Robert falls for an old joke when someone asks if he's heard the song of the old wooden chair—and he's about to learn the punchline the hard way in this quick-witted western humor bit.

Cactus Brain finds what he thinks is a fine walking stick in a piece of branch, but runs into a problem: it's the wrong height—too high at the top and too high at the bottom. This one-page western comedy shows the hapless prospector trying to puzzle out a solution in true frontier fashion.

Dusty's terrible singing and questionable judgment land him at his boss's party, where an unexpected crowd of a hundred guests—including the sheriff and his posse—shows up with food for only ten. When Dusty's creative math and quick thinking turn limited supplies into a meal for everyone, he becomes the unlikely hero of the day. This 1951 western-humor tale proves that sometimes the goofiest solution is the right one.

Lash LaRue stumbles upon a wagon driver named Fred Benton whose salt-hauling wagon has been sabotaged—the shaft deliberately sawed through—forcing him into a dangerous situation high in the hills. When Lash discovers that mysterious hired guns are bent on stopping Benton from completing his annual salt run (which he must finish to keep his franchise), he decides to ride alongside the driver and uncover who's really behind the attacks. A leather scraper found at the scene of a dynamite-rigged bridge gives Lash the first real clue to the conspirators' identity, setting him on the trail to expose a scheme far more ambitious than anyone realized.