National Comics #48

When shakedown artists Sam Jerkis and Hack Jerkis—the mayor and police chief of a small town—threaten Colonel Lane's traveling circus with trumped-up fines and impossible demands, The Barker steps in with a scheme to outwit the crooked brothers at their own game. With help from the circus performers, Carnie Callahan sets a series of traps designed to turn the Jerkis Brothers against each other and teach them a lesson they won't forget. It's a wild clash of wits between a fast-thinking carnival man and two small-town con artists who finally met their match.

In this lighthearted 1945 tale from National Comics #48, a splashy mishap involving Lassie, Laddie, and Roberta sets off a chain of misunderstandings when Roberta’s breakup note to her boyfriend Roger gets torn in half—leaving him convinced she’s ending their romance, all while Roberta herself is completely unaware of the mix-up.

Policewoman Sally O'Neil watches as a naïve country fellow named Rube Simpson stumbles into the con artist underworld after striking oil and arriving in the city with a fortune to invest—and when a cunning scheme puts him in deadly danger, Sally must decide whether to protect him or use the situation to finally catch the slippery criminals she's been after. This detective mystery pulls together con games, double-crosses, and a criminal rivalry that's been simmering for four years, all converging in a single night that will test Sally's wits and courage.