Rocky Lane Western #11

In "Fool's Gold Fiasco," three rustlers stumble upon a promising gold strike on the Rockin' R Ranch, setting off a scheme to drive off Jo and her cattle using loco weed. With greed in their eyes and a dangerous plan in motion, they’ll stop at nothing to claim the fortune—though the land has a way of turning schemes into something far less profitable.

When a dimwitted cowpoke called Gopher-Face wanders into the general store, he meets his match in an equally befuddled clerk—and the results are pure comedic chaos as their muddled logic collides. In this one-page western humor story from 1950, two of the frontier's densest characters try to conduct what should be a simple transaction, with predictably bewildering results.

When storekeeper Denson reports a series of robberies to the marshal's office, undercover Marshal Rocky Lane is assigned to stake out the general store and catch the thieves red-handed—but someone knows about his plan and leaves him with a cracked skull. With Denson critically wounded and unable to identify his attacker, Rocky must piece together the clues himself, and his suspicions lead him to an unlikely suspect harboring a dangerous secret. It's a race against time to catch the gang before they disappear with the stolen loot and silence anyone who can expose them.

Slim Pickens, newly minted lawyer, visits his jailbird client Dingbat Sparks to deliver some questionable news about his sentencing—but when a series of unfortunate wordplay mishaps comes to light, it becomes clear the judge may have misunderstood the case entirely. A lighthearted Western romp that proves sometimes the law is stranger than fiction.

Rocky Lane is called in to help a retired millionaire named Bill Tyler who's convinced someone is shadowing his every move—and the sheriff suspects the mysterious follower is after Tyler's fortune. When Rocky teams up with his horse Black Jack to investigate, he uncovers a kidnapping scheme that's just the smokescreen for a bigger crime, and he'll need all his wits to stop the crooks before they make off with Tyler's wealth.

Bill Bixby gets cornered by someone demanding repayment of a five-dollar debt, but the quick-thinking cowboy has a clever scheme to wiggle out of the obligation—at least for now. It's a lighthearted lesson in creative problem-solving, Western-style.

Big Bow and Little Arrow agree to move a man's furniture to his new cabin for five dollars, but Little Arrow's scheme to catch free rides in the furniture backfires spectacularly when Big Bow discovers the trick and decides to teach him a lesson. This four-page humor tale follows the mismatched partners as they haul everything from beds to pianos across the range, with Little Arrow's lazy shortcut catching up with him in the most uncomfortable way possible.

Rocky Lane, the undercover marshal, discovers a clever confidence scheme when he spots rustlers herding buffalo toward settlers who've been duped into staying on the range—only to have their oxen stolen and replaced with disguised animals sold back as "work buffalo." As Rocky moves to expose the con and arrest the ringleader Keno, the quick-thinking crook turns the tables by falsely accusing the marshal himself, setting the angry settlers against him.