Rocky Lane Western #13

Rocky Lane arrives in Fry Gulch undercover, investigating a string of murdered sheriffs and coordinated gold mine robberies. When a rookie marshal, Randy Brown, is injured after being mistaken for a lawman, Rocky must navigate a town where the real sheriff-killers are hiding in plain sight.

Slim Pickens tries to help Hank with a crossword puzzle, but his absurd answers — like claiming the flea is closest to man or that the Civil War was the sixth war — only deepen the confusion. When Hank accuses him of being the dumbest rancher around, Slim fires back with a jab about the doctor who charged five dollars and sealed the medicine bottle too tightly. The story ends with a humorous twist involving a pufferfish and a lesson learned — or not.

In a twist of frontier deception, a gang of outlaws posing as tax collectors exploit the chaos of roundup season to steal county taxes—only to be outmaneuvered by Rocky Lane, who tracks them down using forged receipts and a distinctive blaze-faced bay horse. As Rocky closes in on the impostor, the ruse unravels in a tense showdown where the true identity of the tax collector is revealed.

When a dead body vanishes from Bret's general store, Marshal Rocky Lane arrives to end a long-standing feud, only to find the corpse gone and suspicion falling on Tod Walcott. As Rocky pursues Tod, two shady figures—Flint and Hood—steal the trunk believed to contain the body, setting off a chain of mistaken identities and desperate plans. With the truth buried in a stolen trunk and a town full of secrets, Rocky must unravel the mystery before the real killer disappears for good.

Gopherface, exhausted from his travels, decides to rest by sitting on a branding iron left in the open — only to discover too late that he’d been keeping all his money in the seat of his pants. The sudden pain and loss of his savings leave him groaning, prompting a surprised onlooker to question his unusual money-saving habit.

Whitey Whiskers is left in charge of Lem Hopkins’ general store while the proprietor is away, and takes advantage of the situation by sneaking crackers from a barrel—only to get stuck inside when he loses his balance. Trapped and groaning, he’s startled to hear two crooks (who turn out to be a pair of bumbling outlaws) looting the cash register, but he’s too stuck to stop them—until he devises a plan to tip the barrel over and roll it toward the sheriff.

In a dusty frontier showdown, a lone undercover marshal follows a trail of suspicious hoofprints that seem to lead nowhere—until he discovers a hidden blacksmith shop where the tracks converge from two directions, hinting at a clever ruse. With the stolen Diamond D broncs seemingly vanished into the open range, the marshal must unravel how a false trail was laid to cover the real escape route.