Rocky Lane Western #16

Rocky Lane races to a burning ranch house and rescues an unconscious man from the flames—only to discover the victim is George Tilson, the new owner of the Cinder-Box Ranch, and evidence of a deliberate knockdown suggests murder, not accident. With a bill of sale as the only clue and suspicion falling on the ranch's former owner, the undercover marshal must piece together who wanted Tilson dead and why before the killer strikes again.

Grizzly Burr returns to town after a ninety-day stretch in jail for rustling cattle, and Slim Pickens has some colorful questions about his time away—and about a certain watch dog that's caused nothing but trouble between Grizzly and his old friend Texas Tom. This is a rollicking dose of frontier humor where every punchline lands a little sideways, and the real comedy lies in how Grizzly talks his way through both explanations and fresh schemes without missing a beat.

Rocky Lane, the Undercover Marshal, is sent to the frontier town of Lizard Rock to track down a masked killer known as the Blade—a knife-throwing outlaw terrorizing the town with murders and robberies. When a witness is killed before he can identify the criminal, Rocky must use his wits to separate suspects from the real killer and bring the Blade to justice.

Rocky Lane investigates a string of wagon trains mysteriously lured off the Oregon Trail into Indian ambushes—only to discover the real culprits aren't Indians at all, but cunning rustlers using fake trail signs and stolen horses to prey on desperate settlers. As the undercover marshal pieces together the scheme, he finds himself trapped in the rustlers' camp with nothing but his wits and a slim chance at survival standing between him and a deadly reckoning.

A tough drought forces a rancher named Charley to worry about keeping his goldfish alive, but his pal Gopher Face offers some questionable advice based on his own creative solution to the same problem. This one-page western humor tale plays the setup and punchline for all they're worth in classic comic fashion.

Sagebrush tries to pull a prank on the ranch gang, but his scheme backfires in the most unexpected way when he targets the boss. This quick one-pager delivers a classic western humor gag with perfectly timed physical comedy.

Rocky Lane takes to the trail after Twin-gun Eliot, a cunning road agent who's been robbing stagecoaches and leaving no evidence behind—his trick of swapping horses and moving the loot has kept the law frustrated. When Rocky spots the outlaws fleeing and notices their suspicious behavior, he sets out to outwit the slick gunman and uncover where the stolen gold has been hidden. With a quiet determination, Rocky closes in, knowing that even the cleverest crook eventually slips up.