Tex Ritter Western #20

Tex Ritter faces a dangerous challenge when a railroad baron hungry to break the stagecoach company's franchise engineers a series of sabotages—collapsed bridges, ambushes, and blocked roads—all designed to prove the stage line can't reliably deliver. With his trusted horse White Flash and the help of loyal cattlemen, Tex must safely guide a coach carrying crucial mail and a bank shipment through Colfax County while staying one step ahead of the railroad's hired troublemakers and their escalating traps.

Pinto Pete gets asked to write a reference for a former hired hand named Phelps, and with the help of his friend, he crafts an honest—if unflattering—letter that manages to find one small silver lining in an otherwise troublesome employee. It's a quick, wry look at the art of diplomatic dishonesty in the Old West.

When a ranch boss decides to reward the laziest hand on his spread with an easy, high-paying job, Buffalo Bull seizes the opportunity—but finds himself on the chopping block when his sheer refusal to budge proves him the laziest of all. Desperate to keep his position, Buffalo Bull spins increasingly outlandish tales about his brother and especially his Uncle Oscar, a man so lazy he's been stuck in an oak tree for thirty years after lying down on an acorn. The boss eventually sees through the tall tales, but Buffalo Bull's fear of job hunting gets him moving in the end.

When a wolf bounty brings the frontier community together, Tex Ritter finds himself caught between two feuding ranchers—one determined to build a tannery upstream, the other desperate to protect his water supply. As tensions boil over into violence and a mysterious fire destroys the tannery, Tex must sift through accusations and evidence to uncover the truth before justice falls on the wrong man.