Tom Mix Western #29

Tom Mix finds a horseshoe on the trail and considers it good luck—but when he's ambushed and shot by a stranger, he realizes the horseshoe itself was the real target. When he discovers a murdered rancher, Tom uses the missing horseshoe as a clever trap, staking out the blacksmith shop where the killer will have to go to replace it. The scheme works perfectly, leading Tom straight to the culprits and a climactic showdown.

Tom Mix uncovers a crooked scheme when a pair of desperate horse dealers hatch a plan to swindle their way out of debt—staging a fake rustling to collect insurance money while keeping their herd. With deception layered upon deception, Tom must navigate the rustling ruse to catch the scheme's architects before their plot claims its next victim.

Slim Pickens needs to raise money for a microscope, and he's got just the thing to sell—a horse—but his pal's bartering skills might make closing the deal trickier than expected. This 1950 yarn delivers the kind of rapid-fire word-juggling and nimble non-logic that makes these four pages a genuine laugh-out-loud ride.

A sleepy cowhand learns the hard way what "the crack of dawn" really means when he stumbles out of the bunkhouse and literally collides with the boss at daybreak. This humorous one-pager from Tom Mix Western #29 delivers exactly the kind of groan-worthy wordplay that made these frontier tales such a hoot.

When gunfire erupts in the foothills, Tom Mix rushes to help—only to find the scene abandoned and himself knocked cold by a mysterious assailant. Days later, a ghostly pale stranger arrives in town claiming to be a prospector, but Tom's instincts tell him something's wrong about the man's story. As the truth unravels across the timberline, Tom must face down a killer with a deadly vendetta in this tale from Tom Mix Western #29.

Cowboy Cal gets lost in thought about his outfit, and when a curious pal asks what's on his mind, Cal launches into a fascinating breakdown of how his clothes were made—wool from Australia, cloth woven in New England, thread sewn in California, all purchased in Texas. The punchline lands as a wry meditation on the interconnected world of commerce and labor that makes everyday life possible.

Saddlehead heads to Jason's Tavern for a meal but can't decide what to eat, and when a friend suggests oysters, he recounts a disastrous past experience that nearly did him in. His confusion about how oysters work leads to a comedic misunderstanding that wraps up this lighthearted Western tale.

When Tumbleweed Jr. spots a runaway horse in the desert, it seems like the answer to his wish for a pony of his own—but the animal is actually stolen property being hunted by the sheriff. After the horse bolts during a tense confrontation with the rustlers who took it, a thrilling chase leads to an unexpected resolution that finally makes the boy's dream possible.

When a crooked gambler named Bill Sharke plots to sabotage Phil Garrick's campaign for judge, he hatches a scheme using a circus performer who can impersonate the candidate—but Tom Mix uncovers the substitution and races to stop the conspiracy before it destroys an honest man's reputation. With dynamite, gunfire, and deception at every turn, Mix must expose the real mastermind behind the scheme and protect the election from those who'd do anything to keep power in dishonest hands.