Tom Mix Western #36

Tom Mix agrees to escort a man named Burt Jetley and his covered wagon through the wilderness to meet a hired guide, but the guide never arrives—instead, a impostor appears, and Burt vanishes. With the wagon mysteriously empty and danger closing in, Tom devises a clever scheme to expose the criminals and save Burt before time runs out.

When Tom Mix's stray cattle wanders onto the crumbling old Winward Ranch, he discovers it's just been purchased by Les Bunker—a man with a well-earned reputation for laziness who swears he's turned over a new leaf. As Bunker's repeated carelessness puts himself, his new property, and the whole town in danger, Tom must decide how many times he's willing to bail out his troublesome new neighbor before letting him face the real consequences.

When Sheriff Mike receives what appears to be the governor's reprieve for condemned outlaw Bert Nugget, Tom Mix suspects something isn't right—especially when he learns the governor never sent any such message. Racing against time, Tom must track down the mastermind behind the sealed reply before the Nugget brothers slip through the law's fingers for good. With the help of a coerced messenger and a bit of frontier detective work, Tom's on the trail of a scheme as cunning as it is desperate.

Tumbleweed Jr. gets inspired by a circus performer and decides to practice tight rope walking using his mother's clothesline—but his plan quickly goes awry when he thoughtlessly removes her wet laundry and borrows her favorite new umbrella without permission. As he attempts his first "performance," disaster strikes repeatedly, destroying the umbrella and landing him in a tub of butter, leading to a stern lesson about both carelessness and the dangers of risky behavior.

Cowboy Cal picks up a fancy diamond tie pin and proudly shows it off to his pals, only to discover that the real hardship isn't owning the gem—it's footing the bill for it. This lighthearted Western yarn delivers its punchline with the kind of homespun humor that made these tales a staple of 1950s comics.

When a scheming landowner tries to block a railroad from coming to Dobie, engineer Corey Grey devises a bold plan to tunnel through the mountainside instead—but his success makes him a target. Tom Mix must protect Grey from a desperate man bent on revenge, even as danger threatens to derail everything on the tracks themselves. A frontier tale of ingenuity, greed, and one cowboy's determination to see justice done.