Western Hero #89

When a drunken prisoner grabs Sheriff Cobb's gun and makes a deadly escape at the jailhouse, Bill Boyd finds himself caught between duty and a promise—one that brings him back to Prairie Junction just as the case grows dangerously complicated. A blackmail scheme, a desperate family in need, and a frame-up collide on the trail, forcing Boyd to untangle whose hands truly pulled the trigger and whose are reaching for the noose. With only bullet holes and contradicting stories to guide him, the wandering cowboy must ride fast to stop an innocent man from hanging for another's crime.

Big Bow and Little Arrow scheme to start their own hot chestnut business after watching a vendor's operation, figuring they can undercut the competition by harvesting wild chestnuts for free. When Little Arrow decides to speed up the roasting process with his tomahawk instead of carefully nicking each chestnut by hand, the hastily prepared batch takes an unexpectedly dramatic turn. This 1950 humor tale delivers the kind of backfiring frontier scheming that makes for a fun short-form romp.

When a charming minstrel performer arrives in town for a theatrical run, a string of robberies—bank heists, store thefts, stagecoach holdups—all seem to point to him as the culprit, despite ironclad alibis from dozens of witnesses who watched him perform. Monte Hale smells a setup and digs deeper to uncover the real scheme before a vengeful mob takes justice into its own hands. A clever tale of mistaken identity and misdirection that proves sometimes the best alibi is hiding in plain sight.

Gabby Hayes, foreman of the Bar Nothing Ranch, daydreams that his life story would make an exciting book—and when a famous English author arrives to chronicle the West, Gabby gets his chance to spin a yarn, though Wordsworth Volumes' arrival in full armor causes more trouble than anyone expected. When outlaws target the eccentric writer for his wealth, Gabby dons the suit himself and inadvertently becomes the legendary "Knight of Terror," accidentally terrorizing the very bandits he's trying to stop. By the time the dust settles, Wordsworth's published book tells a story Gabby never quite bargained for.

Dimwit Dimby sets out to find his missing uncle at the general store, but his vague description of the man—neither tall nor short, with a mustache he keeps shaved off—leaves the storekeeper more puzzled than helpful. This quirky frontier character finds humor in the simplest mix-ups.

Dusty, a quick-witted practical joker, schemes his way into a free meal at the Last Stop Restaurant by planting a bug in his coffee—only to find that the manager saw the whole trick coming and has turned the tables on him completely. When Dusty's prank backfires and he learns the hard way that his jokes can have real consequences, he discovers that outsmarting a savvy restaurant owner is tougher than he bargained for.

Tom Mix and Sheriff Mike Shaw set a trap to catch the dangerous Hypnotist, who's just escaped from jail and is racing toward the border—but when the criminal uses his mind-bending powers to turn Mike against him, Tom finds himself in a desperate race to stop the escape before his friend crosses into safety. With cunning and quick thinking, Tom pursues the fugitive across treacherous terrain, facing an impossible choice when the Hypnotist threatens Mike's life at the border itself.