Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Texas Rangers, July 1946

This is a pulp that I own and read recently. That’s my rather tattered copy in the scan, with a fine action cover painted by Sam Cherry.

The Jim Hatfield novel in this issue is by A. Leslie Scott writing under the Jackson Cole house-name, as is obvious from the vivid descriptions right from the start. The Lucky Hammer of the title is the name of a silver mine in Texas’s Big Bend region, so-called because the two old prospectors who discover the vein also find an ancient Aztec carving of a snake that’s shaped in the form of a hammer. Oh, and the hammer just happens to be lying next to the body of a dead man who appears to have guzzled down a drink from a poisoned waterhole.

Naturally, the silver strike results in the founding of a boomtown, and a boomtown always brings owlhoots, and eventually things get so lawless in the area that a call for help goes out to the Texas Rangers. And who’s going to respond to that call? I think we all know the answer to that question.

“The Lucky Hammer” is a dandy Jim Hatfield yarn full of the things that make Leslie Scott’s stories so enjoyable: a historical background, a terrible sandstorm on the desert, underground scenes in a mine, exploding dynamite, a missing archeologist, rustlers, smugglers, and gunfights galore. The big twist in the plot is fairly obvious, but to be honest, I would have felt cheated if it hadn’t been there. Sure, I knew it was coming, but I liked it anyway. Actually, there’s nothing in this novel that we haven’t seen in numerous other Hatfield novels by Scott, but he puts the various elements together so well, I still greatly enjoy reading them. He was at the top of his game in these mid-Forties Hatfield novels.

Bennie Gardner, who wrote as Gunnison Steele, turned out some excellent novels for the Thrilling Group Western character pulps, but he was also very prolific when it comes to short-short stand-alone stories. “Cold Creek Killer” in this issue is probably about 1500 words long, but in those words Gardner packs rustling, murder, and a canny sheriff bringing a killer to justice. The twist ending to this one is a little weak, I thought, but Gardner’s fast-moving prose still makes it fun to read.

Not surprisingly, I didn’t make it very far in Ben Frank’s “Doc Swap’s Powder Puff”. I just don’t like this series. I’m not sure why. The author, whose real name was Frank Bennett, puts words together well enough, but the Doc Swap stories just don’t work for me.

On the other hand, I really like the Long Sam Littlejohn stories by Lee Bond, and they’re every bit as formulaic as the Doc Swap yarns. In “Long Sam Collects a Bounty”, the good-guy outlaw is trying to corral a notorious outlaw and collect a reward, when he’s usually the one who’s the quarry in a situation like that. Naturally, his long-time nemesis, Deputy U.S. Marshal Joe Fry, shows up, too. Quite a few of the Long Sam stories, like this one, take place in the Big Thicket in East Texas, and that makes for a nice change-of-pace. I wish Bond had done a little more with the character, but I still enjoy the series and am always glad to read another one.

And the same holds true for most issues of TEXAS RANGERS. Even with Doc Swap and a slightly below-average Gunnison Steele story, this one is well worth reading if you have a copy on your shelves.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Rangeland Sweethearts, October 1940

RANGELAND SWEETHEARTS was a short-lived (three issues) Western romance pulp from Popular Publications. This is the first issue. I don't know who painted the cover. As usual with the Western romance pulps, most of the authors are men who wrote traditional Western pulp yarns, too: Art Lawson, Gunnison Steele (Bennie Gardner), Lee Floren, Rolland Lynch, and John Paul Jones. Not familiar with that last one other than the historical figure of the same name, but this one wrote quite a bit for the Western pulps from the Twenties to the Fifties. Of course, there are some female authors on hand, too: the very prolific Isobel Stewart Way, Leta Zoe Adams, and Myrtle Juliette Corey. I don't own this issue, but with those authors, I imagine it's pretty good. 

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Exciting Western, January 1947

This is a pulp that I own and read recently. That’s my copy in the scan, complete with a little scribbling on a dramatic Sam Cherry cover that I like. EXCITING WESTERN has become one of my favorite Western pulps because I really enjoy two of the series that ran regularly in its pages.

One of those series is, of course, the Tombstone and Speedy stories by W.C. Tuttle. The lead novella in this issue, “Trail of the Flame”, finds our intrepid heroes, range detective Tombstone Jones and Speedy Smith, enjoying some unexpected and newfound wealth in the form of a reward they received for capturing a notorious outlaw. Despite that, they run smack-dab into trouble—literally—when there’s a collision between the buggy they’ve bought and a fella on horseback fleeing from some pursuers. This lands the duo in the middle of a case involving a fabulously valuable gem, a herd of stolen polo ponies, a wealthy eastern dude who has come west, a town south of the border that’s a bandit stronghold, and a sinister Chinese smuggler. As you can tell, Tuttle crams a lot of plot into this yarn, and to be honest, it doesn’t hold together quite as well as some of the other stories in the series. But there’s plenty of action, the story races along at a fast clip, the banter is genuinely amusing, and Tombstone and Speedy are as likable as ever. As always, I really enjoyed reading it.

The other long-running series in EXCITING WESTERN that I like a lot is that featuring Arizona Ranger Navajo Tom Raine, the son of a famous lawman who was raised by the Navajo after his father was murdered in a range war. This series was started by Lee Bond writing under the house-name Jackson Cole, and C. William Harrison is known to have written many of the stories, too. I have a pretty strong hunch that the novelette “Loot of the Lobo Legion” in this issue is by Harrison. He’s a more polished and less formulaic writer than Bond. (Don’t get wrong, I enjoy Bond’s work, too.) In this story, Raine is sent to investigate the mysterious lynchings of three men, but when he arrives on the scene, he discovers that they were actually murdered before they were strung up. It appears that the local cattle baron is making a land grab and trying to get rid of the smaller ranchers in the area, but everything may not be exactly as it seems at first. Harrison’s Navajo Tom Raine stories usually have some sort of mystery angle to them, which is another thing that makes me believe he wrote this one. It’s a well-plotted tale, not much action until the end, but still very entertaining. Every time I read one of these, I find myself wanting to write a Navajo Tom Raine story myself. He’s a fine character.

I read another story by Barry Scobee not long ago and enjoyed it quite a bit, so I was predisposed to like his story in this issue, a novelette called “Hated Wire”. It has an intriguing premise: a cattle baron fences off his entire spread with barbed wire and has only one gate into the place. Any outsiders who venture onto the wrong side of the fence are never seen or heard from again. A neighboring rancher sets out to find out what happened to one of the men who disappeared. There’s a bizarre late twist which kind of comes out of left field, but it’s the sort of thing I generally like. However, in this case, I just didn’t care for the story. Something about the style rubbed me the wrong way, and none of the characters are likable, even the protagonist. This one might strike some other readers completely differently, but for me it’s a misfire.

Stephen Payne’s short story “Old Timer” is an unacknowledged reprint from the April 7, 1934 issue of STREET & SMITH’S WESTERN STORY MAGAZINE. It’s a well-written, low-key, poignant tale about an old range rider who gives up cowboying to become a farmer in partnership with an old friend. There’s no action and the entire story is character-driven, but I liked it anyway. I need to read more of Payne’s work.

Gunnison Steele was really Bennie Gardner. He was a top-notch writer who did some fine novels for the Western character pulps, but he was great with short stories, too, like this issue’s “The Meanest Man”. In this one, a rancher robs the local bank, kills the banker, and gets away with it, but then his partner turns him in. But is that what actually happened? Gardner throws in a clever way of getting to this story’s resolution and I enjoyed this one.

Sam Brant was a house-name, so we don’t know who wrote “Manhunters Ain’t Human”, the short story that wraps up this issue. The plot seems pretty simple: a merciless lawman tracks down a killer, but again there are some twists waiting for the reader that lead to a very satisfying conclusion. This story has a very similar feel to the Gunnison Steele story, which makes me suspect that Bennie Gardner might have been the author here, too, but again, it’s impossible to say for sure.

This is a good issue of EXCITING WESTERN. Not an outstanding one due to the Scobee story I didn’t like and the slightly below average Tombstone and Speedy yarn. But the Navajo Tom Raine novelette is excellent and the short stories are all solid. I’m already looking forward to the next issue of EXCITING WESTERN that I read.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Exciting Western, November 1946

This is a pulp that I own and read recently. That’s my copy in the scan. I think the cover is by Sam Cherry. The horse and rider look like his work to me. The Fictionmags Index agrees and attributes the cover to Cherry.

I always enjoy the Tombstone and Speedy stories by W.C. Tuttle, and the lead novella in this issue of EXCITING WESTERN, “Coyote Luck for Tombstone”, is no exception. Our somewhat hapless range detective heroes, Tombstone Jones and Speedy Smith, are sent to find out who’s behind the rustling on a ranch in southern Arizona, but in the process they run afoul of a mysterious bandit known as the Red Mask who’s been terrorizing the border country. Could it be that the two cases are connected? What do you think? With some help from a coyote that’s been turned into a pet and a trip across the border to a bandit sanctuary, not to mention a few attempts on their lives, Tombstone and Speedy untangle the mess and expose the villains. It’s another well-plotted, light-hearted, but also action-packed entry in the series.

I’m also a fan of the series about Arizona Ranger Navajo Tom Raine. In this issue’s “Ranger on the Run”, Raine is bushwhacked by a gunman who’s supposed to be locked up behind bars and winds up facing a showdown in an abandoned mine tunnel. These stories were published under the house-name Jackson Cole, and at least two authors contributed yarns to the series, Lee Bond (who created it) and C. William Harrison. I feel certain this is one of Bond’s efforts, since the villains spend a lot of time standing around explaining their schemes to each other and the final shootout features Raine against three bad guys. Both of those things are very common in Bond’s stories. Predictable they may be, but they move along nicely and have plenty of well-written action.

Gunnison Steele was really Bennie Gardner. I was fortunate enough to be friends with his son Barry Gardner for several years before Barry passed away. Bennie Gardner wrote quite a few novels featuring various Western pulp characters, but he was also really prolific when it comes to short-shorts, possessing the ability to pack interesting characters and plenty of plot into three or four pulp pages. His story in this issue, “Smoke on the Mountain”, is one of those, centered around an outlaw’s attempt to force an old-timer to reveal the location of some hidden money. The old-timer’s clever way of dealing justice to his tormentor is very effective. I’ve read a bunch of Gunnison Steele stories and enjoyed every one of them.

Del Rayburn published about two dozen stories in various Western pulps between 1944 and 1950 and also wrote one episode of the TV series DEATH VALLEY DAYS. Some of his stories were reprinted in a Powell Books paperback in the Sixties called TRAIL-BLAZERS WEST. His novelette “Tough Texas Tophand” from this issue was reprinted in the November 1951 issue of THRILLING WESTERN, where I’d read it before. To quote what I said about it then: The story is about the clash between a Texas cowboy and a clan of renegade Mormons in Montana. It’s a little over-the-top (the protagonist’s name is Hondo Uvalde) but the author won me over with plenty of well-written action and some interesting characters. I wouldn’t call “Tough Tophand” a Western classic, but it’s an enjoyable story. That’s still an accurate assessment. Curious about Rayburn, I did a little more digging and came across online claims that he was actually a TV network executive with some connection to STAR TREK. Some posters on a Star Trek bulletin board make a pretty scurrilous charge against him. The whole thing seems highly unlikely to me, but it’s an interesting example of the theory that you never know what you’re going to come across on the Internet.

Another masked bandit, this time known by the name Blue Mask, shows up in “Right Handy With a Rope” by veteran Western pulpster Donald Bayne Hobart. A new ranch hand with a secret shows up to hunt down the outlaw. This is another short-short, only four pages long. Hobart was a dependable writer so it’s fairly entertaining, but it’s a really minor piece of work.

The other long-running series in EXCITING WESTERN featured Pony Express rider Alamo Paige. These were published under the house-name Reeve Walker. “In the Line of Duty” in this issue finds Paige having to helping rescue a cavalry patrol besieged by a Sioux war party. The plot is pretty simple, but the story is very well-written and features more character development than usual for Paige, implying that he used to be a cowboy, or perhaps a cavalryman, or maybe even a reformed outlaw. I’ve seen speculation connecting Tom Curry, Charles N. Heckelmann, Walker A. Tompkins, and Chuck Martin with the Reeve Walker house-name, but really there’s no telling who wrote “In the Line of Duty” and the other Alamo Paige stories. It might be Heckelmann’s work, since his stories often have more fully developed characters, but really, who knows. Whoever wrote this one, it’s really good, probably the best Alamo Paige story I’ve read so far.

This is a really solid issue of EXCITING WESTERN overall. Some of the stories are better than others, of course, but all of them are entertaining and the yarns featuring Tombstone and Speedy and Alamo Paige are top-notch, outstanding entries in those series. If you have a copy of this one on your shelves, it’s very much worth reading.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: 10 Story Western Magazine, October 1944

That is one rough-looking hombre on this issue of 10 STORY WESTERN MAGAZINE. I'm not sure if that cover is by Sam Cherry or Robert Stanley, but it's a mighty good one no matter who painted it. I don't own this issue, but if you do, it looks like a good one to read since it includes stories by L.P. Holmes, Norman A. Fox, Tom W. Blackburn, Philip Ketchum, William Heuman, Gunnison Steele (Bennie Gardner), William R. Cox, and lesser-known authors Morgan Lewis and Joe Payne. It would be hard to find a better lineup of authors in a Western pulp from the mid-Forties.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Lariat Story Magazine, August 1934

(I came across this post from January 26, 2008, several years before I started the Saturday Morning Western Pulp series, so I thought I might as well get some more use out of it, modified slightly and with some comments added.)

Since I had this pulp out a couple of weeks ago to look something up, I decided to go ahead and read it. I believe it’s the first issue of LARIAT STORY that I’ve read; I own only another issue or two of this particular pulp.

It doesn’t start off particularly well. The lead “novel” (actually more of a novella) is “The Ranch of Hidden Men” by John Starr. Originally, John Starr was the pseudonym of Jack Byrne, who was the editor of LARIAT STORY at the time this issue was published. At some point, though, it became a house name, probably a year or so later when Byrne left Fiction House (the publisher of LARIAT STORY) to become an editor at ARGOSY. Byrne may be the author of “The Ranch of Hidden Men”, or he may not. Either way, it’s not a very good story. It’s the old “drifter saves the ranch from the bad guys” plot, and while there’s nothing wrong with that, it’s so stereotypical that a story using it needs either an unexpected twist, good writing, or both. This one has neither. It has a very tired, by-the-numbers feel to it, with a lot of florid writing that just pads the word count. Even that sort of prose can be effective (see the work of A. Leslie Scott, for example), but I don’t think it works here.

The novelette that follows, “Red Chaps” by Walter Clare Martin, is even worse, a humorous Western that’s not funny at all. I have a low tolerance for humorous Westerns; I like those by W.C. Tuttle (and Robert E. Howard), but that’s about it.

Things pick up, though, with “Whispering Knives” by C.K. Shaw, a novelette with another old plot, the hunt for the pieces of a treasure map that was split up among the prospectors who discovered a mother lode of gold, but Shaw has a nice hardboiled style that makes it a readable yarn. (C.K. Shaw was actually Chloe Kathleen Shaw, one of the most successful female Western pulpsters. I need to read more of her work.) 

The four short stories that follow are even better: “Old Renegade” by Earl C. McCain concerns the hunt for a wild, killer bull in the South Texas brush country, with some rustling thrown in for good measure; “The Six-Gun Payoff” by the always-dependable Gunnison Steele (really Bennie Gardner, father of the late Barry Gardner, who was known to many of you) is an effective short-short about the redemption of an old outlaw; “Snake Sign” by Walt Coburn (one of my favorite Western pulp authors) is a murder mystery, not too hard to figure out but fun; and “The Water Cure” by E.B. Brunt is a fairly realistic cattle baron vs. small ranchers yarn set in the 1920s.

The issue is wrapped up by another “novel”, “The Fifth Horseman” by James P. Olsen. Olsen, under the name James Lawson, wrote spicy, hardboiled detective yarns about Dallas Duane, a PI who works in the Western oilfields, and I really like the stories I’ve read from that series. (I wound up reading all the Dallas Duane stories and writing the introduction for a collection of them called DYING COMES HARD, published by Black Dog Books and still available.) “The Fifth Horseman” is a little more serious. Again, the plot is one that had whiskers even in 1934: a gang of old outlaws get together again to help an old friend from the owlhoot trail who has reformed and settled down. The hero is a young outlaw who had fallen in with them. Anybody who has read very many Westerns will know how this one is going to play out, but Olsen spins his tale with such enthusiasm, including a number of over-the-top action scenes, that I found it pretty entertaining. This is the first Western story I’ve read by him, but I wouldn’t hesitate to read more.

My copy of the pulp is coverless and I can't find a picture of it on-line, so I can’t post a cover scan. (The Fictionmags Index has that cover scan now. You can see it above.) It came from the collection of Barry Gardner, who’s mentioned above. Barry collected hundreds of pulps that contained his dad’s stories, but he didn’t care that much about the condition, so many of them are brittle and coverless, like this issue. I don’t really care, either, as long as I can read them and enjoy the stories, and I have to say that despite a couple of clunkers, the August 1934 issue of LARIAT STORY is pretty darned good.

(Now, here's the gut punch from the past. Three days after I posted this, a wildfire burned down our house and my studio and destroyed this pulp along with all my others, except for a lone issue of ARGOSY that survived somehow, as well as 40 years' accumulation of books and comics. Some of you probably remember that. Definitely a low point. However, we rebuilt a bigger and better house on the same property, I have more books and pulps, by far, than I'll ever get around to reading, and my writing career has rolled along. I still miss the cats who died in that fire, but our two dogs survived and lived another six years after that. Somebody once told me that you never really get over the things you love and lose, but you learn how to get along with that loss. Lot of truth in that. Meanwhile I think that's a pretty good cover by Fred Craft, and I'm glad to be able to bring it to you today.)

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Texas Rangers, June 1945

This is a pulp that I own and read recently. That’s my copy in the scan. I think the cover may be by George Rozen, but I’m far from sure about that. Sam Cherry was doing most of the covers for TEXAS RANGERS by this point, but that just doesn’t look like Cherry’s work to me.

I’m much more certain about who wrote the Jim Hatfield novel in this issue—but we’ll get to that. “Gun Governor” is set in the Texas Panhandle and concerns the efforts of a gang of carpetbagger politicians and owlhoots to hang on to power as Reconstruction ends and Texans control their own destinies again. Some of those Texans have banded together and planted wheat rather than trying to rebuild the cattle business. The above-mentioned gang of robed and hooded marauders terrorizes them and tries to run them out of business. Enter Texas Ranger Jim Hatfield, sent from Austin to restore law and order and bring the leaders of the gang to justice.

Hatfield starts out by working undercover, as he often does. He manages to infiltrate the gang, but he has to abandon his masquerade to save the life of the leader of the wheat farmers. This leads to an epic cattle in which Hatfield is almost trapped in a burning building, and once his true identity is exposed, it’s all-out war between the Texas Ranger and the carpetbagger gun-wolves as Hatfield battles a scheme that threatens not only the Panhandle but the entire state of Texas.

“Gun Governor” is a well-written, very entertaining yarn with plenty of fast-paced action. The Reconstruction references place it in 1870, which is just one of the reasons I believe it was written by Tom Curry under the Jackson Cole house-name, rather than A. Leslie Scott, to whom it’s attributed in the Fictionmags Index. Curry wrote at least one other Hatfield novel with a Reconstruction background, “The Black Hat Riders” (TEXAS RANGERS, December 1942). Most of Curry’s Hatfield novels seem to take place in the 1870. They don’t all have such specific references as this one, but when they do, that’s the era in which they take place.

Leslie Scott’s Hatfield novels, on the other hand, take place in the 1890s, based on their frequent mentions of the oil business and the spread of railroads across the state. This creates a bit of a time paradox since Hatfield is approximately the same age no matter who the writer is, but evidently the pulp readers didn’t worry about such things and neither do I.

“Gun Governor” bears several other hallmarks of Curry’s work. It has a couple of introductory chapters in which the situation is developed, the villains and their victims are introduced, and so is a proxy hero, in this case wheat farmer Ken Toll, who is a Yankee but befriends the Texans anyway. Hatfield doesn’t show up until the third chapter. The descriptive passages are much shorter and lack Scott’s highly detailed and dramatic (some might say melodramatic) prose. None of Scott’s usual catch-phrases appear. Nobody gets “a surroundin’ of chuck”. While pursuing bad guys, Hatfield never shouts to his horse, “Trail, Goldy, trail!” In the final showdown with the outlaw mastermind (whose identity is never in doubt, by the way), Hatfield’s powerful voice doesn’t ring out “Elevate! In the name of the State of Texas!” Curry’s Hatfield gets down to business in a much more prosaic fashion. Nobody even raises hell and shoves a chunk under the corner!

One final bit of evidence: this novel was reprinted in the Sixties by Popular Library under the title SHOOTOUT TRAIL. Most of the Hatfield novels Popular Library picked to reprint were by Tom Curry. Of course, there were books by other authors in the Popular Library series, including a few by Scott, so that’s not definitive proof, just a little more weight on the side of the conclusions I’ve drawn from the story itself.

All this speculation aside, is “Gun Governor” worth reading? I’d say so without hesitation. The wheat farming angle is a little offbeat, the villains are properly despicable, and Hatfield is his usual stalwart self. I had a very good time reading this yarn.

There are three back-up stories in this issue, which is fairly thin due to wartime paper restrictions. I’m sure it’s a matter of coincidence, but all three have young protagonists.

“Voice From Boothill” by Gunnison Steele is about a young man trying to avenge his brother’s killing. Bennie Gardner, who is best remembered under the Gunnison Steele pseudonym, was a fine Western pulp novelist. His three Jim Hatfield novels under the Jackson Cole name are excellent, some of the best entries in the whole series. But he also wrote a lot of short-short stories like this one, which pack action and interesting plots, usually with some twist, into 1500-2000 words. I picked up on the twist in “Voice From Boothill” before it arrived, but it’s still very effective and I enjoyed the story.

“Salvage of the Box M” is by J.R. Jackson, an author about whom I know nothing except that he published a dozen or so stories in various Western pulps in the Forties. In this story, in order to save his ranch, a young man tries to get a job as a deputy and goes after an outlaw to prove he’s worthy of a badge. This is another well-written, entertaining tale.

“A Pard for Pedro” is by Cliff Walters, a prolific but almost completely forgotten contributor to the Western pulps. It mixes Mexican sheepherders, fly fishing, and murder in an unlikely combination, but it’s well-done and I thorougly enjoyed it.

Overall, this is a really solid issue of TEXAS RANGERS with a top-notch Hatfield novel and good back-up stories. If you have a copy on your shelves and are in the mood for a few hours of good reading, I recommend it. Likewise if you have a copy of the paperback reprint, SHOOTOUT TRAIL, although you won’t get the other stories with it.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Popular Western, September 1938

This fellow has a definite Buck Jones look about him. Maybe it's the hat. Is that an A. Leslie Ross cover? I don't know. Might be. But I do know that there are some good writers in this issue of POPULAR WESTERN, including Johnston McCulley, Gunnison Steele (Bennie Gardner), Tom Gunn (Syl McDowell, with a Painted Post yarn), Wayne D. Overholser, Larry Harris, and Russell A. Bankson. Looks like an issue worth reading.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Western Short Stories, May 1942

I've seen plenty of guys clench a knife between their teeth in movies and on paperback and pulp covers, but a six-gun? That's got to be more uncomfortable. This stalwart, red-shirted hero doesn't look like he's enjoying it that much. This looks like a Norman Saunders cover to me, but it's not listed on his website, so maybe not. But I like it no matter who painted it. WESTERN SHORT STORIES isn't remembered as one of the top Western pulps, but there's certainly plenty of fine writers in this issue: Peter Dawson (Jonathan Glidden), Gunnison Steele (Bennie Gardner), H.A. DeRosso, D.B. Newton, Kenneth Fowler, Rod Patterson, Raymond W. Porter, Norrell Gregory, and Mojave Lloyd. Dawson, Steele, DeRosso, and Newton are enough to make any Western pulp worth reading. 

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Range Riders Western, January 1948

This is a pulp that I own and read recently. My copy has a big chunk out of the front cover, so I’ve used the image from the Fictionmags Index. I think that cover is by George Rozen, but I wouldn’t swear to that. RANGE RIDERS (title later changed to RANGE RIDERS WESTERN) was one of the Thrilling Group’s Western pulps, published officially by Better Publications. It ran for 75 issues from December 1938 through April 1953. The lead novel in each issue featured Steve Reese, Hank Ball, and Dusty Trail, a trio of range detectives who work for the Cattlemen’s Protective Association. Reese, who is actually the hero of the series with Hank and Dusty providing support and occasional comic relief, also has a commission as a U.S. Marshal, so he has jurisdiction wherever he goes.

“The Bloody Bull Trail” in the January 1948 issue is by Oscar J. Friend, probably best remembered as an editor and literary agent, but he wrote a good number of Western and science fiction novels, too. He probably created the Steve Reese series since he was the main author of those novels during the pulp’s early years, then returned late in its run to contribute two more stories, of which this is the first. As the story opens, Reese is on the trail of a missing prize bull which was stolen from an Arizona rancher. Reese is also looking for another range detective who was assigned to the case first but has disappeared. Another rancher in the area, a Mexican don whose spread is an old Spanish land grant, also wanted that bull, so he’s the prime suspect in its theft, not to mention the disappearance of the other detective.

What Reese finds is that he and Hank and Dusty (who show up not long after he does) are in the middle of a complex plot involving water rights, gun smuggling, and a Mexican bandit known as El Gato. Murder ups the stakes as our heroes do a lot of riding and fighting and shooting to untangle all those threads.

Friend was an excellent writer whose work has more humor and literary touches than that of many Western pulpsters. At the same time, he never neglects the action and keeps this story moving along at a brisk, very satisfying pace. By this time, most Western writers, Friend included, had abandoned the “yuh mangy polecat” dialogue, making “The Bloody Bull Trail” read more like a yarn that could have been written in the Fifties, Sixties, or Seventies. It’s smooth and well-done and very entertaining. I liked it a lot.

I’ve always found it a little odd that none of these novels from RANGE RIDERS were reprinted in paperback during the Sixties and Seventies, like the other characters from the Thrilling Group’s Western hero pulps, Jim Hatfield, the Rio Kid, and the Masked Rider. Seems like they would have been prime material for reprinting by Popular Library or Curtis Books. “The Long Noose”, also by Friend and from the first issue of the pulp, was reprinted in hardback by Gateway Press in 1942 and in paperback by Handi-Books in 1947. The main characters’ names were changed in these reprints. I used to have a copy of the Gateway Press edition. Steve Reese became Simon Carter. I don’t remember what Hank Ball and Dusty Trail were changed to. All of Friend’s early novels from the series were also reprinted in England but apparently THE LONG NOOSE is the only American reprint from the series.

Moving on from the lead novel, the next story is a short-short, “Walk Out and Die”, published under the house-name Sam Brant. The Brant name has been connected to Frank Gruber, Louis L’Amour, and Syl McDowell. I think I remember reading somewhere that some of the Sam Brant stories may be by L. Ron Hubbard. I don’t think any of those authors wrote “Walk Out and Die”. It’s a tense little story about a sheriff with a prisoner who’s the target of a vengeful family of owlhoots. To me, it reads like the work of Bennie Gardner, better known under his pseudonym Gunnison Steele, and since there’s a Gunnison Steele novelette next up in this very issue, I suspect that Gardner wrote “Walk Out and Die” as well. He turned out a lot of short-shorts like this. Unfortunately, although “Walk Out and Die” starts out well, the ending is pretty weak and leaves a lot unresolved.

That Gunnison Steele novelette I mentioned is “Heir to Boothill Range”. It uses the very common plot of a young man returning to his hometown to find out who framed his father for rustling and then lynched him seven years earlier. While there’s nothing new about this one, plot-wise, Gardner does a good job with it, giving us a well-paced yarn with a likable protagonist, some fine action scenes, and a nicely handled romantic element. I nearly always like Bennie Gardner’s work and this is no exception.

Since this is a January issue, that means it was on the newsstands during December, so fittingly enough there’s a Christmas story, “A Happy Christmas” by C.V. Tench. This is a Northern, a suspenseful yarn about a trapper/prospector who has a sinister visitor on Christmas Eve. I guessed the late twist in this one, but it’s still an enjoyable, effective tale.

“Killer’s Cue” by William O’Sullivan has an unusual protagonist, an elderly Chinese cook who works in a saloon and hotel in a mining camp. He turns detective in order to find out who killed his best friend, an old codger prospector. The murderer’s identity is really obvious, but that doesn’t keep this from being a good story.

Harold F. Cruickshank wrote a bunch of aviation stories for the pulps, but from the mid-Forties through the early Fifties, he wrote a Western short story series called the Pioneer Folk (sometimes listed as the Sun Bear Valley series) that ran in RANGE RIDERS WESTERN. These stories feature a young married couple, Dal and Mary Baldwin, and their friends and neighbors in Sun Bear Valley. The one in this issue is called “Good Neighbor Gunfire”. To be honest, I skipped it, because I’ve forced myself to read some of this series in the past and never liked any of them. At this point, there aren’t many things I’m going to force myself to read.

The issue wraps up with “Trail Drive” by A. Kenneth Brant, a pseudonym for Brent Ashabranner. This generically-titled yarn about a trail boss trying to get a herd across a waterless stretch is well-written. Not much to it, but I enjoyed it.

Overall, I think this is a good issue of RANGE RIDERS WESTERN. The lead novel is excellent, one of the best in the series I’ve read, the Gunnison Steele novelette is very good, and all the stories are entertaining (except for the one I skipped, which may be good, too, just not to my taste). It’s been a while since I read an issue of this pulp. I think I may need to see if I can rustle up some more of them. (No pun intended.)

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Wild West Weekly, November 7, 1942

I feel like I should know who painted this cover. Tom Lovell? R.G. Harris? Maybe someone who's better than me at artist IDs can give us a definitive answer. But one thing I do know is that WILD WEST WEEKLY was almost always fun to read, and this issue doesn't look like any exception. Walker A. Tompkins has two stories in this one, a Tommy Rockford yarn under his own name and a stand-alone story under the house-name Andrew A. Griffin. House-names William A. Todd and Nelse Anderson are in this issue, as well; Norman W. Hay wrote the Risky McKee story as by Todd, and Bennie Gardner wrote the stand-alone Anderson. Also on hand are C. William Harrison, S. Omar Barker, and James P. Webb. A very solid line-up and a good cover, typical of WILD WEST WEEKLY.

Update: The cover artist has been confirmed as R.G. Harris.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Western Trails, April 1946

That's a nice cover by Albert Drake on this issue of WESTERN TRAILS. This issue has the usual two stories by J. Edward Leithead, one under his own name and one under his regular pseudonym Wilson L. Covert. Other authors on hand are Wayne D. Overholser, Gunnison Steele (Bennie Gardner), Cliff Walters, Ralph Yergen, and an author better known for his science fiction, Emil Petaja. The Leithead stories always made WESTERN TRAILS worth reading as far as I'm concerned.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Popular Western, September 1936

A great cover by A. Leslie Ross on this issue of POPULAR WESTERN, and by coincidence, the lead novel is by A. Leslie Scott, writing under his A. Leslie pseudonym. Other authors on hand in this issue are Syl MacDowell (as himself and as Tom Gunn with a Sheriff Blue Steele novelette), Tom Curry, Galen C. Colin, Miles Overholt, Gunnison Steele (Bennie Gardner), Frank Carl Young, Eugene A. Clancy, Dabney Otis Collins, Claude Rister (as Buck Billings), Charles D. Richardson Jr., and house-names Jackson Cole, Buck Benson, and Sam Brant. Not an all-star lineup, maybe, but with Scott, Curry, Gardner, Overholt, and MacDowell, probably pretty good reading.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Western Story, December 5, 1942

This cowboy's got a lot of trouble coming at him in this cover by H.W. Scott for WESTERN STORY, the granddaddy of the Western pulp genre. Inside this issue is the novella featured on the cover, "Salinas Showdown" by Bennett Foster, plus other stories by Wayne D. Overholster, Gunnison Steele (Bennie Gardner), Hapsburg Liebe, Cliff Walters, and Kenneth Gilbert. That's a solid lineup of Western authors.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Wastern Trails, March 1942

You just can't go wrong with a Norman Saunders cover, as this issue of WESTERN TRAILS demonstrates. There's a pretty good bunch of Western pulpsters inside, too: Gunnison Steele (Bennie Gardner), Tom J. Hopkins, Charles N. Heckelmann, Ben Judson, and Jay Karth are the biggest names, joined by lesser-known authors Nelson Willliam Baker, Brete Campion, Hyatt Manderson, and V. Chute.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Best Western, June 1955

Like the Columbia pulps, the ones from Stadium Publishing Corporation edited by Robert O. Erisman were considered pretty far down on the ladder, but they featured a lot of good authors anyway. This issue of BEST WESTERN has stories by H.A. DeRosso, John K. Butler, Noel Loomis, and Lauran Paine, as well as reprints by Peter Dawson (Jonathan Glidden) and Gunnison Steele (Bennie Gardner). And one of the half-dozen stories by an author named Les Reasoner, no relation as far as I know.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Ten Detective Aces, November 1945

If not for the fact that this issue of TEN DETECTIVE ACES was published in 1945, I'd say the blonde in this cover by Albert Drake looks like Marilyn Monroe. The authors inside are an odd mix, the best known of them remembered mostly for things other than mysteries. Emil Petaja was a science fiction author, Joe Archibald made his name with aviation stories, Gunnison Steele (Bennie Gardner) is on hand with a rare non-Western, and Glenn Low, despite writing quite a few Western and detective yarns for the pulps, achieved his greatest success as an author of soft-core sleaze novels in the Fifties and Sixties. If you want to check it out for yourself, the whole issue is available to read on-line.

Saturday Afternoon Western Pulp: Thrilling Western, September 1944

More proof, as if we needed it, that sitting down to a "friendly" game of cards was just about the most dangerous thing you could do in the Old West. This is a Sam Cherry cover and quite a dynamic one. As usual in THRILLING WESTERN during the Forties, there's a Walt Slade yarn by Bradford Scott (A. Leslie Scott) and another appearance by Syl MacDowell's Swap and Whopper, plus stories by the great W.C. Tuttle, Gunnison Steele (Bennie Gardner), Dixon Wells (author/editor Samuel Mines), and a couple of prolific but lesser-known pulpsters, Hal White and John A. Thompson. (Sorry I'm running late today.)

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Thrilling Adventures, January 1936

Seems like a lot of guys picked up tripod-mounted machine guns and waved them around on pulp covers. I know I've seen that sort of cover more than once, probably on another issue of THRILLING ADVENTURES. This issue has a fine group of writers inside, including Hugh B. Cave, G.F. Eliot (billed as Major George F. Eliot in this issue), Leslie T. White, Oscar Schisgall, Jackson Cole (who could well have been Schisgall, since that started out as a personal pseudonym for him, before it became a house-name), and Gunnison Steele (who was always Bennie Gardner). Eliot's not the only one to use his rank, either. There's also a novelette by Lieutenant Seymour Pond.

UPDATE: Annnnd the reason that cover looks familiar to me is that I've posted it before, about four years ago. So this is an accidental rerun. I've been doing this long enough that I need to start checking on that before I schedule the posts.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Western Short Stories, December 1942

There's so much happening on this cover, I thought at first it might be by Norman Saunders. But it's not listed on his website and I don't think the style is quite right to be one of his. However, lots of action there and I still like it. Inside is a pretty good bunch of authors, including Tom W. Blackburn, James P. Olsen, Gunnison Steele, Ralph Berard, Archie Joscelyn, Kenneth Fowler, and Rod Patterson.