Magazine Review: High Adventure #127: Masked Rider Western

Magazine Review: High Adventure #127: Masked Rider Western edited by John P. Gunnison

High Adventure is a pulp reprint magazine, reprinting stories (and sometimes whole issues) from the adventure magazines of the 1930s and 1940s.  They switch up so that no two consecutive issues are the same subject, although certain character series recur frequently.  In this issue, it’s stories from Masked Rider Western in 1944-45.

The Masked Rider (no relation to the Japanese Kamen Rider) was a fairly transparent copy of the Lone Ranger.  He too wandered the Old West in a mask with his faithful Native American companion, fighting crime and saving the innocent.  Unlike his model, however, the Masked Rider will shoot to kill when he feels it necessary.  He’s also rougher of language, and will smoke and drink a bit while in disguise.

That disguise is Wayne Morgan, wandering cowpuncher; while only the Yaqui brave Blue Hawk knows that the Masked Rider and Wayne Morgan are the same person, even he does not know the Masked Rider’s true identity.  Mind, since Wayne is a two-fisted paladin of justice himself, it isn’t much of a disguise.  The two sides of our hero spend a lot of time repeating what the other person supposedly told them.

The two Masked Rider stories bookend the magazine.  “Dead Man’s Ranch” by Larry A. Harris begins with a man named Bill Maitland escaping prison in Mexico.  He soon reunites with his wife, and the son he has never seen.  They then light out for Texas, so that Bill can claim some hidden gold, and seek revenge on the brother who framed him all those years ago.   As they’re crossing the Rio Grande, however, the treacherous ferryman murders Bill and his wife.  The Masked Rider saves the son.

The Rider is in Diablo Basin on a seemingly unrelated matter, a war between the local cattle ranchers, and a bunch of nesters led by the fanatical Jeremiah Pearson.  The mysterious Vigilantes might belong to either of the feuding parties, or work for a third force.  Add in a lawyer who seems to be buying up water rights, and a pair of starcrossed lovers, and the situation is dynamite!

To be honest, I found this story needlessly complicated, the pieces stuck together with bits hanging out to make it more difficult to resolve.  As a result, the ending seems forced, and some characters nothing but red herrings.

“War in Massacre Basin” by Charles N. Hecklemann finds the Masked Rider in the appropriately-named area looking into the supposedly accidental death of an old friend.  The most likely suspect for that and other killings is a land-grabbing rancher named Daken, but the Rider soon finds himself at a loss when Daken is murdered, apparently by new villain in town Pegleg Boeing.

This story works in its complications much better, I think.  It makes sense that a man as vile as Daken would have made enemies elsewhere.  And much of the difficulty in solving the case comes from the very sensible suspicions of one of the ranchers about people who go about in masks.

“Judge Colt’s Clerk” by Oscar J. Friend features a law clerk in a corrupt county who’s managed to bring in a ringer judge.  Short and sweet.

“Hangrope Reprieve” by Gunnison Steele (probably a pen name) is about a man on the run for a crime he did commit, but it was self defense.  He stops at a saloon for a quick meal, but soon finds himself defending a young woman….  Adequate of its kind.

“Texas John Alden” is by Robert E. Howard writing as Patrick Ervin.  Those more familiar with Mr. Howard’s Conan stories may find the humorous tale of a cowpoke attempting to fetch another fellow’s bride from a hostile town a little offputting.  Especially as Breck Elkins cheerfully kills and beats his way across the landscape.  Essentially, he’s a Howard barbarian hero played for laughs.  The Western dialect is thick in this one.

I don’t read nearly enough old-fashioned Westerns, so this issue was a treat.  People as don’t like Westerns should skip it.