Lash LaRue Western #3

Wagonwheels spins a tall tale at the general store about sleeping in a wooden house and waking up in a stone one—thanks to some mighty powerful wind during the night. It's a quick, good-natured frontier yarn that'll get a chuckle out of the gang.

Lash LaRue thought ghosts were pure superstition—until a phantom in the hills terrifies a rancher to death, and the roving marshal is tasked with unmasking the specter and bringing a killer to justice. When a crooked lawyer's scheme to steal a man's land goes murderously wrong, Lash must piece together thin walls, forged signatures, and a very real ghost made of sheet and malice to solve the crime.

Dusty reluctantly accepts a new helper named Brainy at the cider mill, but the assistant proves to be more hindrance than help—turning a simple cleaning job into a comedic catastrophe of spilled cider and mishaps. As the pair moves on to painting, their incompetence reaches new heights, with each attempt at assistance creating more chaos than the last. By the time the dust settles, Dusty's regret is absolute.

Marshal Lash LaRue goes undercover as a miner at Tom Collage's gold operation on Hitop Mountain to uncover who's been systematically robbing the claim. When Lash overhears two miners, Boney and Jodphers, discussing their theft scheme in a hidden tunnel, he moves to arrest them—but a mine cart sends him crashing into a wall, and the crooks escape. Now Lash must track them down, suspecting there's a third conspirator involved in the heist.

Molasses Mouth has had enough of school after his teacher's peculiar arithmetic lessons leave him convinced she's lost her mind—but when he decides to quit, he's got some explaining to do. This one-page humor piece plays with the logic of a frustrated student caught between two contradictory lessons in "The Crazy Teacher."