Kid Colt Outlaw #48
Ambush!
Kid Colt is camping out for the night when he hears some men approaching his camp on horseback. Going to investigate he is suddenly surrounded by a gang of bandits who easily get the drop on him and take him prisoner. Kid Colt is taken to outlaw leader Pepito Chavez who has come to force the Kid to assist him in robbing a wagon train of supplies bringing rifles and ammunition to a nearby army fort, he has come to get Kid Colt as the Kid knows the region well enough.
Refusing to help, Kid Colt is locked in a cell until he decides to play along at least until he finds a way to prevent the bandits from stealing the guns. He leads them to a nearby pass where they spot the wagons, but Kid Colt warns them against ambushing it as it will draw the soldiers attention and give away their position and suggests riding ahead to Powder Canyon where they can ambush the wagon train. Along the way, they stop by a nearby river and Kid Colt notices plenty of rounded red stones and realizes he can make use of them.
Eventually Pepito becomes impatient and they continue to ride the rest of the way. When the wagon train begins to pass into the area in the morning Chavez orders his men to attack only to be suddenly ambushed by American soldiers. Realizing that Kid Colt somehow betrayed him, Pepito tries to draw on the hero, but the Kid knocks him off his horse and they fight it out as the soldiers wipe out Pepito's gang of bandits. Pepito is defeated and he and his surviving men are taken prisoner. As he is being led away Pepito asks how the soldiers could have known about their ambush. The commanding officer tells Chavez that Kid Colt wrote the word "Ambush" with red rocks along the trail tipping them off with enough time to get reinforcements and launch a counter attack. The commander then thanks Kid Colt for his help, offering him the reward for Chavez's capture, but the Kid refuses telling the soldiers to split it among themselves.
Recurring Characters
Kid Colt
Steel
The Wild One!
Out on a ride, Kid Colt encounter a ranch foreman named Jory and his men abusing a wild horse they have tied up. The Kid orders them to stop and shoots the guns out of their hands. However before the situation can escalate further, Jory's employer Miss Peters intervenes and orders Kid Colt to stand down at rifle point. Jory thanks his boss for stopping the Kid, but soon gets angry when Peters fires him and his ranch hands as she has told him that she does not like him abusing the wild horses on her land. Jory cuts loose the horse -- named Blackie -- and leaves, but warns Miss Peters that she will be sorry for firing him.
Miss Peters then thanks Kid Colt for his help, telling him that her father liked to keep wild horses free on his land as he enjoyed their beauty and that she had kept the tradition alive after he died and she inherited his ranch. She then asks Kid Colt to take a job as her new foreman for fear that Jory will make good his threat. Kid Colt agrees to stick around to see if Jory will show his hand.
Later that night, Jory and his men meet at a local saloon and he convinces them to join him in rustling the wild horses off his former employer's land and sell them for a good price, they agree and head off into the night to steal the horses. Later that night as Jory and his men approach the wild horses sense the impending danger and Blackie tips Kid Colt off to their arrival. When Jory and his men attempt to take the wild horses they stampede with Blackie in the lead, diverting them into Kid Colt's path. While Kid Colt ropes up Jory's men, Jory is chased off a cliff while fleeing Blackie, falling to his death. With the threat over, Miss Peters asks Kid Colt to stay on as her foreman, but Kid Colt declines the offer, telling her that like the wild horses on her property he yearns to roam free and rides off into the night.
Recurring Characters
Kid Colt
Steel
Kid Colt Outlaw
While riding through the range, Kid Colt hears gun shots and a scream and goes to investigate their source. He finds a lone man standing over a dead body and assumes that he is the killer, the man -- named Jeff -- believes that Kid Colt murdered the man. Kid Colt easily disarms him by shooting the guns out of Jeff's hands and the two argue over who is the guilty party until Mr. Trevors arrives with a posse. He tells Kid Colt that Jeff murdered his partner, Gus, due to the fact that they Gus did not see Jeff fit to marry his niece Stella. While Jeff agrees that they were feuding he denies killing Gus. When Kid Colt demands that the boy be given a fair trail, Trevors tells Kid Colt to mind his own business, slamming his rifle into the Kid's side. Colt easily knocks the rifle out of Trevors hand and convinces him to have Jeff taken into town to the local sheriff so that he can get a fair trial.
Later that day, one of Trevors men takes Gus' body to the funeral parlor and tells the mortician to prepare the body. The mortician then begins working on the body, removing the bullets from the corpse when suddenly Kid Colt bursts in and subdues the mortician, grabbing the bullets that he took from the body. Just then Trevors and the sheriff burst in and catch Kid Colt in the act and order him to stand down. Kid Colt then accuses Trevors of killing Gus. He shows a bullet he stole from Trevors' rifle earlier that day when he knocked it out of his hand, feeling that the barrel of the gun was still hot after being recently fire. He then shows the bullets that were removed from the body revealing that they are a match for the bullets in Trevors' rifle. With the evidence revealed the mortician confesses that Trevors murdered Gus and threatened to kill him too if he didn't get rid of the evidence. When Trevors tries to pull a gun, Kid Colt shoots him dead. The sheriff explains that Trevors and Gus were partners in the Ajax Mining Company and realized that he took advantage of the feud between Jeff and Gus to eliminate his partnership, he then thanks Kid Colt for his help.
Recurring Characters
Kid Colt
Steel
