Four Color #82 - The Lone Ranger

(1945)

The Lone Ranger Pays a Call [Page 1] (Table of Contents: 1)

The Lone Ranger / text story / 1 page (report information)

Script

Gaylord Du Bois

Pencils

?

Inks

?

Colors

?

Letters

typeset

First Line of Dialogue or Text

The wide-shouldered young homesteader flung an arm about his horse's neck, hugged him, and stepped back.

Genre

western-frontier

Characters

Lone Ranger (masked man); Tonto (Indian companion); Mark Tanwick (homesteader); Billy (Mark's horse, a buckskin cow-pony); Cal Berman (cattleman); Bertha (Mark's bride-to-be); Berman's red-roan gelding; The sheriff

Synopsis

Homesteader Mark Tanwick almost kills beloved horse Billy to keep him from covetous cattleman Cal Berman's clutches. Lone Ranger and Tonto's timely arrival spares him. He unburdens to the new friends: Mark's crop was by Cal's cattle despoiled, the mortgage bought by Cal, who's foreclosing today. The $1000, to be brought by bride-to-be Bertha, must've hit a snag. LR&T buy Billy for the amount needed, then reveal Bertha is with them, having been rescued from a stage holdup that left a man dead. Cal comes with the sheriff, LR's sleuthing identifies Cal as the murderer; Bertha corroborates.

Keywords

bride-to-be; Buckskin; cliff; crops; Friendship; gun; homesteading; horse hairs; Indian; mortgage; murder; Neighbor; Noose; Rifle; Rifle barrel; Roan; Rolling Grassland; Rope; stagecoach; telegraph wire; wedding day

Indexer Notes

Inside front cover "(continued on back cover)"; black on white, with red halftone printing. Text story with six illustrations.

This two-page text story, published August 3, 1945 on non-consecutive pages as "The Lone Ranger Pays a Call" is the same (we believe) as what was written by Gaylord Du Bois as "The Lone Ranger Calls the Turn."

Writer identification concluded by David Porta per:

1) Page 44, Gaylord Du Bois's Account Books Sorted by Title compiled from the original account books by Randall W. Scott (Michigan State University Libraries 1985) 203 leaves ; 28 cm. -- Photocopy of computer printout. -- Call no.: PN6727.D77 A2S35 1985.

The Account Books entry reads:
"The Lone Ranger Calls the Turn.  text for ? Sent May 21, 1945."

2) And considerations enumerated in these notes*.

The story begins with an animal hook (rancher Mark Tanwick about to kill his beloved horse, Billy). Animals are a primary Du Bois identifier. Most of his stories contain or are about animals, personalizing the reality-based animals in appropriate fashion, as here (naming Mark's cow pony, and presenting him as beloved). Language is another Du Bois identifier. This ties in with the didactics of his writing: He uses words that specify, e.g. buckskin; roan; gelding; rolling grassland. So, "rolling grassland" (as opposed to flat grassland) means grassland that covers undulating foothills or bluffs, such as may be seen in Nebraska and South Dakota, and in Colorado and Wyoming on the plains side of the Rockies. Mark's horse, Billy, is described by Lone Ranger as "a buckskin cow-pony." (A buckskin is a horse of a grayish-yellow color.) Nature is another Du Bois identifier. Nature is present in the story. "Two riders had come up silently behind him, out of a dip in the rolling grass-land." Du Bois uses a description of the land by way of explaining the silent nature of the Lone Ranger and Tonto's arrival. Language, Nature: "dip" ... If an area of land dips, it goes down quite suddenly to a lower level. They came up out of a dip. Friendship: the theme of Friendship is a primary Du Bois identifier. It is strongly present in this story. In his first words spoken to Mark (they're strangers to him) the Lone Ranger calls him "neighbor," which identifies himself as a friend (a rope thrown on Mark's rifle by either the Lone Ranger or Tonto was what saved Mark from shooting Billy). "Neighbor" and friendship exemplify Du Bois's didacticism, a reflection of the worldview of Du Bois the fundamentalist lay preacher. ("Which one was his neighbor," asked Jesus. "The one who showed him mercy," replied the Pharisees. "Go thou and do likewise," Jesus told him.) The Holy Bible taught Du Bois that friendship extends beyond expressions of good will, to concrete acts. He lived his life accordingly, and the stories he wrote likewise reflected that teaching. The Lone Ranger's next gesture of friendship: "He swung out of his saddle and offered his hand."

(*These Notes continue in the Notes of segment 3, for the inside back cover.)

[no title indexed] (Table of Contents: 2)

The Lone Ranger / comic story / 32 pages (report information)

Script

Fran Striker

Pencils

Charles Flanders (signed)

Inks

Charles Flanders (signed)

Colors

?

Letters

?

Genre

western-frontier

Characters

Lone Ranger; Tonto; Silver (horse); Scout (horse)

Reprints

• from The Lone Ranger (King Features Syndicate) newspaper strips from 1942.

The Lone Ranger Pays a Call [Page 2] (Table of Contents: 3)

The Lone Ranger / text story / 1 page (report information)

Script

Gaylord Du Bois

Pencils

?

Inks

?

Colors

?

Letters

typeset

First Line of Dialogue or Text

companion, "How much would you say that buckskin cow-pony is worth as he stands?"

Genre

western-frontier

Characters

Lone Ranger (masked man); Tonto (Indian companion); Mark Tanwick (homesteader); Billy (Mark's horse, a buckskin cow-pony); Cal Berman (cattleman); Bertha (Mark's bride-to-be); Berman's red-roan gelding; The sheriff

Keywords

bride-to-be; Buckskin; cliff; crops; Friendship; gun; homesteading; horse hairs; Indian; mortgage; murder; Neighbor; Noose; Rifle; Rifle barrel; Roan; Rolling Grassland; Rope; stagecoach; telegraph wire; wedding day

Indexer Notes

Inside back cover "(Continued from front inside cover)"; black on white, with red halftone printing. Text story with six illustrations.

This two-page text story, published August 3, 1945 on non-consecutive pages as "The Lone Ranger Pays a Call" is the same (we believe) as what was written by Gaylord Du Bois as "The Lone Ranger Calls the Turn."

Writer identification concluded by David Porta per:

1) Page 44, Gaylord Du Bois's Account Books Sorted by Title compiled from the original account books by Randall W. Scott (Michigan State University Libraries 1985) 203 leaves ; 28 cm. -- Photocopy of computer printout. -- Call no.: PN6727.D77 A2S35 1985.

The Account Books entry reads:
"The Lone Ranger Calls the Turn.  text for ? Sent May 21, 1945."

2) And considerations enumerated in these notes*.

After Mark explains his plight, Lone Ranger shows friendship (a Du Bois identifier) in another act of mercy: He provides Mark the cash to pay his mortgage to rancher Berman, and saving Billy from being taken. He does this by way of buying Billy for the exact amount Mark needs, with assurance that Mark can buy Billy back whenever he has the means. In this way Lone Ranger spares Mark losing face, as it is a business transaction, not outright charity. Lone Ranger reveals his mission in the vicinity by delivering Mark's bride-to-be, Bertha, survivor of a stage hold-up. She had been carrying the needed cash for Mark. The Lone Ranger says, "I found ROAN horse hairs on a bush near the stage coach," evidence identifying the arriving Berman as the murderer from the stage coach hold-up, since Berman arrives riding "a red-roan gelding." (Du Bois identifiers here: 1) animals; and both 2) personalizing the horse, with 3) didacticism, in the specificity of the animal i.d.; cf "red-roan gelding" with "Billy-boy." Bertha arrives on a "harnessed stage-horse." Horses with roan coats have white hairs evenly intermingled throughout any other color. A gelding is a castrated male horse.) The sheriff has accompanied Berman to enforce Berman's taking possession of Mark's homestead and of Billy. Bertha corroborates The Lone Ranger's sleuthing, as she exclaims of Berman that he's the man she saw shoot the stage driver. The Lone Ranger declares to Berman, "You'll swing for murder. But right now you're going to give Mark Tanwick that mortgage in your pocket — and watch him burn it up!"

SLANG USED IN THE ORIGINAL TITLE

The Lone Ranger Calls The Turn.

The meaning of Du Bois's title for the story comes from law-enforcement slang.

Per Eric Partridge (A Dictionary of the Underworld, 1949), "Call the Turn" means to identify a person as having committed a crime; to have knowledge to a person's discredit, hence to solve a problem. When a detective identifies a criminal, he is said to have called the turn on him. Since 1925, police slang in the U.S.A., current also in Canada, 1946.

In this story, the Lone Ranger does indeed "call the turn" on Cal Berman, for murder. This fits Du Bois's title for the story.

The story's last line, spoken by the sheriff: "Your hand's been called — by the LONE RANGER!"

Calls a Hand
Calls the Turn
Pays A Call
 
Did the editor change Du Bois's police slang title, and the last line? Editorial title changes happened often enough.

To sum up:

1) The slang meaning of Du Bois's title of the story exactly fits the events in this story.
2) The Du Bois Account Books entry,
3) The story's many Du Bois identifiers,
4) The May 21 date Du Bois sent the story vis-à-vis its August 3 on-sale date,
5) All combine to establish a preponderance of evidence indicating Du Bois authorship.

(*These Notes continue from the Notes of segment 1, for the inside front cover.)

[no title indexed] (Table of Contents: 4)

The Lone Ranger / illustration / 1 page (report information)

Pencils

?

Inks

?

Colors

?

Genre

western-frontier

Characters

Lone Ranger; Tonto; Silver (horse); Scout (horse)

Synopsis

Close-up of Lone Ranger in a star-shaped cut-out, with five action scenes bordering it.

Indexer Notes

Back cover.