Boy's Cinema (1935-39)

BOY'S CINEMA 21 Every Tuesday It was not for vengeance alone that the masked rider struck at Jason Burr's sinister organisation. He was out to smash a tyrant's ambition to build an empire beyond the Rockies. A thrill-packed serial of the early West, when California was a pawn on the chess-board of a scheming nation, starring Bob Livingston Read This First The year is 1844 and the scene California, then a province of Mexico, lint gold had hi en discovered by a powerful despot known at General Jason Burr, who conceives the iiha of establishing a dictatorship with the aid of Imperial Russia. The Russian, Ambassador, Count Raspumff, exerts his infltienct to supply Hurt- with ex-Soldier colonists from the Tsar's army. These, together with 'hi men alriaily under linn's command, form the nuclins of a /nice whereby /hi. WOuld-be dictator plans to seizi control of the country. Gold is the mainstay of Jtnrr's am- bitions, and hi /ins opened a secret mine ichic/i hi worked by caplin labour. Hut the land on which it is situated is the property of a family i, until/ Loring, and, the Lorinf/s prov- ing troublesome tin father and the younger .'on art murdered. burr, however, has reckoned without Dun Loring, lln elder son of tin family, who returns from U.S. territory fur tin purp'si of exacting vengeance. Under the alius of the 'Eagle, Don harasses Jason Hnrr with the (lid of tun Yiiii!.i i frontiersmen known as Salvation and Whipsaw, ami a priest named Father Josi. Thin, gaining the inii run- of linn's headquarters, In finds the plotter is holding us cop/iris Doris Golton and In r father, a mining ■ . - net r. discovering Burr's plan to seize California, Don organises a land of Vigilante s to combat him. l.atir, while the Vigilantes are besieged in their rendezvous, he limns that gunpowder is to be used to blast them out of ace. I).,i. Whipsaw and Sal cat ion inter- cept Hurl's powder wagon; but during EPISODE 7— " Wings of Doom " a fight with a Hussion, Don is knocked senseless in the vehicle as it rolls off tin road into a deep gulch. Now Read On The Eagle's Horse THE wagon, with its deadly Freight, was hurtling down (he declivity at a racketing pace, and at the foot <»f the slope were those tumbled bonlders against which it must dash itselt with an impact that woidd ex- plode the powder barrels. To Petroff, who had leapt clear a few second before, it seemed thai the career of the Eagle was fast drawing to a close. Yet even while the Russian was gloating over that prospect Don Loring was collecting his wits and struggling to his knees on the floor of the runaway prairie schooner. The young California)! realised his danger in an instant, and, scrambling between the jolting kegs of gunpowder. he reached the driving s< at of the wagon. Then ho flung himself from the vehicle, hit the ground with a force that knocked the breath out of him, rolled through the scrub for a few yards and Email] managed to check his de- cent by clutching at the twigs and foliage of a hardy shrub. The wagon sped onward down the slope, and half a minute later it smashed into tin rocks that littered the bed of the gulch; and in the very moment of impact the explosives which it contained went up with ;: n ear- splitting roar. A vivid blotch of flame sprang high into the air, and shattered fragments of timber were hurled in all directions. Debris fell around the spot where Don had come to rest, and a spreading pall of smoke came rolling aloft to envelop him. But by the time the fumes had drifted away the young ranch-owner was straightening up unharmed. Away above him Petroff gave vent to an oath as he saw the masked, black- clad figure of the Eagle rising from the ground, and he cursed the fact that he no longer possessed his revolver, which he had lost during the- scuffle in the wagon. Without the weapon the Russian was not prepared to tackle Don, for he was fully aware that if the Californian had nol -truck his head in falling when the prairie schooner had lurched over the rim of the embankment he, Petroff, would never have been able to subdue so stalwart an antagonist. Besides, Whipsaw and Salvation were up on the trail, and although the bigger iif the two frontiersmen had been wounded, his diminutive companion QO in' ;i ii foe. Petroff therefore made himself scan e md he had disappeared from view when Don Loring ultimately gained the summit of the slope to rejoin his I ; lends. Salvation was lying on the ground, clasping a blood-stained shoulder and swearing with the pain of his wound. Whipsaw was straddling the chest of the wagoner who had been dragged from the prairie schooner before its team of hules had been unhitched and the cle propelled towards the roadside. The little fellow was belabouring his man with In-. !i.-t-. and lie launched a blow that robbed BtnVs hireling of his Ai>ijri»t 21st, 1937.