WE’RE celebrating the holidays with Harold F. Cruickshank—creator of those great Aces of the Western Front’s Hell Skies—Red Eagle, Sky Wolf, and Sky Devil. But this holiday season it’s going to be a down home Christmas featuring Cruickshank’s Pioneer Folk stories from the pages of Range Riders Western (1945-1952) on Mondays and Fridays; and Cruickshank’s own recollections of homesteading life from The Edmonton Journal’s The Third Column on Wednesdays.

Cruickshank wrote 35 stories chronicling the trials and tribulations of Dal and Mary Baldwin as they carved out their piece of the Wilderness in Sun Bear Valley, Wyoming and establish a growing community. The Sun Bear Valley settlers start to worry about their rights as squatters and plan to get government surveyors in to draw up their claims as a salty outfit of owlhoots lead by a nasty piece of work known as Runkin herding about a hundred head of the mangiest looking cattle heads toward their valley.

From the June 1946 number of Range Riders Western, it’s Harold F. Cruickshank’s Pioneer Folks in “Squatters’ Law!”

Dal Baldwin and the courageous settlers of Sun Bear Valley battle bravely against Runkin’s outlaw band of pillagers!

• Download “Squatters’ Law” (June 1946, Range Riders Western)

Be sure to stop back Monday when the Baldwins find themselves in the midst of “Wild Hoof Warfare!”