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. Rankin and the Box D crew try to jump the Sun Bear Valley settler’s claim on the neighboring valley by moving their cattle in to graze. The Sun Bear Valley crew try to solve their problem without any violence by bringing their sheep into the valley.

From the January 1947 number of Range Riders Western, it’s Harold F. Cruickshank’s Pioneer Folks in “Stampede Conquest!”

When trouble-makers invade the ranchlands of Sun Bear Valley, Dal Baldwin and his friends are ready for them!

• Download “Stampede Conquest” (January 1947, Range Riders Western)

Be sure to stop back Monday when the Baldwins muster their “Frontier Courage!”