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. King, the great stallion Dal had fist glimpsed when he arrived in Sun Bear Valley, has returned and Dal is determined to try and breed one of his mares with the great one, but an unsavory outsider has arrived in the valley to cause trouble and sets his sights on Nan.

From the May 1947 number of Range Riders Western, it’s Harold F. Cruickshank’s Pioneer Folks in “Wild King Savagery!”

Dal Baldwin, first settler in Sun Bear Valley, meets the challenge of a renegade seeking to despoil his homestead!

• Download “Wild King Savagery” (May 1947, Range Riders Western)