 Frontier Town, the saga of the roaring west. Frontier Town, Tombstone. Frontier Town. The adventurous story of the early west, the tamed and the untamed. From the Pekos to Powder River, Dodge City to Poker Flat. These are the towns they fought to live in and lived to fight for. Teaming crucibles of pioneer freedom. Frontier Town. I'm wondering how many people realize the power of the printed word. Of course, maybe you're wondering too. Maybe you're wondering how come a Frontier Town lawyer like me, Chad Remington, should feel he's entitled to get up on a soapbox about the printed word, newspapers and the power of public opinion. Well, like all lawyers, perhaps I'd better present my brief and see if I can't convince you just how important newspapers can be to a raw, tough territory like Frontier. Not too long ago, I received one of those infrequent telegrams signed by an old friend of my father's, Ike McCarlet, who prints and publishes the greatest little newspaper in our part of the country. The Independent. Ike told me he was in trouble, intimating bad trouble, trouble that might need the advice of a lawyer, and I gathered a good deal more. So must run out that ex-medicine man, Cherokee O'Bannon, who runs the livery stable over which I have my tiny office. We started out for the toughest, most rowdy and largest town anyplace west of Abilene, Dobie City, on two of the least spabbin' horses from Cherokee Stable. Dad, my fat-brained barrister, would you be so kind as to answer a question for me? Now look here, O'Bannon, if it's anything to do with stopping at a barrel house before we get to Dobie City, the answer is a definite no. And you may be an attorney, my boy, but you're certainly not a mind reader. First off, should I choose to titillate my tonsils? I have a small flask of my genuine Cherokee Indian rattlesnake oil with me. Second, that was not the question I was about to give you. Whoa, whoa, rain up, Cherokee. What compounded corruption was that? Well, it wasn't a bee or a blue-tailed fly. Now, think if you'll look to your left and see the gentleman approaching us with a winchester in his hands, you'll have your answer. To my belly blue blazes, Chad. That is what is known, it circles I no longer frequent. It's one tough-looking barman. If you're just out for some target practice, mister, you've got two more shots coming. There's three for a nickel. I haven't had to practice with this rifle for 25 years. I can hit any target I aim at any time. Well, then I'd take it your shot wasn't meant to hit either one of us, but it was just a friendly little great man. Well, you might say it was friendly, because I'm here to give you some very friendly advice. Turn them coyuses around and head back where you come from. Have you the audacity to stand there and think that you owe them this country? Hardener, I don't have to think. I know what I'm talking about and I'm telling you to slope. Well, I've found you can argue with a judge and argue with a jury, but you never get very far arguing with a winchester that ain't right at you. Dad, do you mean to say that you're going to let this barrel-chested behemoth dictate to us? No, Cherokee. I mean I'm going to see that that rifle barrel gets pointed somewhat... You can't! You must hit the door and you pull it off him like a yelling cat. Friends, you better let go of that rifle before something snaps. You left it up on your feet. Remington, now you are in trouble. Remington? You hear that, Cherokee? This wasn't an accident. He was waiting for us. You try going on to Dobie City and you'll find other people waiting for you. The doctor and the undertaker. I'm afraid we won't need either one of them. I carry our embalming fluid right along with me. Who sent you out here? Who puts you up to this? Well, something sounds as dumb as he looks. I'm waiting for an answer. And you've got an awful long wait coming because I ain't... Here, let go! Let it be of your own sake. The bigger they are, the harder they fall. Cherokee, I think we'd all be better off if you lend me a hand and help tie this critter up. I'd like a few hours in Dobie City before he gets back and reports to whoever it is. It doesn't want us there. It didn't take us long to get to Dobie City after that and to find Ike McCarlet in the office of the Independent. Ike's story was just a strange one. Strange and mostly baffling. Jed, I know it doesn't make any sense, but that's the way it is. This other newspaper, this new one, isn't too far from putting me completely out of business. Cough, I can't understand how this other paper... What's its name again? That Dobie Democrat. I can't understand how the owner not only can get these news items, that you say are yours exclusively, but after getting them, how he gets them printed and his paper published before you do. If Ike knew the answer to that, Cherokee, I'm sure he wouldn't have telegraphed me. Now, take the cattle prices that I supply every week. I started at several years ago and it's a costly proposition. However, in cattle country like this, it's a real service to my readers to know what the prices are in Omaha, Kansas City, and the other big markets. Certainly is. Tells the ranchers where they can drive or shift to get the most money for their stock. How do you get these prices, Mr. McCarlet? Well, I have six men. One in each of the six large stockyard centers. And each Thursday night they telegraph me the prevailing prices at the close of business for the week. And your competitive research paper gets the same information at no expense at all? And gets it published and on the street from six to twelve hours before I do. Chad, I'm telling you, the way my circulation is falling off, I can't stay in business for another two months. Who owns or runs the other paper, Ike? A fellow by the name of Jason, has moved in here on only recently. And as the radio's going, we'll end up controlling practically everything around here by the simple device of influencing published opinion any way he wants it to go. Well, obviously he tried to influence us not to come into Doby City. And it wasn't very public, that was quite personal. Something very personal about a Winchester that's pointed right at you. Ike, the obvious answer seems to be that this Jason, whoever he is, is either paying for or stealing the information from someone who works for you. And I sure doubt that. You do? Why? Well, first I have only two people working for me and I trust them implicitly. And second, how could Jason get the information out of my composing room and still get his paper out half a day before mine? That does seem to be a stumbling block. But let's get back to the people who worked for you first. Who are they? Well, my printer, Foley. He's been with me almost since I started publishing. And the only other help I have is my brother's daughter, Nellie. There's my niece. Oh, what do you say? Young and attractive, he's no doubt? Yes, Nellie's only 23 and she's real pretty. I brought her in here when my brother died. All he left it was dead. How did that happen, Ike? I mean, you've always been reasonably well-to-do. Matter of fact, don't I remember your brother having been a partner for yours? Well, it was until he started drinking and gambling. I warned him about it for years. Then finally I had to let him go. Bought him out. But when Jim died, I felt the thing to do was to take care of Nellie. Are you willing to try a little experiment, Ike? This being 30% it's the day you get your telegrams from your stockyard correspondence, isn't it? Yes, the wire should be coming in any time now. Well, then what I'd like to do after the telegrams get in is to change the prices before you turn them over to Nellie or Foley or whoever it is, it takes charge of them. Change the prices? That's right. And if there is a leak here, Jason will get the wrong information and print it in his paper which won't do him any good and will prove to us that the leak is here somewhere in this building. Well, I didn't telegraph you not to take care of the price, Chad. So that's what you want to do. I'll string them along with you. About an hour later, having hidden the telegrams with the real prices safely, we went back into the composing room and met Foley and Nellie. Now, let's see if we can't get this set up and on the street this time before the Democrat comes out. Uncle Ike, I know you think that Mr. Jason is stealing his cattle price information but I'm here somehow, but I don't think he's the kind of man who'd do it. Oh, really, Nellie? You know Mr. Jason? Well, I've met him. It seems nice, real nice. Anyhow, why shouldn't he have his old man send him the prices just the way you're doing it, Uncle Ike? For the pure and simple reason that, well, he wouldn't spend a plug nickel if he could get it for nothing. That's the way I feel about him. Well, then you know Jason too, eh, Foley? Well, I don't actually know him. I mean, I've seen him like everybody else in Dobby City has. You can't miss him. Big ten-gallon white hat, checkered vest, boots embroidered with gold threads, smoking big cigars. No, sir, any money that one spends, he spends on show. From your description, Foley, Mr. Jason sounds like he'd make a very successful medicine man. Well, if we stand here flapping our jaws, the independent never will get print. So what do you say we go about our business and leave the newspaper to those who know about it? As soon as a reasonable time had elapsed, I left Cherokee at the hotel and walked down to the office of the Dobby City Democrat. I wanted to get my hands on a copy of their paper. I walked in and up to the counter. There was a man seated at the desk with his back toward me and grossed in what he was writing. From the loud plaid shirt, I gathered it was Jason himself. There was a small stack of newly printed papers on the counter and long as the man in the office hadn't noticed me, I picked one up. There were the out-of-town cattle market prices in a box on the front page. But not the false prices we'd turned over to Nellian Foley, the actual prices that had been telegraphed in. This was quite a shock. Only the first shock I got in that few moments. Because just then the man turned around, got up and walked over to the counter. Yes, sir. Is there something... Well, Chad. Chad Robinson. Chip, what are you doing here? Where would you expect the owner of the paper to be if not in his office? You're Jason, the owner of the Democrat? Uh-huh, one of the same. And if the new name of Jason bothered you, a numerologist told me to change it. Said that's why I never made a successful lawyer like you. You never even finished studying law. Yeah, I know, but my clients didn't. What brings you in here, Chad? I came in to have a little talk with the owner of the paper. Now that I know it's you, I realize talking isn't going to do much good. Because as in the old days, Chip, we were again on the opposite sides of the fence. I got a feeling that before I'm through in Dolby City, I'm going to bust down that fence and wrap the rails right around your stubborn head. Oh, is that so? Well, Chad, if you think you can do it, go right ahead and try. Yeah, you just try and see where it gets you. Because I think it'll only get you stretched out right up in Boothill. Ha ha ha! We'll return to the second act of Five Gun Final, our exciting frontier town adventure in just a few moments. The genuine feeling of shock I suffered in finding Chip, the owner of the opposition paper. Not only did it make the job a little distasteful, but, well, knowing Chip, I knew he was slick and smooth and capable. Of course, that was only part of my frustration. The other part was finding the little scheme I devised of changing the prices. It meant nothing. Chip Jason's paper had the true and accurate cattle prices neatly boxed on page one. My first impulse was to walk out of the office with the half-meant warning I'd given Chip and let it go at that. But I couldn't quite bring myself to it. I hadn't seen him in about ten years. Not only was there a lot I wanted to say to him, but a lot I wanted him to remember. You ought to sell your Blackstone at Law Library and go into the publishing business too, Chad. You can have the man who make the laws. When you're a newspaper publisher, you're the man who makes the man who make the laws. You haven't changed a bit, have you? No, praises be. That is, I've gotten a little smarter, I think. My philosophy of life is actually just what it was, and we were studying a lot together. Yeah, I remember. That's how you got your nickname too. Chipper. Nothing ever bothered you, not even your conscience. How could my conscience bother me? I never had one. No, I guess not, or else you couldn't do things like this. Publicly stockyard quotations. What? Those quotations are the backbone of my success, a real public service to my readership. I wouldn't care if you bought the news. Oh, but I do. I pay a good price to get that cattle information. Don't lie to me, Chip. I'm not lying. I don't like to be called a liar. No real man does. You keep that up and you'll find out how real a man I am. You're the last man in the world I'd want to look at over the barrel of this. But if it comes to a showdown, well... You'll be making a mistake, Chad. I'm a pretty influential gent in this community, too influential to trifle with. But not quite influential enough to make me quit this case. That's up to you, entirely. Especially if McAuliffe has enough money left to pay your fee. I'm not worried about my fee. Well, if the old man does run out of cash, he's still got that niece left. You know what I mean. You better get out of here, Remington. Get out. And fast. And you better learn to talk like a gentleman if you remember how. Goodbye, Chad. Let's just make it hostile to wake up. And in case you don't remember, that means goodbye for now, but I will be seeing you again. The life of me, Chad, I can't understand why you've got me chained to this hotel porch when we could be across the street in one of those places of entertainment. I told you before, old man, and I got some thinking to do. A lot of thinking. He told me that what's his name was no good when you knew him years ago. No, it isn't good. Chip's just no good, but... Haley's always felt that a man doesn't have to work for a living. Just work enough to get a little money and then that money will bring power. I hope you're not going to let this... your former friendship with this gentleman deter you from trying to clean this up. You ought to know me better than that. How can you clean something up when you don't know where he's getting the information? I thought surely that changing the figures in the telegrams today would... Well, go on, go ahead. Cherokee, look, across the street. Across the... Where? Well, I'll be blamed. Isn't that Nellie? Ike McCauley's niece? It sure is. And the gentleman she's with who's holding her arms so closely is Chip Jason. Come on, Cherokee. We're going to follow those two and after Chip takes her home, we're having a little talk with Miss Nellie. A mighty serious talk. I don't care what you say. Chip Jason's been the only person who's been decent to me ever since I've gone to work in this town. My dear Miss Nellie, you mean to stand there with your sweet little face looking angry? Tell me you think it's wise to consort with someone like this? Chip Jason, after all your uncle Ike has done to you? Uncle Ike. The only thing he's done for me is to make me work for the money which really belonged to my father anyhow. Doggon it, Nellie. You shouldn't even think things like that, let alone say them. What right have you got to tell me what to do? Uncle Ike or not, what I do with my life after I get through working for that $12 a week he so magnanimously pays me is my own business. No one's life is your own business, Nellie, particularly when there's a sharp shooter like Chip Jason involved. Now if you'll... Leave me alone. You hear me? Leave me alone. You certainly didn't want to talk about it, did you? You? You were selling your uncle out? Oh, look, you old charlatan, it's not one shred of proof that she's selling out anybody. If she happens to be it, at least she's admitted a motive. Somehow she seems to be very bitter about Ike being forced to buy out her father. Well then, if Jason is getting the information from Ike's composing room, it still leaves Mr. Foley to check up on if we want to be positive. Foley, how do you propose to do that? I got a very unintelligent idea. Oh? You're going to like it. Am I? If Mr. Foley's like any of the printers I've ever known, then he's in one of the five saloons in town drinking. Why didn't I become a printer? So I'm going to advance you $10 and turn you loose to fine Foley and buy him some drinks. Hallelujah. Counselors, curb your impatience. Sucker is at hand. I said to buy drinks for Mr. Foley. You've got to abstain yourself so you'll be able to pump Foley for whatever information you can get out of it. That, sir, is not only placing Satan behind me, but in front of me and all around me. A hero that I am, I'm no man to fight off eight, Satan. Now, you better do as I tell you, Cherokee, because if you start imbibing, your head will be so big in the morning I'll have no trouble hitting it with both of these fists. Now go on and don't drink anything but the chases. Now, what was that you were saying again, Mr. Foley? Dad! Oh, I wasn't saying that. Except he's Julian. Here's mutton yuck. Down the hole. You want some water? Oh, here, we'll take mine. No, thank you. I have poor water. Oh, now that ain't healthy. Water's good for you. Water may be good for the average person, Mr. Foley, but I happen to be a man of iron. Water makes me rust. Now, what was that you were saying again, something about good ol' light? Here's your good ol' light. My finest man has ever run a newspaper. And the finest man I've ever worked for. Now, let's have one on meal, then. No, I don't think so, Mr. Foley. It's all the same to you. I'll be going over to my hotel and floating to bed. Water. I may be amused now, but I certainly wasn't then. In the first place, it was a little disconcerting to learn that Foley loved Ike like a father and had no motive for selling him out to Chip Jason. And second, after six glasses of water and five drinks of good bourbon slyly spilled in the brass receptacle at the bar, Cherokee was no man to share a hotel room with. You know what they say about a woman spurned? Well, Cherokee had a fury that was much worse. And something else, Mr. Remington? Just for what you made me submit to, starting the first of the month, I'm raising your rent $5. Oh, go on, you old fraud. That sublime sense of self-sacrifice you're enjoying is making you feel so holy that even a teetotal like me can't stand you around. I should get Satan behind you and help him push. Are you sure that's all Foley said? There have never been more cold sober in my life. And I assure you I've repeated every word he said verbatim. And since my brain is clear as it is, I'll save you a lot of trouble by telling you that there's no doubt Nellie is selling out her uncle. Oh, I'm sorry, Cherokee, but while you were wrestling with Satan, I concluded it can't be Nellie. Can't be? Nope. 30 minutes after we gave Nellie the cattle prices to set up, Chip's paper was printed with the accurate information. There's only one way that could have happened. That Chip had access to the telegrams before I got him. Well, we'll soon find out. Because in your precarious sober state you're taking a horse and riding over to Acacia Springs. Acacia Springs? Acacia Springs. And you're going right to the Western Union office and send a telegram from there stating that there's been a flood which has closed those skin paths and that any ranchers wanting to drive their cattle to the railroad had better pick another route. What do you expect to accomplish by that kind of a telegram filled with misinformation? I expect to wind this thing up by tomorrow and get back home where I won't have to occupy a room with you moaning like the ancient mariners. Now go on, Cherokee, get going. Chip Jason couldn't wait for his regular edition. He came out with a special edition with a banal line and 72 point type announcing the flash flood that had closed those skin paths. Five minutes after the paper hit the street the town marshal had arrested the local telegraph operator. And armed only with his confession I set out to pay one more call on my old friend Chip. Well, where I get my news is my business, Chip. Chip, you're in for a big disappointment because the only real news in Dobry City right now is this headline in The Independent. Here. Probably should Jason arrested for fraud. Well, you local, this is an out and out lie. Oh, then I suppose this is too. This confession from the telegraph operator that he'd been taking money from you to give you all news information that came over the Western Union wires. Well, that's a lot of it. You were pretty smart, weren't you, Chip? And so were you, playing up to Nellie Macarliff and taking her out in public to make it appear that she was giving you the information. That was pretty slick, too. I should have known you to figure that. Well, there's only one thing wrong with this headline, Chad. They haven't arrested me yet and they're not going to. Well, you're right about that. They aren't going to arrest you. I am. And I'm placed... Chip, leave that gun alone. I'm sorry you made me do that, Chip. You went for your gun first. What? I know your aim would be bad. You said you were going to wrap that fence rail right around my head. The only thing you hit were my stomach and shoulder. The news so far in advance at the time when I got the telegrams. But what since didn't my mind was remembering what happened to us the other day on the way to Dolby City. You mean about that gun totter who tried to warn us to go back home? Exactly. Since I sent me a telegram asking me to come over, someone must have had access to the wire. Of course. Why didn't I think of that? Because you were too busy wrestling with Satan. Well, now that it's all over, I suppose there's no harm in telling you that I wrestled with him and won the bout. But I did it with a little trick. Oh, so what trick was that? Well, Satan got me down once and knocked the wind out of me. Knowing I needed some stimulation to win the bout, I took three small slugs of bourbon while he wasn't looking. Then I got up and threw him horns, hooks over hooks, and right out of the rain. The dickens you did. The devil I didn't.