 Presenting Joel McCrae as Jase Pearson in tales of the Texas Rangers from their official files. The 260,000 square make up the most famous and oldest law enforcement body in North America. This fortnight boasted a population of slightly under 3,000 inhabitants. Until a wildcat gushes started a fabulous new oil boom. In a matter of months the population rose to 12,000 as drillers, roughnecks and other field personnel poured in. And behind them, like vultures, came the horde of racketeers, gamblers and grifters. But even organized vice was not profitable enough for the boss of the crime syndicate, Frankie Gennaro. Gennaro started to move in on the oil business itself. Yeah, sure, Paul has lost that. Yeah, Frankie, in the shack with a lie. What have we been getting from him? Herb's got the fingers. Yeah, he's got four wheels in production. We've been getting 200 bells a day. So what's his beef? He's still getting plenty? He choked the wells down. Says he won't pay off anymore. Yeah, we'll see about that. You better come in too, Herb. Yeah, okay, Frankie. You've had some kind of a misunderstanding with my boys. There's no misunderstanding, Gennaro. You're just not getting any more oil from my wells. I'm not taking any more threats from you or your tin horn friends. What would you say, Paul? I'll say what I want. I'll not only say it to you, I'll say it to the law. Your mouth's got a loose trigger, Paul. Shoot soft to it. Get out of here before our business pipe rinses over your head. Hey, I'm strutting. This'll teach the other operators not to get smart. Come on, Herb. Let's get out of here. He sealed the lips of other frightened oil operators. And they said nothing as Frankie Gennaro continued to exact tribute from the smaller private companies. But Paul's murder aroused special interest of the Texas Rangers. Captain Stinson sent for Ranger Jayce Pearson. You know what's been happening in Killman since the oil boom started, Jayce? Yeah, I've heard. I've got Rangers in the town, of course. Good men. But they're too well-known. We're being blocked all the way by people who won't talk or who are afraid to talk. I've never worked at Killman District. I'm not known there. Well, that's why I sent for you. I want Killman cleaned up, starting with Joe Powell's murder. But a man wearing a badge won't stand a chance. You want me to work without one? That's right, Jayce. But not alone. We've got a new man just transferred into the company, Steve Clark. You can work together. Good. You better brief me on the Powell man. And all we've got is in the next room. Have a look. I hear some photographs taken at the murder scene. Stabbed in the back. A belt and shirt twisted, though. Powell must have put up a fight before he went down. He fought all right. Look at his wrench. Yeah. Blood stains and a few matted hairs on it. Is this the same wrench that was next to the body in the photos? The same one. Powell must have hit somebody with it before he was killed then. It looks that way. That means two or more men ganged up on him. He dropped one with a wrench and then the other one stabbed him. That's the way I see it. Blood on the wrench been typed? Yeah. Here's a report from the lab at Austin. Type O, brown hair, Caucasian male. Micrometer measurements are there, too. And that's all we've got, Jayce. How about a list of undesirables hanging out in Killman? Oh, yeah. I got that, too. Here, mostly athletic crooks, gamblers and muscle men. Our boys run a few out and new ones come in. Must be one man at the top, though. Usually is, but which one? A few possibilities on your list here. This one, uh, Stutz Tracy? No, no. It's not big enough to be given the orders. Does he know you by sight? No. I just know a few of these names by reputation and photos. Here's another battle. Herb Enfield. Yeah. I've heard about him, too. Flatty. Supposed to be a real vinegar on. He's tougher than the back end of a shooting gallery. Yeah. He's not smart enough to cover up for himself. The only other possible boss I can see is this one. Frankie Gennaro. Uh-huh. Got lots of arrests and a couple of indictments. No convictions. On the surface, his record's clean. He always has an alibi, and it always stands up. Well, I guess I better get started. Right. We'll go over to the barracks and I'll introduce you to Steve Clark. If you want to change your clothes anyhow. Yeah. The first job's to locate the team in. We'll find out who's making the wheels turn. We can put our badges on again and move in with a force. Well, a whole company will be standing by. You better warn the rangers in town not to let on they know me. Well, they've been warned. You'll be treated just like a stranger. You have anything to report, contact me directly, but be careful. And you better leave your car outside the town and let me enter in on horses. Cowpokes? Yeah, just a couple of wandering cowpokes. Steve Clark, we dressed like a couple of cowpokes and parked our car outside of Kilmont. It was almost midnight when we rode in. The town was sprawled all over the map dotted with trailers and proved shacks thrown together from tin and old packing crates. Despite the hour, everything was going cold last. I'm sure it's booming, Jace. Yeah, the tail down the ways looks especially lively. But that isn't legal liquor they're taking on around here. I bet there isn't much of anything here that is legal. A bunch of oil trucks coming through. We better get out of the way. Get over, charcoal. Oh boy, over. To me that it's kind of late for them to be hauling oil ought to be a daytime operation. Might be a shortage of trucks, Jace. Everything has to be hauled. No pipelines or the refineries yet. You think it might be hot oil? We don't know why Joe Powell was killed, but if somebody had been stealing his oil and Powell found out about it, we'd have a pretty good motive. If those trucks are hauling and stolen oil, they're being pretty open about it. Whoa, whoa, boy. The hotel was cut short by the desk clerk. There wasn't a room available in the town. We hung around for about an hour before we found a rancher who told us we could bunk down in the loft of this barn outside of the town. Leaning that mess up isn't going to be easy, Jace. It's going to be even tougher than it looks, Clark. Notice what happened when the sheriff and one of the rangers they know walked in? Yeah, and all the gamblers stopped five minutes before they got there, and all the liquor disappeared. Whoever's running that place knew they were coming. No wonder our men haven't been able to get any place. We could have stopped that place from operating, Jace. We saw what was going on. I wouldn't do any good to show a badge and shut down one spot. We've got to shut them all. But first, we've got to hook them all together. Yeah, I guess you're right. Hey, look over there. Roadside phone booth by that gas station. Are you still going to call Captain Stinson? Yeah, it's a good spot. Station's closed. I'll take the horses back off the road and wait. I got through to Captain Stinson at his home. But what he had to say about the trucks wasn't encouraging. They run every night. Have our men ever stopped any of them? Yes. I still can't see why they're running at night. Neither can I. Hasn't the commission set a limit on the number of barrels each well can pump in a day? Yes. Have the operators been accounting for that much oil each day? Yes. The commission keeps a careful check. Operators report production to 300 a day. The trucking company receipts fuel haulage of 300 a day. And the figures at the refineries tell it to. It's a three-way check, Jase. I don't see how they could beat it. I'm still convinced that Powell's death has something to do with hot oil. I'm hoping to match the hair the lab found on that wrench power used. But I need a motive to narrow down the field. 12,000 people in town make a lot of suspects. Or do the best you can. I will. I'm sending you lists of names, men we spotted running gambling games and selling liquor at the hotel. We'll have to let them run for a while till we move in with a big broom. We'll raise dust whenever you're ready. Three days I left Steve Clark wandering around town spotting the racket. While I rode through the oil field at night striking up casual conversations with the pumpers wherever I saw one of the night-riding trucks load up and leave. Howdy. Well, howdy. Well, a little bit off your trail, ain't ya, cop oak? Yeah. Ah, just riding around, wishing some of this land was mine. Yeah. And we all wishin' the same thing. I was just gonna have a donut, a little coffee. Wanna come? Yeah. If your friend's on the truck, didn't drink at all. Well, fellas, you're always in too much of a hurry. Yeah, you can tie a horse to the derrick there and he'll be all right. Thanks. There you are. Thanks. Yeah, the funny hour for makin' oil pickups. What makes them haul so late? Oh, I don't know. They always take a full load? Uh-huh. Um, 100 barrels a clip, that's a full tank truck. Field storage tanks hold 1,000 barrels each, don't they? Uh-huh. Want a donut? No thanks. Then rode out to the barn where Clark and I were bunking. I woke him up. Oh, what a chase, what time is it? Almost 6. What'd you find out? Oh, I'm stretched here. Yeah, got another flock of names you can send out of the cabin. Here you are. Hmm. Yeah, we've got just about every small time hood staked out. Everything but the head man. Chase, I'm not so sure there is a head man. There's gotta be. All the racketeers stick to their own game in their own part of town. They're all protected by the same muscle man. Yeah? So? So they belong to an organization. Otherwise they'd be fighting among themselves, trying to move in on each other. Yeah. Didn't think of that. And dipping a finger in the oil business here, too. I'd swear to it. And that's big. We find the man on top of that, and we'll have the king pin of the entire operation. Well, I'll keep looking around, Chase. No, no, let the town go for a while. From now on we'll concentrate on the wells. When we get the man responsible for killing Powell, the whole thing will tumble like a house of cards. Listening to tales of the Texas Rangers, starring Joel McRae as Ranger Jase Pearson. Beginning one week from tomorrow, that's Sunday, October 8th. Tales of the Texas Rangers will be heard at a new time. Remember, our next show is Sunday, October 8th, one week from tomorrow. Now we continue with tonight's case. Clean up an authentic story from the files of the Texas Rangers. We sticked ourselves out of Powell's wells. For two days we kept check around the clock on every load of oil it was hauled away, watching from a distance. It was a dead-end watch. Yeah, check it out, Chase. Four wells, 300 barrels each per day, 1200 barrels total, and that's what they hauled away. Yeah, but since we've been here, nothing's been hauled from Powell's wells at night. Yeah, gonna keep watching them? Yeah, just for tonight so we can measure the flow from the wells. You can keep the pumper busy for a while at nine o'clock while I run a tape gauge into the storage tanks. You'll have to check them again later. Yeah, I'll wander up and keep the pumper busy around 3 a.m. Then you can make the second check. We'll compare our figures and we'll know if those wells are really choked for 300 barrels each or if they're pumping more in the legal quota. Okay, Chase, that's hope it works. Made the check, but we didn't have to do much figuring. The wells were on the nose. 300 barrels a day each, not a drop more. Well, that's it, Chase. And the refinery reports show that it's all going through. There's no hot oil to be accounted for. Well, it was a thought. Let's get the horses and turn in. Yeah. Yes, Powell just happened to brush somebody the wrong way. Yeah. That oil angle would have helped plenty. Too bad. Hey, wait a minute, huh? It's a car coming. Hey, yeah. We should turn up the road, throw that rigging over there. Rigging isn't lit, nobody's working there. It was a dry hole. Get low. His legs will sweep this way when he turns. Hey, stop with the dry hole, all right? Yeah. And look, Powell's pumper's walking across the field to meet him. Yeah, they're going up to the knowledge house on the rig. It's a funny place to be holding a meeting at this time of night. It's a cinch they don't want to be seen. That pumper knows more than he told us. Come on. What's the plan, Chase? Maybe we can slip under the platform of the rigging without them seeing us. If we can get under the knowledge house, we may learn a few things through the floorboards. Through the muddy channel that drained into the slush pit and got under the knowledge house. We were hidden, but we could hear them. The trucks will start making pickups again tomorrow night. Here? Why not? Unless you think you're going to object. I can't do it. You know Powell changed the choke before... Before the... Before his accident? Yeah. All right, sir. How can I give you any ore? The wells are only pumping regular quotas. Have the chokes changed again. So they pump a little extra. Not without Miss Powell's OK. I'm working for her now. Maybe you didn't hear me. I said change of choke. Oh, I'm afraid, Stud. Must be Stud's Tracy, Chase. Yeah. Don't look at me like that, Studs. You know I'm on a spark. Listen, you. We've got the operators in this field lined up. We don't intend to have any trouble with the wise guy pumper. Stud! No, no, no. Wait a minute, Studs. Wait a minute. Maybe you'd like what Powell got. I'll do what you say, Jeff. Just tell me what you want me to do. I've already. Drugs will roll them up. He knows what happened. Apologize. Let's grab him. No, stay down. He's not the head man. But I wonder why we haven't been seeing him around. Wish I could have gotten a look at his face. His voice sounded familiar. You've seen mug shots of him in the photos we have. A fellow with the broken nose. That's right. Have you seen him around? Yeah, I think I have. How about it? You've seen Studs? Yeah, only this afternoon at the hotel. He was talking to Frankie Gennaro. That's the first time either of us has seen him since we've been here. I heard him talking to Gennaro. He said he'd been up to Big D. And Dallas? What was he up there for? Well, that wasn't mention. They didn't talk much. All I know is that Studs just got back. He'd been gone two weeks. Ah, come on. We can get out of here now. Gone two weeks, huh? In other words, since Powell got killed. Yeah, what do you make out of that, Jason? Maybe he doesn't know just something about Powell's murder. I got a hunch he was in on it. Powell clipped one of his attackers with that pipe wrench, remember? Must have left a mark. And if Studs had that mark, he wouldn't hang around and give people a chance to notice it, is that it? Two weeks are just to be about long enough for a scar to heal over. We've got to get a sample of Studs' hair to match with a hair sample's lab got off that wrench. But how do we get that? You can get our hands on a comb or brush. Anything is used on his head. But first, we've got to find him. Well, he may have headed back to the hotel. That's a favorite hanger. Yeah, we'll try it. On the way into town, I want to call the captain. Yeah. Come on, charcoal. Come on, boy. What are you going to call a captain for? Find out who owns the truck's haul in the oil and what refinery they're going to. See if we can hook the ownership up with any of the people we've been watching here. Why? Well, because records have been falsified to cover that hot oil. We find out who's changing them and we'll know who Studs is working for and who killed Powell. Jay's hot oil won't prove murder. No, once we link Studs as an accomplice in the murder, I got a feeling he'll squeal like a pig caught under a gate. In Stinson, he arranged to have the trucks followed in the ownership check. Then Clark and I headed for the hotel where business was going on as usual. There he is, Jay. He's at the counter. They're using it as a bar. The curb end field and crankage and all. There's a trio of ordinary Huntsville would love to have. Well, maybe you'll get them later on. Well, what do we do, just wait around until Studs comes his hair? No. Look on the stool beside him, huh? Oh, his hat. Is it his? That's the one he was wearing when I saw him this afternoon. Good. There'll be enough hair strands in it or little clippings in the band to tell us what we want to know. Jay, how do we get it? Call for a drink and crowd him. You just grab it and fade. Want me to take it back to the bomb? No. There's a small airfield near the next town. Get it over there and call the Austin Lab and have it picked up. They can report to Captain Stinson. When I call him in the morning, he should have enough for us to start robbing the net. The line on the truck and company and the refinery? Yes, you'll like it. The truck and company is owned under an alias by Herb Enfield and his wife. Good. And the refinery is owned by a woman. We checked on her, Jayce. She's Frankie Jardero's girlfriend. That does it. When are you coming in? Then come ahead and throw up roadblocks on the way. An awful lot of people are going to want to leave here in a hurry. Got a section for Clark and me? Take your choice. You know who I am. Good. The rest of the men have their assignments. Names, you were supplied. Listen, you people! Now, most of you are decent folks. Go home and stay home. The streets may not be safe for the next couple of hours. But by tonight, you'll have your town back. We'll use the hotel for a jail. All right, let's go. Jayce, you in that side room, though? You got the photos of the hair samples lab matched? Yeah. I'll show these to Stutz. They should convince him. Anything yet, Clark? Jayce, not a push. I'm not going to say anything, either. Stutz, I got something to show you. Ever seen anything like this before? Take a look at this photograph. What is it? Just a couple of hairs. One on the left came from your hat. We borrowed it last night. What's the idea? The hair on the right is just like it. Exactly like it. That came from a bloody wrench we found beside the body of Joe Powell. Powell hit you with that wrench, Stutz, and you killed him. I was never even near him. That hair and the scar on your head proves you were. But I didn't kill him. You were there. You know who did. I was not doubted. I didn't see who... Come on, Stutz. Who was with you? Her been feeling... And Frankie Gennaro. Yeah. Oh, he'll kill me. He's going to kill me. Gennaro's the boss, then. Yeah. He's got a hideout someplace. Where is it? No, he'll kill me. I said, where is it? You gotta protect me. There's a cabin. Up past the red seat is other side of the oil field. That's where he's been living. They'll have a clear view of the road up there, Jayce. We won't use the road. We'll ride up from behind. Is Enfield there, too? Yeah. Yeah, they're always together. Jayce, they may not even know we moved in on the town. They'll know soon. Yeah, there's a cabin, Jayce. Pretty fancy. It ought to be. They've milked plenty out of this town. Yeah. The cow's running dry for him now, though. Hey, somebody around the side of the cabin there in Hemlock. That's Gennaro. And a nice silk robe. He's in for a change of wardrobe. He isn't going to lie. He's getting up, Jayce. Jayce. You're looking for something? Yeah. You're wanted in town. That's Tracy's send you for me. Huh? Oh, yeah. Yeah, he did. Enfield, too. Anything wrong in town, huh? I don't think so. You see anything wrong, Clark? No. No, I thought everything was fine. Hey, her! Yeah, Franky? Just wanted some time. Send these fellas off to tell us. I've seen you two around before, haven't I? Hey, what's that on your shirt, cowpoke? Oh, that's just a Texas Ranger badge. Come on, both of you. You're going into town. You shady! You, uh, fellas mind telling me what you think you've got on me? Well, let's start with a killin' a Joe Powell. Oh, I can prove I was someplace else when Powell was killed. Urban Stutz and I were playing cards with three other men all night long. Not this time, Gennaro. Eddie Amin. We've already proven where Stutz was, and he's made a full confession. There'll be no alibis this time. Don't move, Gennaro. Look out, Franky! What am I supposed to do? We don't want to fight. Shouldn't fool around with a gun, Herb. A knife in the back is your specialty. Well, I'm glad to see you know that I didn't kill Powell. Sure, Gennaro. You're the boy with the brains. You don't do the work. You order it. That's something you can't prove. No. You don't think Herb is going to take all the blame, do you? You're not going to set me up, Gennaro. I want a lawyer. I can understand that. I never saw a fellow who needed one more. All right, get moving. Franky Gennaro and Herb Enfield were sentenced to life terms at Huntsville. Stutz Tracy was given 50 years, and lesser offenders in the Killman cleanup were given sentences of from one to five years. Those who were released without being charged left the town of Killman quickly and quietly. The cleanup was complete. And now here again is the start of our show, Joel McCrae. Folks, here's a special announcement I think you'll be interested in. You will next hear tales of the Texas Rangers beginning Sunday, one week from tomorrow. Yes, we're moving to a brand new time on Sundays. Beginning Sunday, October 8th. I hope you'll make it a point to hear us at our new time, beginning in just eight days. Good night, folks. See you next Sunday. A week from Sunday, Joel McCrae and another authentic reenactment of a case from the Files of the Texas Rangers. He is currently seen starring in the MGM production Stars in My Crown. Tonight's cast included Tony Barrett, Lou Krugman, Paul Freese, Tom McKee, Herb Ellis, and Byron Kane. This story was transcribed and adapted by Joel Murkock, and the program was produced and directed by Stacey Keatsch. This is Hell, give me speaking, and reminding you to be with us again at our new time one week from tomorrow, Sunday, October 8th. Three times mean good times on NBC. Next Saturday at this time, Dennis Day returns to the air. Dennis Day's comedy is always refreshing because he appears so timid and bewildered, but one thing that doesn't bewilder Dennis is how to sing a popular ballad or rhythmical melody. So for comedy and songs, it's Dennis Day at this time next Saturday. That day also marks the return of the Judy Kanova show. And tomorrow, Phil Harris and Alice Faye return to NBC.