THIS week we have a story from the pen of a prolific pulp author and venerated newspaper man—Frederick C. Painton.
Painton gives us his take on the cowboy war bird. In it, the cowboy in question is the mesquite Midget, Billy Sanders, from Jim Sills’ Bar-Bee Ranch. An old hand at rounding up the Boche in the air, he finds Jim Sills’ boy Harv now in his squadron. The two come up against Boche air ace von Steffen who seems to have a charmed life and cannot be touched, but when he shoots down yung Harv, the Midget is left with no choice than to break his sky-jinx!

From the pages of the November 1928 issue of Triple X Magazine—so called because it featured air, western and war stories each month—it’s Frederick C. Painton’s “Sky Herdin’ Heinie!”

They called the German ace a Sky-Jinx and said his plane couldn’t be shot down. But Midget, the cowboy-flier, didn’t believe in jinxes and he swore to kill the man who had shot down his friend and old range buddy.

• Download “Sky Herdin’ Heinie” (November 1928, Triple X Magazine)