The Whispering Skull

Texas Rangers Tex, Dave, and Panhandle arrive in Piyoute to apprehend the Whispering Skull, a night rider who wears a leather mask with a skull design and whose horse makes no noise and leaves no trail. The Skull has just murdered Lafe Jeffers, who was holding a strange brown rock that the Rangers seem to think must be a motive for the murder. In town, Duke Walters, resident bad guy, plan to commit a series of crimes and be able to pin them all on the Skull. Sheriff Jackson (who sent for the Rangers) swears out a warrant for the Skull and says he knows who he is and will able to serve the warrant out to him before the night is over. He is mysteriously shot in the back of Walters' saloon, but manages to live (known only by Tex, Dave, and Doc Humphrey) and is attended to so that he can reveal the Skull's identity. Panhandle, in the meantime, is made marshall of the town by Walters with the job of rounding up the Skull, but is called by his fellow Rangers to stop Walter's intended holdup of the stage, which the Skull would also like to rob. Another of the Texas Rangers series which sounds good on paper, but doesn't quite live up to expectations. The Skull is only in the beginning and end scenes, so he really isn't that imposing a villain, but the Skull suspects are good red herrings. The revelation doesn't reveal how the Skull's horse was able to noiseless and trackless which disappointed me. Tex Ritter's two songs were pretty good for the cheapie western. Rating, based on B westerns, 6.