Synopsis:
Despite of several warnings, Donald takes the nephews out into the desert where he promptly gets lost!

Comments:
Barks' first Wild West story takes us into the USA's mesa area, where the easily recognizable table mountains stand up like monuments. The Ducks are really sightseeing; they trot the burro trails, visit a gold miner, and encounter a suspicious well before returning to the dude ranch. But during the trip Donald experiences one of the worst nightmares for a tourist in an unfamiliar place - the experience of not being able to find his way around. Other examples of Donald's lack of knowledge of the West are WDCS102 'Horse Rustlers' and WDCS176 'Wild Bill Hickup'.

Synopsis:
Donald takes the nephews on a holiday trip to the formerly oh-so Wild West where he volunteers to catch some cattle rustlers. He claims to be an expert...

Comments:
Donald is assigned as deputy (despite the story's title he is never a sheriff. Barks presumably borrowed the title from the 1946 film Sheriff of Redwood Valley) in the Bullet Valley area, which contains vast badlands, mesas, and gorges - as well as several cattle ranches. Donald has his work cut out for himself patrolling the entire valley.
Barks incorporated several cliches in some of his Wild West stories. This one is the most obvious representative, because it also parodies the genre and uses multiple cliches and actions that we all recognize from countless cowboy films. Examples: An exaggerated shootout with the villain during which Donald manages to fire at least 17 rounds with his two six-guns without reloading. We also get Barks' more personal perception of the cowboys' cemetery (left).

Synopsis:
Following a traffic accident Donald and the nephews feel as they have travelled back a hundred years in time. They visit a Spanish ranchero and gold is found.

Comments:
In this story we are treated to an all-embracing epic that has all the ingredients of a traditional Wild West film; a dashing hero, a beautiful heroine, shady characters, golddiggers, settlers, cowboys, cattle, grassy plains, and campfire songs...
Barks needed to set the scene a century earlier (most of all he needed to present the beginning of the great Californian gold rush in the 'present' time), so he came up with the idea of the Ducks dreaming it all.

Synopsis:
Scrooge is having trouble with his bad memory but after a visit to the doctor he recalls a huge gold nugget he once left behind in Alaska.

Comments:
Scrooge's pioneering in the Alaskan gold districts was perhaps Barks' favourite topic from the Wild West, and much of our information on Scrooge's starting his fortune is revealed through flashbacks in multiple stories. Examples are FC0386 Only a Poor Old Man, U$35 The Golden Nugget Boat, and U$59 North of the Yukon. But the most profound descriptions came in this story, which often changes between the past and the present time.

Synopsis:
Scrooge lacks excitement in his life so he follows Donald and the nephews to the desert in order to collect arrowheads...

Comments:
Scrooge and the Ducks feel themselves as real pioneers when they stride through the unwelcoming and unknown parts of the desert, and their efforts are richly rewarded when they, by pure coincidence, manage to find the 7 fabled cities of Cibola, which the Spanish conquistadors searched for in vain centuries before.

Synopsis:
Donald grows tired of the nephews' love of western films and he decides to show them the real West. But he is not counting on Wild Bill Hiccup...

Comments:
In several stories Donald tried his best to convince the nephews that he is a true Wild Westener at heart with all the basic skills of a traditional cowboy despite the fact that he did not know the first thing about 'cowboying'! In this one Barks poked fun of the typical image of the Wild West hero by dressing Donald in a decorated gun belt complete with pearl-handled, filigreed firing irons, as the flabbergasted 'ghost' sheriff exclaims. To make this scene even more satiric, we already know that Donald had tried to get some genuine 45s, but he had to make do with a pair of Trigger Strongheart cap pistols!

Synopsis:
Under hypnosis Scrooge remembers that he once knew an old gold mine in the desert. He goes there and finds the gold but it is not that simple keeping it!

Comments:
Barks only made two stories in which Scrooge owned a gold mine in the Wild West and they are both located in a desert. The other one is U$26 'The Ghosts of Pizen Bluff', in which Scrooge and the Ducks visit Scrooge's other gold mine.

Synopsis:
Scrooge, Gladstone, and Donald are competing to win a uranium mine in several desert contests.

Comments:
They fight with the weapons at hand; Scrooge uses his vast experience, Gladstone his immense luck, and Donald his, uh, distinct knack for doing the wrong things at the wrong times! Still, he manages to tie with Scrooge using dumb luck. Gladstone? He left the competition earlier when he found 10 uranium mines by sheer chance...

Synopsis:
Grandma and Scrooge venture out into the Wild West only 'armed' with a sewing basket and a vault of money. Is that enough to get by in the wilderness?

Comments:
The two characters are the most obvious to star in a modern day story about pioneering in the old West, because they actually lived when it was still the new West! And the true pioneer's ability to solve problems as he went along becomes visible in some of their actions.

Synopsis:
Donald and the nephews spend their holidays as tourists in the Western desert. A midget motor-bike catches Donald's eye...

Comments:
Donald suddenly finds himself racing around in the neighbourhood looking for valuable dinosaur bones. The leisurely holidays now have a purpose. This was also the case in WDCS234 Riding the Pony Express, in which Donald decided to revive the old Pony Express just for fun.