Stagecoach to Denver

Roy Barcroft has a nasty scheme in mind to get some land for a stagecoach right of way for his line to Denver. It involves murdering a real land commissioner and substituting his man to make some new surveys and move people's claims around. All he has to do is keep people from going to Denver and worse keep folks from Denver away from his town. Unfortunately it's the town where Red Ryder and Little Beaver reside.

In the faked accident that killed the real commissioner and the stage driver a little boy was badly injured with a broken spine. Little Bobby Hyatt is taken to Emmet Lynn's place where he's doctored and his only living relative an aunt in Denver is sent for.

That's what Barcroft has to avoid, someone from Denver who would know the real new commissioner. So he substitutes Peggy Stewart for the aunt, but he doesn't let her in on all his plans. And Stewart turns out to have a heart and real concern for young Hyatt.

Of course Allan Lane and Robert Blake as the famous Red Ryder and Little Beaver figure it all out. As Barcroft says, Ryder's no fool.

Lane was taking over the Red Ryder series from Wild Bill Elliott whom Herbert J. Yates was starting to put into some big budget items in the hope he might have a breakout the way his other contract cowboy John Wayne did. It never quite worked out for Lane, but he handles the Red Ryder role well and later did it on television. And of course he was the voice of that horse of course, the famous Mister Ed.

Stagecoach To Denver might have rated another star had Barcroft who is presented to us as crafty and ruthless committed one more murder he should have. You'll have to see this Red Ryder western to see why.