Because He Listened In

Jim Allen, the gun-slinging, poker-obsessed Laramie Kid, blunders into trouble in Los Noches after shooting a crooked card dealer and escaping with his life. Wounded, stranded, and hiding in a stable when his horse dies, he overhears two men plotting a stagecoach robbery for twenty thousand dollars and a supposedly complicit driver. Seizing what looks like a chance to recover his fortunes, Laramie decides to lie low, steal a horse if he can, and beat the thieves to the haul. But the desert ride belongs to veteran driver Eph Jones, who barrels the stage across the route at full speed, unaware of the hidden fortune and the outlaw waiting at the hair-pin turn. When the masked robber blocks the coach and demands the treasure box, Eph answers with a shotgun blast, drops the bandit, and recovers the loot. He then secures the wounded man and delivers the treasure to Silver City. Only later does the comic twist emerge: the sheriff explains the holdup to Larry Brett and a stranger named Jimmy Colvin, a writer who researched the robbery for a Western story. Laramie learns that Colvin's eavesdropping helped set the trap in motion, leaving the would-be outlaw furious, humiliated, and caught in a tale of gunplay, bad luck, and ironic fate. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.