After finishing an interview with a prospective rancher to sign on as a business partner, Doc Olin begs 24-hours reprieve before deciding. He wants to go into town and ascertain if there is bad blood between the partner and the daughter, whom left home. But when he meets her, a trio of “bad” men burst into the shop’s back door with a bloodied stump of a man.
Doc Olin tends the wounded man while a gigantic behemoth of a beast paws over the girl, calling her his sweetie pie, etc. A jealous rage burns inside the doctor as he realizes that she left the home of a decent man because she was allied with a vicious, murderous, railroad-robbing gang of cut-throats.
After saving the man’s life, he departs, informs the town doctor of his work inside the shop and advises the town doc to find the sheriff. He leaves, and signs his partnership papers.
Time passes. The partners are in a bar, as are the gang, whom taunts the rancher about his daughter being his sweetheart. Having heard enough, he knocks the brute a hard one, and this shuts him up. But, when the rancher accidentally breaks an object purportedly of the girl’s affection toward him, he guns down the rancher.
The gang flees, but not before making a scene that suggests the partner was involved. With the original owner dead and the girl not at home, it appears that he stands to take the ranch for his own. However, the father left his half legally to his daughter.
Distrust is fanned into flames betwixt the pair, and Doc finds that he must play the part of gunslinger for the first time in his life! He must go forth, capture the real killer, and beat a confession out of him.
But, how can a mere doctor compete against a dauntless gang of killers? Will he meet his end, or, is it…TOO SOON TO DIE…
This is one of four simultaneously published 32-page booklets issued in England by the Archer Press in 1948, the cover was illustrated by James E. McConnell. This short novelette originally appeared in the MAMMOTH WESTERN pulp magazine, for December 1947, and was written by Don Wilcox (full name: Cleo Eldon Wilcox)….
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