Firehair

Firehair debuted in the pages of RANGERS COMICS, in a story in which she accompanied her father westward from Boston. The widowed man and his red-haired daughter arrived by stage in the town of Plainsville to start out on a new life. That story never mentioned the names of the pair, with her father simply refering to his daughter as "Princess." But as he bought supplies and joined a train of wagons heading out, a scoundrel named Fingers was up to no good. Fingers used a band of outlaws disguised as indians to ambush, rob and massacre the wagon train. Her father slain, the young woman who would become Firehair was injured and left for dead. But a witness to the attack was a genuine indian, Little Ax, who went over the victims and found the young woman was still barely alive. He tought she would be able to testify that it was not his tribe who attacked the wagons, so he took her back to his tribe and his father, their chief. Two Horns, the medicine man of the tribe thought Little Ax was a fool for bringing her there. She recovered from her injuries, but her memories were gone. Many of the tribe were sure she was bad luck and the tribe would be blamed for the attacks. But the tribe's leader, Chief Tehama, aggreed with his son and decided she would be allowed to stay with the tribe.

She learned the ways of the tribe and soon was as fine at riding, hunting and tracking as the best of them. She was unhappy that she was expected to act like a squaw instead of a warrior. When the tribes had a pow-wow, Fingers and his gang attacked the camp to try to steal the tribe's horses, but Firehair was able to stop them. She used her tomahawk and bow skillfully, and when she disarmed one of the gang she was surprised that she seemed to know how to handle a six-gun. When the gang got back to their hideout, Fingers was worried as he had recognized the redhaired woman as the one he had left for dead at the massacre. She complained she was a witness to what they had done and would have to be taken care of. Fingers recalled that the wagon she'd been on had given up a small iron box that the gang had never gotten around to opening. The missing key had been on a sting at Firehair's neck all this time, the only momento of the life she had forgotten. They bashed open the box to find cash, jewelry and diocuments showing their was a fortune in gold and property deeds in a bank vault back in Boston. Finger's gang made another attempt on Firehair's life, but they only succeeded to grazing her mount, Devil-Eye. When she was thrown from the horse, she struck her head and regained her memory. She tracked Fingers and his gang and attacked them. In a shoot-out with the men, she got several of them before she was downed. The members of her tribe followed her and captured the remaining gang, and Little Ax was happy to see she was alive.

With the recovery of her inheritance, Firehair (who finally knew she was Lynn Cabot) decided, reluctantly, that she had to go back to Boston. But as she set out, while riding a steamboat up the river she was ambushed by a band of men working for a shyster lawyer, Luke Prescitt. The man had been planning with Fingers to stael Firehair's inheritance. As they fought her, she went over the side into the river. The men had a girl who looked like Firehair, and with the documents they had taken, they were going to have the imposter file papers with the authorities to have the control of the estate turned over to the lawyer. But Firehair was saved once again by Little ax, whom the chief had sent to trail the girl and keep an eye on her. The pair went after the rascals and stopped the lawyer from pulling his scheme off with the local judge. Then Lynn Cabot went back to Boston.

She didn't stay in Boston long, as she missed her friends and her life with the Dakota tribe. She returned to them and had many adventures facing trouble with greedy white men and troublemakers in other tribes. After appearing in 45 issues of RANGERS COMICS and also 11 issues of FIREHAIR COMICS (although issues 3-7 were titled PIONEER WEST ROMANCES starring Firehair). In 1952, as Fiction House was exiting the comic book field, the character came to the end of her run. An unusual outfit in the late fifties, IW-Super Comics reprinted a sampling of Firehair material, as they were in the business of releasing repackaged books they had gotten their hands on. And more recently, Bill Black's AC Comics has made some use of the character, as they have done with any number of good-girl art heroines from the past.