TRACK OF A KILLER

After five years as foreman at Old Man Rawls' Circle R ranch in 1890s Montana, young Clay Scarborough is getting just about fed up. Rustlers keep grabbing the Circle R's stock. The ""Old Man"" is stubbornly old-fashioned. And, worst of all, the Old Man's protÉgÉ is young wrangler Junior, a mean and lazy kid--though the Old Man won't bear a word against him. Then, however, the Old Man's great-niece Annie arrives from back East to stay for a spell: she's unwed, pregnant (by a now-dead minister), but determined to have her child. So Clay, slowly failing for Annie (he saves her from prospector/rapists), starts having an even greater emotional investment in the Circle R. And he's soon tracking rustlers, sparring with a mining company, and solving some local crimes: the culprit is the Most Obvious Wrangler around. Except for a surprising whiff of historical color (""Whatever happened to that Frenchman on trial over there in Paris, that Dreyfus fella?""): absolutely routine, uninspired Western action--complete with ambushes, posses, and happy ending.