The Package

Originally Aired: July 27, 1938 The Lone Ranger #858, "The Package," finds the masked rider and Tonto making camp on the trail to Jackson City when they discover signs of recent activity at their campsite, including the dangerous loco weed often used by criminals. A riderless horse appears and urgently leads them through the woods to a grim discovery: a young man named Dan Kent, shot in the back and left for dead. The only clues to his identity are a watch with his name and a touching letter from his mother, who believes her son is living an honest life. Meanwhile, in Jackson City, Dan's elderly mother Mrs. Kent visits the stagecoach office, anxiously awaiting a package containing six hundred dollars from her other son Pete to save her home from foreclosure. When the Lone Ranger tracks down the stage manager Red Murphy, he learns more about the Kent family while Murphy desperately pleads with the masked stranger not to harm the kind old woman. As the Lone Ranger investigates the connection between Dan's murder and his mother's expected package, a dangerous conspiracy begins to unfold involving the missing money and those who would kill to possess it.