'Mystery of Little Snake', serialized in Britain's Mickey Mouse Weekly no.'s 152-161 in 1938-1939, is my most favorite 'King of the Royal Mounted' adventure. It involves the attempt of a bunch of baddies to lay their hands on a loot of gold which a tribe of natives are believed to be hiding in the secret burial ground of reserved for their chiefs. For this end, they murder the current chief of the tribe and plan to discover the secret location by trailing his son. The new chief is perfectly aware of their intentions and wisely hopes to use it as an opportunity to avenge his father... Thus, a tense journey starts as three groups, the native carrying the corpse of his father, the baddies, and King accompanied by 'kid' (the little brother of his lover) travel through the snowy terrains towards a destination unknown to all except the native to reach their fate where death is certain to meet some or all of them.
The climax is reached as the baddies follow the chief into a cave he had went in, effectively passing the point of no return in this wonderfully colored panel:
King breaks into the scene, resulting in not only a confrontation with the baddies, but a stand-of with the chief:
Btw, note the artist's unfortunate blunder as King's pistol in the panel on the left above disappears on the panel on the right, only to re-appear in the panel on the left below:
Despite this artistic blunder, the face-off between King and the native is highly dramatic as both face the burden of obeying their own laws which necessiates unwillingly confronting each other.
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