* 1st APPEARANCE "GHOST RIDER" AKA: "Phantom Rider" (Carter Slade)
* 1st Appearance "BANSHEE" Phantom Riders Horse

School teacher Carter Slade was making his way to Bison Bend, Montana, to become the teacher for the new school built by newly settled homesteaders looking to build a home. Upon his arrival, however, he witnessed an attack by Indians upon one such homestead, despite being told that the natives here were friendly.
Slade put up a good fight but was outnumbered, though he was left for dead by the men, he discovered that they were really white men in disguise. Hours later, the sole survivor from the attack on the homestead, young Jamie Jacobs, came out to find his parents dead, and this stranger barely breathing outside. Jacobs decided to load the man upon his horse and to bring him to a doctor before he succumbed to his wounds. He was so dazed, however, that he did not realize that he set out in the wrong direction to find help. As night fell they were discovered by a real tribe of Indians and taken to their medicine man, Flaming Star.

Flaming Star treated Slade's wounds and pleaded to the gods for days to spare the life of the white man. Finally, on the Eighth day, Slade awoke which prompted Flaming Star to proclaim him the chosen one that had been revealed in prophecy that would become a powerful warrior, a living legend called "He Who Rides the Night Winds." Flaming Star then told him of how when he first became a medicine man, when he climbed to the highest point around to ask for the gods to give a sign as to their faith in him, he saw a meteor land nearby. He was then told by the spirits to gather the dust which had fallen from the heavens and keep it until the day when a great champion will be sent to him. So Flaming Star gave Slade the glowing dust and costume of the Phantom Rider and helped him tame the wildest, fastest white horse on the plains nearby. Carter named his new horse, Banshee.

The dust which Flaming Star have him allowed Slade to project the tiniest fraction of light thousands of times the light's actual power. Making him appear to glow in a ghostly fashion in the pitch black. Jamie was the only one to know of the Ghost Rider's secret identity.

Jason Bartholomew, the rancher who ordered the attack on the homesteaders, wanted to ensure that the rest of the settlers leave the area as well. To this end he got his henchmen to go into the town and burn the new school to the ground and to take a hostage until all the townspeople left. When Carter Slade hears of this he decides to take action that night as the Ghost Rider and asks the townspeople to stay one more day as he thinks he can help. That night, under the cover of complete darkness, the Ghost Rider frightened away all of Bartholomew's superstitious men, and finally got Bartholomew himself to turn himself in to the federal marshalls, vowing he would pay for his crimes for fear of retribution from the Ghost Rider.

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"The Menace of the Mask Maker" is a 6-page Western story reprinted from Kid Colt Outlaw #105 (July 1962).

Drawn by Jack Keller.

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