The buildings of the X Bar X ranch need to be painted. When Nick Looker goes into Eagles to buy the paint, he meets Henry Huffner, a housepainter in need of work, and brings him back to the ranch to do the job. While Roy and Teddy are helping him on the first day, Henry tells them about overhearing a couple of hoboes describing a place called Haunted Gully, also known as Dead men's Gully. It is an obscure place west of the ranch, where, according to legend, a treasure is hidden. When the hoboes steal Peter ball's car, and clues indicate that they have taken it to the vicinity of Haunted Gully, the boys decide to take the legend seriously and look for the treasure. In a subplot, during a storm Roy and Teddy discover a box containing some property of George Robinson, a medical doctor from New York who had disappeared in the vicinity two years earlier. The boys contact his grieving daughter, who comes to the ranch grasping at the slight hope that her father may be found.

Writing: 3
Characterization: 2
Plot: 2
Overall score: 2.33