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Calhoun, Jack. Jack Calhoun was created by Edward Parrish Ware (Buck Harris, Battle McKim, Tug Norton) and appeared in sixy-six stories in Flynn's Weekly and Detective Fiction Weekly from 1926 to 1938, beginning with “Calhoun Plugs a Hole” (Flynn’s Weekly, Feb. 27, 1926).

Jack Calhoun is a Killer Vigilante. Calhoun is the "Chief Inspector" for the U.S. Rangers stationed in the "sunken lands" of northeastern Arkansas; although Calhoun's title often changes, his job never does. The sunken lands are full of "swamp rats," inbred scum who run alcohol, counterfeit, blackmail and commit murder, and it is Calhoun's job as a Ranger to stop them. This job is not an easy one; the swamp rats are many, and native to the area, and he works alone. But Calhoun manages to succeed at his job.

He is skilled in traveling through the swamps, wears a pair of .45s, carries a rifle, and is (as he describes himself) "hard-boiled without much conscience"--an over-harsh description, as he has more sentiment than that, but one not without some truth in it. It is fortunate that he is on the side of the law, because he would be a fearsome criminal. One group of thieves is taken in the night by Calhoun, who guns them down, one by one, one bullet per criminal, and then brings them back to the Rangers station. Others are gunned down in fights fair and not so fair, on muddy islands in the Mississippi and shanty shacks and hotel halls. Crazed outlaws like the Panther and the Jungle Butcher run amok until Calhoun kills them.

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