Jim West finally regained consciousness, and found himself in a locked cage hanging several feet above the dirt floor.
Where was he? The last thing he remembered was falling through a trap door in the wood floor of a storage room in the back of a desserted saloon.
Slowly standing, even as such movements caused the cage to sway back and forth, Jim gripped the bars as if to test their strength. Whilst already know that they were unbendable by any normal man...
"Come out where I can see you," called Jim even as he noted that the mouth of an underground dirt tunnel ran perpendicular to this underground room. "Show yourself."
There was a single set of hands clapping slowly from inside the perpendicular tunnel. Whoever was responsible for this was about to show himself to James West...
"Very good, Mr. West," came a very familiar high-pitched voice nearing this underground room, hands still slowly clapping in what Jim now knew to be a sarcastic fashion. "As always, you don't let anything 'rattle your cage'."
Having made that pun, the approaching person laughed maniacally. Even before he stepped out into the available light, which Jim now noticed came from a couple of lit lanterns to either side of said underground room, Jim knew who it was...
"It's been a long time, Dr. Loveless."
Dr. Miguelito Quixote Loveless then strode in with his usual air of superiority to any and all people, but most especially to this person now standing in the hanging cage.
"Congratulations, Mr. West," he said even as he stopped clapping and stood as well-dressed as always with a small cane propped against the dirt floor, even though he didn't need it to walk or stand. "Then again, as many times as you've heard my voice, it was no real feat to detect my identity before seeing me. Now, why not start with some questions. I'm sure you have more than a few."
"What have you done with the people of this town, Loveless?"
"Excellent, Mr. West. Direct and to the point," Dr. Loveless stated succintly and with a certainty that more than bordered on the megalomaniacal. "They are all still alive and well...for the moment. I have them in cages spread through the underground rooms connected by tunnels such as the one from which I just emerged. It was a simple thing to have my collegues build trap doors into the rear rooms of every building along the main street of this quaint little room with the deceptively evil little name."
"Why?" came yet another direct query, of the single-word, single-syllable variety, from the caged man in blue still swaying in his hanging cell.
"Because, my long-time enemy," began Dr. Loveless as he began to walk about the underground room, gesturing with his cane as he spoke. "It came to my attention that there is a rich vein of uranium running the length and width of this town of Devil's Pitchfork. Uranium which I could use to build more than one atomic bomb, which I would then leave in various cities, such as Washington, D.C. and New York, in order to extort huge sums of money to spare them, and then...not."
"Did you try to buy the rights to the uranium mines from the inhabitants of this town? I'm sure they would've taken it, considering that its a small town of obvious lack of personal and professional funds."
"Now why would I do that, Mr. West," the smirking Dr. Loveless said with some delight to the apparently helpless James West in the free-hanging cage. "When it was much easier, for me, to pay a group of down-on-their-luck cowboys to help capture the people much cheaper. And much more fun."
Dr. Loveless laughed in a high-pitched laugh that denoted the depths of evil to which this pint-sized person could, and would, go to obtain that which he desired so intently. Then he said...
"Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to overseeing the mining currently being done by a handful of Devil's Pitchfork persons I have released from hanging cages, in order to do my bidding via hard labor. But do make yourself comfortable, Mr. West. Yes, do."
Laughing madly once more, and twirling his cane as he walked, Dr. Miguelito Loveless slowly-but-surely exited this underground room via the adjacent tunnel, clearly linking up to other underground rooms and connecting tunnels.
Which was just the thing that Jim West was waiting for, so he could go into action and get out of this hanging cage...
Reaching up to the lapel of his blue bolero-style jacket, West pulled out a universal lock-pick. Which he then used, with precise hand movements and nerves of steel, thus keeping his hands steady and certain, to unlock the steel-bar door and drop down the few feet necessary to stand upon the dirt floor of this first of several underground rooms.
Then, sans his holstered weapon that Dr. Loveless had clearly removed during his short stint of unconsciousness, Jim West made a mad dash through the adjoining tunnel in order to catch up with Miguelito...
Just as he caught up with the wee man, he found himself in a larger underground room which was clearly part of the uranium mine. Being tended to be enslaved citizenry of Devil's Pitchfork, with several of Dr. Loveless' armed men enforcing Miguelito's law...
"Kill him!" shouted Dr. Loveless from the other side of the large underground room-mine, standing at the mouth of yet another tunnel connecting to other room-mines. "Don't let him escape!"
Faced with several-against-one, Jim fell back on his brand of unarmed fighting to best the armed men attacking him. Sending them to the dirt floor in unconscious heaps, as the Devil's Pitchfork citizens-turned-slaves realized what Jim would tell them in a confident tone...
"You're all free! Go on, get out of here...while you can!"
Sure enough, the no-longer-enslaved individuals, men and women alike, made their way hurriedly out through both interconnecting tunnels.
While James West chased after Dr. Miguelito Loveless, intent upon bringing the little man down...or at least destroy his plans for the uranium, the way Jim had destroyed other outlandish, overzealous plans of the past.
Eventually catching up to Dr. Loveless, after having fought his way free of other armed men in the little man's employment...
"You've run out of tunnels, Loveless," said Jim West, as he faced down the evil genius, apparently without a weapon. "Might as well give up, and make things easier."
"I think not, Mr. West," snarled Dr. Loveless, as he produced a derringer from his vest pocket, aimed straight at Jim. "At last, I will have the last word."
Before Dr. Miguelito Loveless could fire, while West held up his hands in apparent surrender, he twitched the forearm of his right hand and released the sleeve gun, also a derringer, in order to fire quickly, and with absolute accuracy...
"Ouch!"
Effectively knocking the derringer in Dr. Loveless' hand out, to go skidding along the dirt floor, while Miguelito winced in continued pain from the well-placed shot.
"Damn you, Mr. West!" exclaimed the enraged Dr. Loveless, as he turned and ran, as fast as his little legs could carry him, to disappear through yet another room and tunnel.
Leaving Jim West a little lost in this vast town-sized underground uranium mine, even as the sleeve gun was retracted as quickly as it had been extended.
So all he could do, now that the townspeople were saved from slavery, and the remaining armed men scattered by the overwhelming number of freed forced uranium miners, was find someplace that led topside and find Artemus Gordon again.
Hours later, back aboard the waiting 4-4-0 train, the two now bathed and redressed Artemus and James West were happy to entertain two lovely ladies who were ancious to thank the duo for their salvation.
"How about some more champagne, ladies?" asked Artemus, even as he and Jim drank in more of the expensive French champagne, along with the lovely ladies. "Let's toast to your liberation from a little man with larger-than-life ideas."
"And," interjected Jim West with his trademark smile, reserved for women such as these, "to that little man's apparent departure from the Devil's Pitchfork."
The clinking of glasses preceded the drinking of the fine champagne, as four individuals settled in for an equally eloquent gourmet meal.
Which would, hopefully, lead to an even more appreciative kissing with these two luxiously lovely ladies.