"The Mummy's Ring," inspired by a Boris Karloff film, shows Carl Barks’ flair for gothic chills, with the ducks racing up the Nile* to save Huey from being entombed. Barks modeled his Egyptian props and scenery on illustrations from National Geographic magazine.

The filler stories are more standard fare: Donald and the boys are steeplechase rivals in "The Hard Loser", which Barks may have intended for Walt Disney's Comics and Stories, a series he began a few months earlier. Eighteen years later, Barks included Scrooge when he redrew the screwball comedy (see Uncle Scrooge Adventures #33).

"Too Many Pets," with its ducks-at-home-setting, rounds out Four Color #29 (September 1943). The 26-pages suggest it may have been considered as a later lead story and not a back-up. Less exotic in story line and art, though, it's been largely forgotten by fans. "Too Many Pets" was neglected for reprints because of its World War II setting structured around the antics of an organ grinder's monkey that helps the ducks catch a foreign spy.

(* The ducks do, indeed, race "up" the Nile, even though they sail south. The river is one ofa rare few in the northern hemisphere that flows northward as it loses altitude.)
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