Carl Barks' quintessential Wester, "Sheriff of Bullet Valley," (Four Color 199) and "The Golden Christmas Tree" (FC 203), both from 1948, are paired in DDA #9. The former is Barks' sendup of the sagebrush saga, with Donald Duck as a bumbling lawman who tries to model himself on movie stars. But not until he calls on his own resources is he 'able to capture the oh-so dastardly Blacksnake McQuirt.

"The Golden Christmas Tree" offers a similar moral, but in so syrupy a fashion that Barks said he would rather forget it. "The editors made me do some changes. I still wince at the preachy stuff I had to put in about the Spirit of Christmas." In a letter to a fan in 1961, Barks wrote, "I felt sourly about the finished story because the editors had made me do some changes in the fight sequences between Don and the witch that I thought took the guts out of the story."

In DDA #9, the Table of Contents refers to the Christmas story as by "author unknown." This is an error. Barks wrote it, but the editors made numerous changes, including all but the last four panels of the final two pages.
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