It is the year 1931. Having encountered Al Capone's gangsters in his last adventure, Tintin in the Congo, Tintin is sent to Chicago, Illinois to clean up the city's criminals. He is captured by gangsters several times, soon meeting Capone himself. Although Tintin temporarily captures Capone and some of his henchmen, the policeman he calls to help arrest the gangsters does not believe his story and tries to capture him instead (Tintin's failure to capture Capone reflects the fact that Capone was still active when the comic strip was written).
After several attempts on his life, Tintin meets Capone's rival, the devious Bobby Smiles, who heads the Gangsters Syndicate of Chicago. Tintin spends much of the book trying to capture Smiles, pursuing him to the Midwestern town of Reddog City. There he is captured by a Blackfoot Indian tribe (fooled by Smiles into thinking Tintin is their enemy), and discovers oil. This unintentionally causes the expulsion of the tribe, as unscrupulous oil corporations take over their land, depriving them of any share in the oil profits (see Ideology of Tintin). Finally, Tintin captures Smiles, and ships him back to Chicago in a crate.
After Smiles is captured, an unnamed bald gangster kidnaps Tintin's dog, Snowy. Tintin manages to save him and arrests most of the bald gangster's henchmen, although the gangster himself manages to escape. The next day the bald gangster orders a subordinate named Maurice Oyle to invite Tintin to a cannery, where Tintin is tricked into falling into the meat grinding machine. However, because the workers at the cannery are on strike, the meat grinder is deactivated and Tintin escapes. Tintin later tricks and captures both Maurice and the bald gangster.
After this escapade, Tintin is invited to a banquet held in his honor, where he is kidnapped by Chicago gangsters who have decided to wreak revenge upon him for his crackdown upon the city's criminals. The gangsters tie Tintin and Snowy to a weight and throw them into Lake Michigan. However, the gangsters mistakenly used a block of wood as a weight, and thus Tintin and Snowy are saved by what is ostensibly a police patrol boat. It soon transpires that the crew of the boat are not policemen, but more gangsters, and they attempt to kill Tintin. However Tintin overpowers them, and later leads the police to the gangsters' headquarters. A grateful Chicago holds a ticker-tape parade for Tintin, after which he returns to Europe.
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