Barks' sketches for The Pied Piper of Duckburg

Barks started sketching this Gyro Gearloose 8-pager for publishing in 1959. But after three pages he abandoned the project because he suddenly realized that it would involve too much work. The reason being that the story - which was inspired by the well-known German fairy tale of the rat extinguisher from Hamelin - called for lots of rats in the panels.
Barks later forgot the story, but in CBL6 from 1990 it was published anyway. It was finished by Keno Don Rosa who invented a suitable ending. In Barks' opening sequence, shown below, Rosa even spotted and corrected a slip by the master; Gyro would not call the old miser Uncle Scrooge. He would say Mr. McDuck! This was corrected in the published version.

In 1961 Barks intended to write a Scrooge-story about floods in Egypt inspired by the ongoing Aswan Dam project. In a letter to a friend he wrote: I'm kind of mulling the idea of having him take a contract to move the ancient Egyptian palaces and statues that are threatened with flooding by the Aswan Dam. Naturally, he finds a hidden shaft leading down into the bowels of history, and therein finds uncountable tons of sparklers. The rains come early to the Ethiopian highlands, the Nile rushes toward the newly completed dam. The shaft and all the toiling ducks in the awesome treasure pits will be submerged as the roiling torrent slams against the unyielding barrier of the towering new dam. Does Uncle Scrooge get the rocks out of the cellar in time? Ha! When he's already in the 110% income tax bracket?

Barks mentioned two main reasons for not going on with the story:
1. It would have followed too soon after the Sahara locale that featured in the ‘Pipeline to Danger’ story (U$30 from 1960 - Editor's remark). ... I’ve decided to junk it. Have you noticed that the way the ancient statues and temples will be raised above the future level of the water is by a method fully as wacky as the one I’d vaguely planned for Uncle Scrooge? The nerve of mere humans to steal Uncle Scrooge’s stuff!
2. I never finished the script. ... The project and Egypt had become so messy with politics I was afraid to risk it.