This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design. Dobie Dalton is a puncher with a talent for bad luck, bad judgment, and surviving both with his pride half intact. In a series of comic frontier misadventures, he writes home to his friend Hank from Mesquite and Pyrites, blaming everyone but himself for a life tangled up with his difficult wife Emmeline, her sharp-tongued uncle Gabe Galesburg, and a parade of crooked bargains, misunderstandings, and bruising reversals. Whether he is mistaking a stranger for an outlaw, stealing a stage that was never stolen, salting a worthless mine, or trying to escape humiliation on a stubborn burro, Dobie's bluster only deepens the trouble. Chased by supposed posses, battered by coyotes, and repeatedly outwitted by circumstance, he keeps insisting he is a man of principle even as his schemes collapse around him. Told in Dobie's sardonic, self-justifying voice, this Western farce blends slapstick, suspense, and satirical wit into a lively send-up of honor, reputation, and frontier folly.

À propos de l'auteur

Tuttle, W. C.

W. C. Tuttle, born Wilbur C. Tuttle in the late nineteenth century, came of age during a period when the American West was still being mythologized in newspapers, magazines, and popular fiction. He built his career as a writer of lively Western stories, especially during the early twentieth century, and became widely admired for his ability to mix action, humor, and sharp characterization. Over time, he produced a substantial body of work that helped define the entertaining, fast-moving style of the magazine Western, often focusing on cowboys, drifters, small-town schemers, and the comic absurdities of frontier life. His fiction stands out for its warm wit, brisk pacing, and affection for ordinary people trying to make their way in a rough and changing world. Beneath the adventure and comedy, Tuttle often explored themes of loyalty, resilience, good-natured deception, and the tension between individual freedom and social order, concerns that still feel fresh today in stories about identity, community, and survival. His legacy lies in helping shape the popular Western as a genre that could be both exciting and funny, not merely heroic or grim, and in showing that frontier tales could reveal as much about human nature as about guns and horseback chases. Readers who enjoy classic Western fiction, regional Americana, or stories with a playful, human touch will find Tuttle especially rewarding.