Library

Magpie—Diplomat

By Tuttle, W. C. (author)

Original publication: The Ridgway Company (in Adventure Magazine), July, 1917

When drifters Magpie Simpkins and Ike Harper ride into the frontier settlement of Pinto, they find its mayor, chief of police, and treasurer sitting forlorn on a pile of boulders—exiled from their own town by a scheme gone spectacularly wrong. What began as a clever fix to a civic problem has unraveled into a comedy of romantic deception, jealous wives, and loaded firearms. With Magpie's quick tongue and talent for back-country diplomacy, he attempts to untangle the mess—but peace, like gold, proves elusive on the frontier. A sharp and rollicking tale of frontier wit, marital chaos, and the perils of small-town politics, first published in Adventure magazine in July 1917.

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Keywords: cowboy adventure story, Adventure magazine 1917, Western humor short story, frontier comedy fiction, early 20th century pulp Western, W.C. Tuttle, small-town American West, classic pulp magazine fiction, marital comedy Western, frontier diplomacy satire

Ike Harper’s Historical Holiday

By Tuttle, W. C. (author)

Original publication: The Ridgway Company (in Adventure Magazine), January 15, 1920

In the rowdy frontier town of Piperock, a simple debate over where to hold the Fourth of July celebration spirals into glorious small-town chaos. When the question of who actually started the holiday ignites arguments among cowboys, a judge, a sheriff, and a saloon keeper — each more confident and more wrong than the last — narrator Ike Harper finds himself dragged into a madcap reenactment of Washington crossing the Delaware, complete with half-broke broncs, a mounted band, and an involuntary swim down the river. W. C. Tuttle's sharp comic ear captures the bluster and camaraderie of the Old West in a tale that proves one truth above all others: in Piperock, no holiday goes unpunished.

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Keywords: frontier town satire, Western humor short story, Old West comedy fiction, Fourth of July historical fiction, W. C. Tuttle Western, classic pulp Western story, cowboy comedy adventure, early 20th century American fiction, Adventure magazine 1920s fiction, Wild West holiday celebration

Honest to Doughgod

By Tuttle, W. C. (author)

Original publication: The Ridgway Company (in Adventure Magazine), October 1, 1917

In W. C. Tuttle’s comic Western tale, three musically inclined cowpunchers from the Cross-J find their loyalties tested when a new schoolteacher arrives in Paradise. Hen Peck, Muley Bowles, and Telescope Tolliver stumble through romance, rivalry, poker, poetry, and frontier misunderstandings with more enthusiasm than wisdom. Told in lively cowboy dialect, this archival Western farce captures the rough humor, tall-tale charm, and antic spirit of early twentieth-century magazine fiction.

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Keywords: Western short story, cowboy humor, frontier romance, comic Western fiction, Adventure magazine 1917, early 20th century pulp fiction, W C Tuttle, cowpuncher comedy, Paradise frontier town, American tall tale