Upside Down or Backwards
By Tuttle, W. C.
When Magpie Simpkins stumbles back into Piperock after a disastrous Eastern prospecting trip — broke, overdressed, and apparently the proud owner of a live cassowary he purchased in a drunken stupor — his partner Ike Harper braces for the inevitable chaos. The exotic bird, a bewildering stranger to the Montana frontier, quickly becomes the centerpiece of an elaborate small-town scheme that spirals from a street-side auction to a five-dollar raffle, while the whole of Piperock scrambles after a rumored thousand-dollar scientific prize. W. C. Tuttle's Piperock yarn is a masterwork of deadpan frontier comedy, built on tall-tale logic, pitch-perfect vernacular, and the enduring partnership of two lovable fools chasing fortune the wrong way round. First published in Adventure Magazine in 1918, this public domain gem remains a shining example of early American Western humor.
Publisher: The Ridgway Company (in Adventure Magazine)
First published: 1918