Two bumblingly endearing cowboys stumble into more trouble than they can handle in this early 20th-century Western comedy. Ike Harper and Dirty Shirt Jones are just a pair of drifters looking for easy money when they sign on to help a smooth-talking stranger named Llewellyn Waldemar stage a bank robbery for his moving-picture project. The only problem: the bank is empty, the plan is absurd, and these two couldn't plan their way out of a paper bag. Of course, everything goes spectacularly wrong, and our heroes find themselves cooling their heels in jail while contemplating their next move. Tuttle's genius lies in his deadpan dialogue and the affectionate absurdity with which he portrays the gap between the mythic Old West and the goofy reality his characters inhabit. This is a book that knows exactly how funny it is, and that confidence makes it sing.
