The Double-crossing of Dobie

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.