When saloonkeeper Hip Shot Brady's famed "Sixteen to One" stockpile is stolen, the thieves leave behind a mocking McKinley sign and set loose a chain of comic frontier chaos. Dryly witty ranch hand Shiner Seymour and his friend Friday McGovern, already tangled in an awkward courtship of Sheriff Wilmot's daughter Matilda, are forced to flee with the law on their heels, mistaken for stagecoach robbers and driven into the wilds of Blue Joint Cañon. There, a hidden cabin offers only the illusion of safety: Friday discovers a vast cache of whiskey and brandy he thought was food, and the two men trade hunger for a roaring hangover and uneasy camaraderie. Then the canyon turns far stranger. A grotesque face at the window, a mysterious "geewhinkus," and a bucking striped animal hurl Shiner and Friday into slapstick disaster, dumping them into a clay pit where armed riders and a sheriff's posse tumble after them. As the dust settles, the "animal" mystery is traced to the potent whiskey, wanted bandits are identified, and frontier law, rumor, and romance all come under wry, affectionate satire. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.