Creepin' Tintypes

In Short

This rollicking Western tale follows Ike Harper and "Dirty Shirt" Jones, two permanent outsiders who find themselves lured back into the orbit of their former home, the lawless hamlet of Piperock, Montana. When they meet a naive filmmaker searching for authentic grit, they agree to stage a bank robbery for his lens. The resulting farce—filled with mistaken identities, drunken brawls, and unintentional crime—captures the absurdity of the myth-making West. It has lasted because of its sharp, cynical wit and its affectionate, hilarious mockery of the "Wild West" genre.

The Story

Ike Harper and Dirty Shirt Jones are drifting through a strange town, nursing a drink and a healthy desire to avoid their former home, Piperock, where they are notorious for having accidentally locked the sheriff in his own jail. Their solitude is interrupted by Llewellyn Waldemar, a self-described "realist" in the moving-picture business. Waldemar is obsessed with finding an authentic, untamed West that Buffalo Bill would recognize, and he believes Piperock is the only place left that fits the bill.

Despite their reservations, Ike and Dirty are bribed with cash and a plan: they will pose as dinosaur-hunting scientists, sneak into Piperock during its tenth-anniversary celebration, and perform a staged bank robbery for Waldemar’s camera. The duo, disguised in ridiculous fake whiskers and smoked glasses, arrives in Piperock, where they are immediately met with skepticism by the locals—including the sheriff, "Scenery" Sims, and the sharp-tongued Magpie Simpkins.

The night before the "shoot," the celebration descends into absolute chaos. Ike and Dirty, fueled by local moonshine, struggle to maintain their scientific personas while navigating drunken debates about human evolution and brawls with punchers. By morning, they are hungover and terrified, realizing their "stunt" is doomed. When the time comes, the plan falls apart instantly. Their horses are uncooperative, and a series of mishaps leads to Ike crashing his horse through the saloon’s hanging lamps while Dirty crashes through the bank’s front window, boot-first.

In the confusion, the town of Piperock erupts. While Ike and Dirty flee the scene, they discover that Big Foot Benson and Hoodoo Harris—two locals to whom they had foolishly blabbed their plan—took the opportunity to actually rob the bank for real. The accidental outlaws take refuge in the town jail, eventually slipping past a disoriented Sheriff Sims, who is so convinced he is seeing things that he locks himself in a cell to recover.

The story concludes with Ike and Dirty fleeing into the dark of the Montana plains. They encounter a battered Waldemar, who is still mourning the loss of his camera gear but excited that he captured at least a hundred feet of film. Having had enough of the "real" West, the filmmaker’s art, and the constant threat of a hangman’s rope, Ike and Dirty abandon him to his fate. They limp away into the night, determined to find a corner of the world far removed from the absurdity of Piperock and the business of "creepin' tintypes."

How It Unfolds

The call of the wild Ike and Dirty discuss their homesickness for Piperock while lamenting the lack of "real" adventure in the world. Their chance meeting with Waldemar provides the perfect, albeit dangerous, excuse to return to the scene of their past misdeeds.

The scientific disguise To infiltrate the town, the duo adopts the personas of Professors Smythe and Doolittle. They acquire ridiculous outfits and whiskers, correctly suspecting that these "scientific" disguises will be about as effective as a paper shield against the citizens of Piperock.

The celebration begins The two arrive in town just as the anniversary festivities get underway. Between bouts of heavy drinking and dodging suspicious locals, they find themselves caught in a tide of violence and rowdy celebration that threatens to expose their true identities.

The botched robbery The morning of the stunt arrives with confusion over watch times and uncinched saddles. The resulting chaos turns a simple filming exercise into a slapstick disaster of broken windows and flying horses.

The final escape After stumbling into the jail and realizing they have been framed by true thieves, the duo makes a desperate final exit. They leave the filmmaker behind, choosing the uncertainty of the open road over the peril of the town’s justice.

The People

Ike Harper serves as the weary, sardonic narrator. He is a man who knows exactly how dangerous Piperock is and views his own participation in the bank robbery with a mix of dread and resignation. His partner, "Dirty Shirt" Jones, is more volatile and prone to bouts of melodramatic singing, yet he is equally committed to their survival. Together, they are the classic "hard-luck" pair, capable of great physical feats but prone to terrible decisions.

Llewellyn Waldemar is the catalyst for the mayhem. As a filmmaker, he represents the outsider’s fetishization of the frontier; he views the inhabitants of the West as props for his art. His failure to realize that the "real" West is far more dangerous than his script is the source of the book's irony.

Sheriff "Scenery" Sims is a small, thin man with a squeaky voice who is so baffled by the absurdity of his town that he eventually gives up on enforcing the law entirely. He acts as a mirror to the town's chaos, ultimately questioning his own sanity rather than the state of his jail. Magpie Simpkins provides a grounded, dry wit, acting as the town’s unofficial observer who sees through the duo’s disguises immediately, even if he plays along for the entertainment value.

In Its Own Voice

“Me and Dirty have peered upon the wine when it was red and neither of us cared much for Scenery with his squeaky little voice; so when Piperock awoke the next morning they had to dynamite the jail to get their sheriff out of his own cell.”

Ike explains why he and Dirty are currently persona non grata in their old hometown.

“The city limits of Piperock are the distance a sheriff can ride in two hours and then shoot with a .30-30; the same of which marks a spot several miles removed from the turmoil of town.”

Ike describes the very specific, lethal geography of the town they are trying to avoid.

“Waldemar, we welcome you to our graveyard.”

After a brutal night of botched robberies and near-hangings, Dirty greets the filmmaker with grim, dark humor.

What It's Really About

At its core, this book is a satire of the Western myth. It questions the obsession with "authenticity"—the idea that there is a rugged, violent, and "true" West that exists apart from the people who actually live there. By pitting the filmmaker’s scripted version of the West against the messy, drunken, and unpredictable reality of Piperock, the story mocks the way outsiders romanticize frontier violence. It asks whether the "West" is a historical reality or merely a performance, suggesting that when people try too hard to live out the legends they’ve read about, they end up looking less like heroes and more like fools crashing through saloon windows.

Why Read It Today

Readers who enjoy the classic Western voice—full of colorful, tall-tale vernacular and cynical, gravel-voiced humor—will find a treasure here. The prose moves with the speed of a runaway horse, and the dialogue is sharp, biting, and consistently funny. It feels like a precursor to the screwball comedy, though it is firmly rooted in the dust and grit of a Montana frontier.

However, prospective readers should be aware that the book relies heavily on period-specific dialect, which can be dense and occasionally difficult to parse. Additionally, the casual, often brutal attitude toward violence and the "freakish" nature of characters reflects the era in which it was written (1921), and these attitudes are woven directly into the characters' worldviews. There is no moralizing here; the characters are flawed, hard-drinking, and often selfish, moving through a world where life is cheap and trouble is inevitable. For those who can appreciate a story that doesn't ask to be liked or respected, but simply wants to entertain, the chaotic energy of Ike and Dirty’s flight from Piperock remains remarkably fresh and engaging. It stays with you as a reminder that the best-laid plans of "realists" are no match for the sheer, unscripted idiocy of a bad day in a frontier town.