The Line of Least Resistance (ed. By W.H. Hutchinson)

Chico, California: Hurst & Yount, 1958. Limited Edition. Octavo. . 78 pages. Signed by W.H. Hutchinson and numbered 329 in a limited edition of 500 copies. Drawings by James Bodrero. Originally, this was part of a series in the Saturday Evening Post began on August 13, 1910. Although violence had already been introduced to the American reading public in Wister's The Virginian, Rhodes used it here in the plot. He had known Butch Cassidy, Sam Ketchum, Cole Railston and he new the code firsthand which often made law enforcement and outlaws almost indistinguishable. He could bring in humor since he said the pioneer without it either died young or bought a trunk. W.H. Hutchison had gathered his stories in 1956 but this one deals with Dundee, New Mexico in 1881. Don Kennedy faces down bully Adam Sleiter and is framed for felonies, but when Apaches strike, outcasts become heroes. He writes, it was the year 1881 President Garfield was assassinated, the Lincoln County War was dyng down. It is into this context that he begins one of the great stories of the Southwest centered in Dundee. Bound in tan pictorial paper wraps lettered and decorated in dark brown, some spotting to front panel, chipping along upper edge of yapped edges along with off-setting to upper and lower edges.