Henry goes prehistoric — A Reader’s Guide

A Sheriff Built for Comedy

Henry Harrison Conroy is described in precise physical detail: barely five foot seven, built like Humpty Dumpty, with a moon face, small eyes, and a nose "that ever gleamed above the footlights in vaudeville." This nose is not just a feature but a career—it had been "featured" across vaudeville chains. The narrator dwells on this with deadpan exaggeration, suggesting Henry's past as a performer. His speech is equally distinctive: he uses elevated, almost Shakespearean phrasing ("Let us look calmly upon the matter at hand") while discussing mundane complaints. This contrast between his dignified language and the absurd situations—like retrieving a thrown book or calming a ranting deputy—creates the book's comic rhythm.

The Professor's Prehistoric Cargo

The middle excerpt introduces Professor Charles Winston Norbert, called "Professor Fossil" by the locals. He is found after a wagon accident, dressed in a black suit, white shirt, and high starched collar—a figure of civilization in the Wild West. The accident is described with grim humor: Slim remarks that the professor and editor Pelly were "lucky to get off on the right side" of the curve, adding "you could be a-fallin' yet." The professor's precious cargo—two large boxes of fossil-bearing rocks, totaling five hundred pounds—plunges into Lobo Canyon. This loss is treated seriously by Henry ("Oh, that's too bad!") but undercut by the surrounding banter about hand-talk in the dark and Oscar's lament about losing "de yug."

Dialogue as Physical Action

Tuttle's dialogue often functions like slapstick: characters interrupt each other, repeat phrases, and react with exaggerated bewilderment. When Judge says he has a notion of resigning, Henry replies with a mock-soliloquy about "pride and soul; resignation—no!" The editor Pelly is described as a "chuckleheaded nincompoop" whose editorial has been read aloud to the commissioners—a humiliation that drives the plot. In the later scene, Slim's deadpan lines ("Don't talk with yore hands, 'cause we can't read no hand-talk in the dark") and Oscar's mangled English ("Das is the lousiest deal Ay ever had") keep the tone light even during a serious accident. The characters' voices are distinct, with Henry's formal register clashing against the others' colloquial speech.

Setting and Structure in the Excerpts

The story is set in Tonto City and Wild Horse Valley, a frontier town overrun by gold-rush newcomers. The excerpts move from an indoor argument to a nighttime wagon ride and accident, then to a doctor's office. The canyon Lobo is mentioned as a difficult place to recover the lost fossils, hinting at future action. The structure relies on a series of comic mishaps: a thrown book, a wagon crash, a lost collection. The excerpts do not reveal whether the fossils are recovered or how the crime wave is resolved, but they establish a pattern of escalating absurdity. The narrator's voice is omniscient but focused on physical description and dialogue, with little interiority.

Readers should pay attention to how Henry's vaudeville background informs his problem-solving—his theatrical instincts may be as important as his sheriff's badge. The lost fossil collection is a MacGuffin that drives the second half, but the real pleasure is in the verbal sparring and physical comedy. The excerpts suggest a fast-paced, episodic narrative where every scene ends with a punchline or a pratfall.

That bit where Henry and Van Treece argue over a fossil while the wagon teeters—it stayed with me, that blend of slapstick and something quieter. It reminded me of another read, Rhoda of the Underground — A Reader’s Guide, where the chaos also hides a tender undercurrent. Some stories just sit with you, like a half-forgotten joke that still makes you smile.