THEY CAME TO CORDURA.

New York: Random House, [1958]., 1958. First edition. First edition. Author's second book. Presentation inscription on the front free fly leaf: "For ---- & ---- - / Whose hospitality would have / been welcome on the way to / Cordura - just as it is now! / With affection & best wishes -- / Gordon Swarthout." Fine in a bright dust jacket. A novel based on our abortive Punitive Expedition in 1916 against Mexico's famous revolutionist and bandit, Francisco [Pancho] Villa. Set near the Mexican border in 1916, following a U.S. Cavalry attempt to subdue Pancho Villa and his forces, it chronicles Major Thomas Thorne's six-day trek from Ojos Azules to an American outpost at Cordura. Having proven himself a coward before the Mexican marauders, Thorne, now assigned the humiliating position of awards officer, is ordered to select five candidates from the battle sites for Medal of Honor recognition, then bring them to Cordura while their paperwork is being processed. Thorne can see that, whether these men are heroes, murderers, or fools, they live beyond the immediate boundaries of normal human conduct. The author's broader concern was what heroism would mean, if anything, as the United States leaves behind its frontier mentality. Movie of the same name produced in 1959, starred Gary Cooper, Rita Hayworth, Van Heflin, Tab Hunter, Richard Conte, and others in the next to the last Western that starred Gary Cooper.