Hoofbeats of Danger

The year is 1860 and involves the Pony Express, a short-lived mail service in the Western U.S. Annie is a young girl living at one of the stations along the route where riders would change horses and stagecoaches would briefly stop.

Annie loves horses and has a favorite one, Magpie. Magpie begins acting extremely strangely when a stagecoach is at the station and Annie’s father says he will have to shoot the horse if it doesn’t get better quickly. Annie knows someone who can help, but that person is not only a young girl like Annie, but she’s Native American, and thus distrusted by many.

Things take an interesting turn when it begins to become apparent to Annie that Magpie is not sick but was actually poisoned. Two questions arise; who did it and would Magpie die before the poison could get out of her system?

Annie is able to figure out who poisoned the horse and she and a friend ride off to catch the departed stagecoach and catch the saboteur (interfering with horses used by the Pony Express would have been a crime), and she has to do this without knowing whether her favorite horse is still alive or not.

It’s an unusual story, covering a period of time not generally dealt with very often. As always, there is a historical section to help the reader better understand the times the event took place in.

Back to American Girls index page

Back to History Mysteries index page

Back to main home page index