Pearl Hart - the only Gun-Wielding Female Road Agent
Pearl Becomes a Desperado
 - Part 2 of a 5 part series

 Pearl Hart and Joe Boot set out before daybreak.  Pearl had cut her hair to resemble a man’s and tucked the ends under her sombrero. She wore a man’s gray flannel shirt, levis, and boots as her disguise. In her belt was tucked a well-oiled .38 caliber pistol. Joe sported a forty-five caliber six-shooter and a sawed-off shot-gun. They chose a point where there was a sharp bend which would require the driver to slow. There they took up positions to wait. On May 29, 1899 at 2 o'clock P.M. they heard the stage approaching and at that precise moment stepped out “with revolvers cocked and aim steady.”
 Joe called out, “Stop and elevate!”
 Pearl, not to be left out, ordered, “Raise ‘em!”
 Joe covered the driver and told Pearl to search the passengers. She ordered the three passengers out and systematically took their valuables: she took $390 from a short fat drummer named O. J. Neal, a tenderfoot contributed $36, and a Chinaman gave up $5. Pearl then pranced back and forth, trying to seem desperate, but finally gave each man a dollar, “for grub and lodging.” She then ordered the passengers back into the stage and sent them on their way. They were new at the game and had not thought to ask for the mail sacks or for the treasure box, an oversight that would later prove to Pearl’s benefit.
 Perhaps the robbers thought that they would not be recognized, and the law would not know who to pursue, but that was not the case. As soon as the stage driver pulled into Florence, Sheriff Truman was told the details. The driver identified the culprits as Joe Boot and Pearl Hart “who the driver recognized despite the fact that she looked like a young man.” A posse was formed and the pursuit began.
 Pearl and Joe had not made plans for their escape beyond connecting with the train at Benson.  They realized that a posse would soon be on their trail, so they zig-zagged through the country for  two days, getting lost several times only to happen onto a familiar landmark. During that time they barely avoided the posse on a few occasions.  Even the weather would not cooperate and they were drenched in a downpour. The pair was only twenty miles from their destination when they bedded down beneath a stand of trees – exhausted, wet and hungry.
 Sheriff Truman’s posse finally had them surrounded. The lawmen moved in quietly and collected their firearms, which had been placed close at hand, before awakening them. Joe, seeing their situation, submitted. Pearl had other notions and fought ferociously.  Sheriff Truman later commented of Pearl after she was in jail, “One wouldn’t think that she is a very tiger for nerve and for endurance. She looks feminine enough now, in the women’s clothes I got for her, and one can see the touch of a tasteful woman’s hand in the way she has brightened up her cell.  Yet, only a couple of days ago, I had a struggle with her for my life.  She would have killed me in my tracks could she had got to her pistol ... .”
 Pearl and Joe were taken to the Florence jail but Pearl was soon transferred to the jail at Tucson, a wing of the county courthouse.

Part 1 of Pearl Hart
Part 2 of Pearl Hart
Part 3 of Pearl Hart
Part 4 of Pearl Hart
Part 5 of Pearl Hart

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