Late in May of 1899 near Florence, Arizona a small figure with long black hair tucked under a sombrero hid alongside the road... a .38 revolver drawn on the approaching stage coach. It was 21 year old Pearl Hart getting set to rob the Globe stage passengers of $428 cash and a Colt 45. Escape into mountain terrain failed when she lost her way and emerged10 hours later just a mile from the robbery site... where a posse waited. Pearl Hart had eloped at l6 with a fast-talking gambler who took her to cheap East coast hotels and bars and race tracks, and on to the 1893 World Fair Exposition in Chicago... where the Wild West Show inspired her to head West. She tried cooking in Colorado mining camps and working an Arizona claim with no success... but notority came quickly with the posses capture of this female outlaw. Sudden fame replaced years of rejection and struggle. The press loved her style. After a dramatic Tucson jail break, and re-capture in New Mexico with her gang, Pearl Hart became a popular symbol of wild west womanhood. At her trial she told a sympathetic jury that she would not consent to be tried under a law my sex had no voice in making. After 10 minutes deliberation the jury set her free. An angry judge re-tried her for theft of the pistol and gave her 5 years in the Yuma Prison. 18 months later embarrassing incidents at the all male facility brought a pardon from the govenor. Pearl Hart moved to Kansas City, and disappeared from history.