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Nellie and the Bandit
By Eileen Ross Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Copyright © 2005 Eileen Ross
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4668-9651-2
CHAPTER 1
Nellie scurried toward the telegraph office, where commotion was spilling onto the street like a tipped-over bottle of sarsaparilla.
"Desperado Dan has escaped from jail," the clerk, Ned Jenkins, hollered while hammering a WANTED poster to the door.
As Nellie crowded in to get a closer look, she noticed Miz Witherspoon, the schoolmarm, looking lumpy and gray as the breakfast gruel Nellie had cooked up on the iron stove for Pa that very morning.
"Rosie's missing," Miz Witherspoon wailed. "I can't find my poor sweet mule anywhere."
"We've got ourselves an outlaw on the loose!" the mayor replied. "No time to worry about wandering mules now."
And that's when Miz Witherspoon fainted dead away, sinking to the sidewalk like a mudslide after a thunderstorm.
Just then, Ned noticed Nellie. "We're fixin' to form a posse," he said. "Where's your pa?"
"Left for the Cripple Creek Gold Mine right after breakfast," Nellie answered. "Said he'd best check on that old miner, Rooster McGrunt, who never showed up for his weekly bath." But a bothersome thought was tugging away at Nellie's brain. What if Desperado Dan was planning to rob the gold mine? She had to warn Pa!
"I'll fetch him for you," Nellie offered.
The clerk's mouth dropped open. "Why, Nellie Spry! Desperado Dan robs banks and rustles cattle. He's the meanest outlaw in all the West, and you are a mere girl! Hurry home and lock the door. Hide under the bed if you must. We'll take care of everything." And off he raced.
With teeth clamped tight to corral her anger, Nellie spun around fast as a Texas tornado. But instead of heading home, she set her sights on the foothills looming in the distance. "A girl, indeed! I'll just have to find Pa before Desperado Dan finds me!" she said, and off she marched toward the Cripple Creek Gold Mine.
After a spell, Nellie came to a fork in the road, where she heard the clip-clop of hooves. She didn't guess most outlaws could read, but she quickly pointed the sign in the wrong direction — just in case. Then she eyed a stranger riding a homely mule she recognized as Rosie.
"Pray tell, what's a purty gal like you doing out alone in the middle of nowhere?" the man asked, as he tumbled down off Rosie.
"Name's Nellie Spry. I'm huntin' my pa so's I can warn him that Desperado Dan's done broke outta jail."
The man snickered like a fox fixin' to raid a chicken house. "Bless my soul! I'm the one they call Desperado Dan. Girl, you best start praying your last."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Nellie and the Bandit by Eileen Ross. Copyright © 2005 Eileen Ross. Excerpted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
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