Prior to the Civil War, the fastest mail between the West Coast and the East took almost thirty days by stagecoach along a southern route through Texas. Some Californians feared their state would not remain in the Union, separated so far from the free states. Then businessman William Russell invested in a way to deliver mail between San Francisco and the farthest western railroad, in Saint Joseph, Missouri—across two thousand miles of mountains,

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An orphan caring for her heavily pregnant sibling disguises herself as a boy to take a job on the Pony Express, where she partners with a young man hiding his own secrets and a mixed-race youth trying to defend his freedom. When Jessamine Murphy finds a recruitment poster for the Pony Express, she's looking for adventure-- and a chance to track down her wayward father in California. Eager to reunite her fractured family, Jessamine cuts her hair,...

MISTLETOE MARRIAGE OF CONVENIENCE. When Jake Bridges suddenly finds himself the guardian of his orphaned niece, he knows he needs a wife. What does a stock tender at a pony express station know about raising little girls? A marriage of convenience to the child's caretaker is the most practical solution. A mail-order marriage seems like Leah Hollister's last chance to know the simple joys of family life. But then she receives word that her would-be...

In 1860, fourteen-year-old Clem Fontayne learns from fellow travelers about important topics of the day, including the Mormon migration, slavery, and the Pony express, as he journeys from Missouri to California in search of his father.

Wandering aimlessly on the dangerous high desert of Nevada Territory in 1860, a fourteen-year-old orphan boy finds shelter, food, and a Christian family at the Pony Express station run by the Lovelocks.

Twelve-year-old Colton, son of an African-American mother and a white father, takes a job with the Pony Express in 1860 after his father abandons the family on their California-bound wagon train, and risks his life to deliver an important letter that may affect the growing conflict between the North and South.

Alone on the range, cowboy Slim Jim Watkins meets a Pony Express rider returning a mail order bride and finds himself a pardner with whom he can share conversation.