When Buffalo Bill Cody's horse is stolen, the star of the world's
foremost wild west show travels to Baker Street to consult the star of
the world's foremost consulting detective agency. Like many before him,
Colonel Cody takes Sherlock Holmes to be that star. The true sage of
221B Baker Street, who also serves as its landlady, takes control of the
situation, and finds both the purloined animal and the two children who
had taken the horse for a joy ride 1903 style. When their father is
murdered weeks later, the children fear they will be blamed because of
their quarrel with him. They run away to join the wild west show leading
Colonel Cody to make a return visit to Baker Street-this time with the
two children in tow, and to enlist Holmes in the search for a murderer.
Mrs. Hudson, will, of course, once again take charge, once again without
acknowledgement of her contribution, once again maintaining the fiction
of Sherlock Holmes's leadership, an essential pretense in the male
dominated world of Victorian England. As Mrs. Hudson and her colleagues
work to discover the murderer, they will find themselves having to
counter an anti-Indian bigotry that places at risk the marriage of
friends of Mrs. Hudson's from the wild west show, and Mrs. Hudson's very
life. With the help of her two young horse thieves, now happily
rehabilitated, Mrs. Hudson may yet find the way to a just and rewarding
outcome.
