Giselle did some quick mental calculations. “What about free?” she asked. “You’d only need to provide provisions for yourselves and the animals.”

Now everyone was looking right at her in astonishment. “Where would we find some place to winter for free?” Kellermann asked cautiously.

“Where I came from,” she told him, and quickly described the abbey. “It’s in very good repair. It used to hold several hundred nuns. The only thing that is not in good repair is the old chapel, which we had deconsecrated. You could probably put the cattle and the buffalo in there, and some of the horses that wouldn’t need stabling, if there are any that tough. It would be rough living, but”—she shrugged—“free. And more sheltered than winter camping.”

“If’n we got there early enough, we might could snug it up a bit,” Cody mused. “Most of us’re good rough builders.”

“Free . . .” said Texas Tom. “I’m a-likin’ the sound of that.”

“I am too.” Cody looked to Kellermann. “Whadya think?”

“I think we have our winter quarters,” Kellermann said. “Show me where, on the map.”

“Here,” she said, pointing.

He looked the map over carefully. “Yes, this is good. I can easily arrange for the last bookings to be within easy striking distance.” He looked up at her and grinned. “My dear Giselle, the day you became our lady marksman was a good day for this show in more ways than I can count. Thank you for the offer of hospitality!”

She flushed. “The worst that will happen is if I miscalculated and some of you have to spend the winter in wagons.”

“That is no hardship,” Kellermann assured her. As she looked around at the others, she was relieved to see that they were nodding.

“For that matter,” Fox spoke up for the first time. “We know ways to make good shelters with turf and some good long logs. Good enough to sleep warm in, at any rate.”

“There’s plenty of turf,” she said, the remembrance of those strange earthen houses that the Pawnee called home flashing across her mind. “And it’s the Schwarzwald. There’s no end of logs.”

“Well, there you go. We’ll be fine.” Cody chuckled a little. “Cain’t imagine that anybody near to a city would have been too happy ’bout us diggin’ up their purdy meadows t’make sod houses, no way. An’ . . . be honest with y’all, I dunno how we’d git anyone t’put us up inside four walls for free.”

“Hmm.” Rosa had been listening all this time, and although she didn’t say anything she gave Cody, Giselle, and Fox looks that suggested she had something to say that wasn’t for general consumption.

“Well, that settles that, then!” Kellermann said cheerfully. “I will leave you all to settle in for the night, we complete loading in the morning and go back down the road we came.”