It was nothing like the show. People were half-costumed, sometimes even half-clothed, and they laughed and talked, and even ate and drank while they waited for their turn to perform. Only one buffalo and one longhorn cow stood in for the entire herds. No one galloped, or even trotted. Only when actual tricks were rehearsed did anyone seem serious about what they were doing. Fox led her out for the “Indian war dance,” positioned her at a drum, and told her to follow the other drummers. Dutifully, she did, discovering that the other two “squaws” were both of the Mexican ladies who had altered her costumes for her. All the real Pawnee but one danced, plus four Mexican men; the drummers were all whites or Mexicans.

It is a good thing my hair is not anything like as long as it was before I set off on this journey, she thought, contemplating the impossibility of cramming four braids, each as long as she was tall, under a wig. I shall have to procure a pair of scissors and keep it trimmed every night!

It turned out not to be at all hard to follow the somewhat monotonous drumming of the only Pawnee who did not dance. The singing was something else entirely, and although the Mexican women sang along with the drummer and dancers, she kept her mouth shut and just listened.

The first thing she knew at once—because she understood Pawnee—was that this was no war song. The words were simple, interspersed with sounds that she understood served the same purpose of carrying the song as the meaningless melodic syllables of European songs. The words were very simple, repeated several times, interspersed with the “hey-yo” sounds that comprised most of the tune. “Father is good. He gave me a pipe. He is good.” The giving of a pipe, she knew from Karl May, and also from those dream fragments, was a matter of great honor and occasion, so this was something of an important song. Of course, she wondered why the Indians were dancing to this, and not to a real war song, but she resolved to ask this of Leading Fox when they were somewhere more private. It was astonishing how so few voices managed to fill the entire empty show tent with their haunting cries.

The “squaws packed up the camp”—which consisted of a couple of props and the drums—and the Indians took their horses and rode around the arena three times, making no attempt at the bloodcurdling war cries they had done for the show. Then they exited, and the settlers and the stagecoach entered to circle the arena, camp, be attacked by the Indians and be rescued.

And now it was time for her first trick-shot performance.