It was an audacious idea. And if she had not trusted Fox and his control of his Elementals, she would not have suggested it.

“. . . he could do knife and perhaps tomahawk tricks with me as his target.” She began to warm to this idea, as Cody’s eyes widened in alarm and his moustache practically stood up by itself. “He could make my outline in arrows or knives. He could split an apple on the top of my head with an arrow or a tomahawk! I could hold things for him to shoot! He could shoot a cigarette out of my mouth!”

Cody stared at her in utter disbelief. “You . . . you’d let him do thet?” he gaped.

“He is an Air Master. He cannot miss as long as his Elementals and mine are making sure all is well,” she pointed out. She grew even more enthusiastic. “We could say we are blood brothers! That is very important in the Winnetou books, and in fact, we are, in a way. We could say that I trust his aim because of that!”

“An . . . you think people’d go fer thet?” He shook his head. “If’n this was back home, people’d hev my hide fer riskin’ your’n that way, with a Injun.”

“It would make people come back again and again,” she said, firmly, sure of her own ground. “But . . . we must ask Fox first. If he is against this, then we won’t do it. But you need to find a way to make the Indians heroes all through the show if you wish to make more money.”

“I’ll think on it.” He shook his head. “It’s a furrin’ way t’ think.”

“You’re in a ‘furrin’ country,” she pointed out.

All he could do was shrug, thank her, and wish her goodnight.

There were a good three days of travel by horse between Schopfheim and their next destination of Silberbrucke. Since no inn could possibly hold all of them, they had already planned on camping, making a more abbreviated camp than they did for the shows. They also planned on making the trip leisurely, to spare the buffalo, and to allow them to camp early enough to get in some practice sessions. Giselle drove her little wagon-home, sitting in the front door to do so, very grateful that all she would have to do would be to unharness and feed the horses and tether them to the wagon overnight. She did not envy those who had tents. Their quarters might be more spacious than hers, but it came at a cost of inconvenience—though they all did seem to be able to pull up camp quickly, so probably they could make camp just as quickly. Or perhaps they did not intend to pitch the tents at all. According to Karl May, frontiersmen often just laid down on a horse blanket with a saddle for a pillow and—