(Revised)

A rough-and-ready stagecoach ride, a seductive French can-can dancing performance and exciting Trail Ridin' Mama movie scenes, featuring outlaws holding up the stagecoach and escaping into the Arizona wilderness while pursued by a posse, are the highlights of this chapter.
 
During the Christmas vacation, Assistant Director Gopher Gutz returned to Waterfall Canyon Ranch early
to set up the stagecoach robbery scene. Sam Sackett, who drove the six-in-hand team, explained the
complicated harness and different tasks of the powerful Percheron horses pulling the coach. Then he drove
the coach to the remote location, accompanied by Willie Bellaire up top. Gopher, Beth Hunter, Max
Montezuma and Vicki Paleon rode in the coach. Sam's passengers complained about the rough ride. Sam
placated them by reading a list of 19th century Wells Fargo rules for stagecoach passengers, which sounded
quaint and humorous to modern ears; for example, if you could not abstain from liquor during the trip, you
should share the bottle, and if you chewed tobacco, you should spit with the wind, not against it.

Later that evening, Dame Kate told Max and Vicki a story of wartime romance and tragedy from her days in the Resistance. Beth, spending the evening alone with Sam, discovered to her dismay that he had a jealous, possessive side when he suddenly started questioning her about her past. She reluctantly answered some questions, but evaded Sam's inquiries about her most recent lover, being determined to say nothing about Hans Richter.

Tasha, returning from her vacation, regaled the Costume Department with tales of her sexy holiday party outfits and pictures of her family. She whined incessantly about the "drabness" of her historically accurate, modest stagecoach traveling costume. Director C.B. DeFille tried
heroically to get her to memorize her lines for the scenes, but he soon saw that she could not concentrate. He realized that she was suffering withdrawal symptoms from her all-time favorite fun place, Whizzyland Amusement Park, and he felt that she could learn her lines if he could find an amusement ride for her to enjoy while studying. He dragooned Gopher and Leggy Barber into taking Tasha to a traveling carnival in Flagstaff. This experiment was a success.

With much fanfare, culminating in a huge banner hung above the Wild Card Saloon entrance, Dame Kate began her grand opening engagement. Tickets to this much-anticipated event, the Wild Card Follies, were sold out and the saloon was packed. No one knew what to expect, but they knew something intriguing was coming when pianist Edward von Sauer and the small orchestra began playing Offenbach's Overture to Orpheus in the Underworld.

Little did the audience know that Kate had spent days secretly training and rehearsing a group of dancers in the wild French can-can dance. She had drilled them all in the technical aspects of the can-can: battement, ronde de jambe, port d'armes and the grande écart until they
could perform these high-kicking, rotating, one-legged turning and jump-split movements flawlessly. The dancers burst into the saloon and cavorted devilishly among the audience before taking the stage for their uninhibited and spirited performance. They were entrancing in their gorgeous multi-hued dresses, and the power of their beauty and allure stunned everyone. One charismatic male dancer joined the eight women, as well as the stunt dog Calamity. The performance was a huge hit, and the audience demanded an encore from dancers Kate, Erika, Belle, Vicki, Cher, Beth, Claudia, Marcia and Daniel.

Tasha, who had scored a coveted balcony seat for the performance, nevertheless had dozed off and slept through most of it. Upon awakening, she found that her upper and lower false eyelash weaves were stuck together, and she couldn't open her eyes until Dr. Jen Errick assisted her. Then Tasha insisted on barging across the crowded room to meet Dame Kate and have their picture made together. Kate, half blinded by Tasha's brilliant gold sequined dress, could not evade this meeting but soon escaped to sit at her friends' table. She was toasted in the Apache language by Sam, and praised by all for her outstanding work with the can-can group.

The movie:  The stagecoach robbery, Clementine's first adventures in Red Bluff and the posse chase scenes were filmed. The actors in the stagecoach scene were Sam as driver Logan Reinhardt, Willie as guard Rusty Tibbets, and passengers Tasha as Clementine, Jeremiah as Hank, Roy as Charlie and Wilfred as Chester. The outlaw actors were Max as leader John Wesley, Zach as Jake Curtis, Vicki as Kate Ellis and Cher as Phoebe Maddox. Actors in the Red Bluff scenes included Jesse as Sheriff Bartholomew Marsden, Erick as Jude the scout, Johnny as Elbert Jaeger, and Max in a dual role as lawyer Bonaparte Sprigg.

The masked outlaws galloped down out of the forest, yelling and firing their guns as the stagecoach passed. Rusty shot Phoebe as she approached, wounding her. John Wesley threatened to shoot the horses if Logan didn't stop the coach; Logan cursed him, but complied. The outlaws made Logan throw down the strongbox, then robbed the passengers at gunpoint. Clementine lost all her money except for a small amount hidden in her bosom. John Wesley ogled the buxom Clementine, then asked her to come away with him and ride with his gang. He grabbed her and tried to kiss her, but when he learned her name was Carson, he abruptly released her, and the gang rode away. Back in the safety of the woods, the gang examined Phoebe's wound, and John Wesley vowed revenge on Rusty for shooting her and on Logan for his arrogance.
 
Logan raced the stagecoach into Red Bluff, where he and the passengers gave Sheriff Bart their versions of the crime; Logan identified the gang leader as John Wesley because he had shown his face. Sheriff Bart sent for Jude the scout and went to the Wild Card Saloon to gather men for a posse. The sheriff did not have time to talk to Clementine about her missing husband Quinn.

Clementine, frantic at the theft of her money, asked Elbert Jaeger, manager of the Sidewinder Stagecoach Lines, for reimbursement of her losses and lodging expenses. Jaeger refused, and Clementine was forced to rent a cheap room at a rundown establishment, the Eight Balls
Hotel. She was disgusted to find that her room had fleas and bedbugs. In the grubby hotel dining room, she was approached by attorney Bonaparte Sprigg. He told her that Sidewinder Lines was negligent in failing to keep her safe, and that he could represent her in a lawsuit
against them and possibly win a judgment of $2,000 to compensate her for her loss of $200 cash, her stage fare and her pain and suffering for being violated by John Wesley in front of other men. Clementine parted with a few precious dollars to get Sprigg started on the case.

In the Wild Card Saloon, a stranger dressed in black watched as Sheriff Bart and Jude formed the posse: Logan, Rusty and five other men. The posse left immediately to pursue the outlaws; the stranger, unconcerned, remained behind. Far away, the outlaws reached their hideout cabin, where Kate treated Phoebe's gunshot wound and gave her laudanum for the pain; Phoebe had bravely ridden for miles with a bleeding wound, a feat much admired by her lover John Wesley.

Jude tracked the outlaws for hours, all the way to a vast grassy plain, but then he discovered the trick they had used: they had ridden their horses into and across a herd of buffalo, so that the wild beasts' tracks would obliterate the tracks of their horses. It was a very dangerous
move, but it worked. The trail was lost. Sheriff Bart, a practical man, decided to waste no more time on the search, and directed the posse
to return to Red Bluff.