"We might as well give up the plan, for we could not force him to leave town without a bodyguard," sneered Trask.
"Fie! That is easy. Miss Fortune could ask him to ride with her into the forest and he would go blindly enough," said Holmes.
"I?" cried Kate, blushing to think of herself in that position after Studdiford's proclamation. "I could not—would not do such a thing. Prove him a coward, but do not ask me to help you." "Holmes is right, and Miss Fortune should be willing to make the test. She is his defender; she cannot refuse to satisfy herself of her error in this harmless, yet effective way," announced big Farring, and every member of the party laid siege against Kate's faltering opposition. The fun of it all finally appealed to her and she rather timidly agreed to the proposition. How could she ask him to ride with her after what had passed between them? He would think her unwomanly and, strangely enough, with that thought she began to feel that she must have his good opinion. Yet she went, half dubiously, into the plot to prove a coward of the man she was beginning to admire.
The details of the scheme were submitted by the men, and were as follows: Kate was to ask him to ride horseback with her to "Big Fork," five miles through the forest, on some near afternoon, and the men were to bedeck themselves as Indians, attack them, take her from his custody and hurry her off into apparent captivity, whilst he trembled with fear and inaction.
"But suppose he should happen to be disappointing and shoot somebody," objected Lucy Gaines.
"Oh, he must have no chance to do that," said Varney. "Miss Fortune can induce him to discharge his pistols in some feat of marksmanship and we will swoop down before he can reload them."
"For shame!" cried Kate. "How could that be a fair test of bravery? An unarmed man against five brawny Indians! I'll have none of it. His pistols must remain undisturbed."
"But—good heavens!—he may kill us all," cried Trask.
"Well, how else is he to prove his courage? You must take your chances, gentlemen, with your coward. If he is a coward you need not fear his pistols, though he had a dozen; if he is not, then you may have to run from them."
"Allow us to capture you and offer him the privilege of fighting for your liberty, choosing his own weapons. If he agrees to fight for you, instead of taking his proffered freedom, we will leave the field to him and you may call him hero. That is fair, is it not?" proposed Farring.