“From New York to the Mississippi in one day appears to me to be going some!” declared Jimmie, “and I never was so tired in my life. We can’t go on to-night if we are to meet Havens in St. Louis to-morrow, and so I’m going to get out one of the oiled silk shelter tents and go to bed.”
While the boys planned a long night’s rest the whirr of motors came dully from the sky off to the north.
CHAPTER V.
A CHANGE OF SCENE.
“What we ought to do now,” Doctor Bolt declared, as the night matron, indignant chin in air, turned toward the door of the private room, “is to notify the officers of Westchester county.”
“I don’t see the necessity for that,” Havens replied. “One may as well look for a pearl in a train-load of oysters as to look for that fellow in Westchester county to-night. Depend upon it, the men who sought employment at the hospital a few days ago were sent here because the hospital happened to be near my home.”
The night matron shrugged her shoulders and passed a scornful glance at the surgeon. The surgeon turned angrily away.
“That relieves me of a great responsibility,” she said. “Ordinarily one becomes responsible for the actions of employes, but when men are sent into your service by a criminal gang for a criminal purpose, responsibility ought to end there.”
“I don’t agree with your reasoning at all!” declared the surgeon. “One should know better than to employ strangers in positions of trust.”
“And when,” continued the night matron, glaring at the surgeon, “a country doctor takes it upon himself to override the rules of a hospital and keeps watch beside a patient to the exclusion of the regular attendants, one certainly should not be held accountable for the safety of that patient. And that’s all I have to say,” she added.