When Hugh happened to discover her, just after laying his plans with the three chums who had been at his elbow, Nurse Jones made straight toward him.
“I hope you will let me go with you when you start off on this hunt for the lost child, Mr. Scout Master?” she said, earnestly.
The boys exchanged looks. It was a novel request, and Hugh hardly knew how to answer her. Nurse Jones meant well, but then a woman was hardly fitted for enduring the fatigue they might have to encounter when chasing all around the country in search of the daring abductors of little Reuben.
Nurses were all right in their places, but it hardly seemed as though one of them should want to keep company with scouts when they were on dangerous duty.
“I hate to refuse you, Nurse Jones,” Hugh finally said, “but we don’t know just where we will have to go. The distance may be too far for you.”
“But I’m a famous walker, you remember. I’ve made it a practice to cover ten miles every day, and often twice that,” she replied.
Alec snickered at that, for he could see that none of the scouts had anything on Nurse Jones when it came to endurance.
“And then,” continued Hugh, “there’s likely to be danger, because if desperate men have kidnapped Reuben, they will hardly give him up without trouble.”
“That is only another argument in favor of my going with you,” the nurse told him. “In our profession we understand we are bound to incur some peril; and, if there should be fighting of any kind a nurse would be in her element binding up the wounds that followed. You must let me go with you, Hugh. Indeed, I will not be refused.”
The other boys could see that Hugh was “taking water,” as some of them called it; that is, his resolution seemed shaken. While he still objected, he did not appear very firm.