[Gutenberg 31487] • Boy Scouts on the Great Divide; Or, The Ending of the Trail

Big Rock Publishing presents the Centennial Edition of The Boy Scout Series, originally published in 1913, and written by Maj. Archibald Lee Fletcher. This edition features a foreword written by P. Todd Kelly, noted Scouting historian and Ronald J. Stacey, Editor. In the foreword, Kelly and Stacey point out some similarities and quite a few differences between America in 1913 and talk about the general state of affairs in the nation and the world at large. Readers also will learn a great deal about how Scouting differed in its early days from the movement it became over the past one hundred years.

The foreword itself provides a history lesson in its own right, but when paired with the beautiful prose of Fletcher (whom the reader will learn was really a pseudonym for St. George Rathborne) and the depth of characterizations presented, this work becomes a telling snapshot of life in the early part of the 20th century.

Boy Scouts on the Great Divide is the ninth volume of a twelve-book series by Maj. Archibald Lee Fletcher, whose biography appears later in this section.

Boy Scouts on the Great Divide continues the story line begun in the second half of the series. As of the sixth book, Fletcher left behind the characters and exploits of the boys of the Beverly, Indiana, Beaver Patrol, and turned to their compatriots in the Beaver Patrol of Chicago. This second group of boys, who like their small-town brethren live shortly after the turn of the twentieth century, are more street-wise due to having lived in an urban environment all their lives. Like the characters in the previous stories, they drew together to start a Boy Scout troop of their own, and decided to take the hardworking Beaver as their totem. Unlike the small-town boys we read about in the earlier books, however, they find themselves in a city in which the Boy Scouts already have a significant presence, and do not encounter mistrust and ignorance of the Scout mission. They instead seek their challenges in expeditions to the wilds.

See what adventures ensue for the boys of the Beaver Patrol of Chicago: George Benton, the department store clerk, who doubles as patrol leader; Sandy Green, the mailroom clerk at one of Chicago’s daily newspapers; Will Smith, athletic, brown-eyed, and inclined to look on the dark side of life, who holds a position in the office of a well-known criminal lawyer; and, Tommy Gregory, the red-headed, freckled, trickster, who by day is a messenger boy.