Boy Scouts: Tenderfoot Squad; Or, Camping at Raccoon Lodge

The open road stretches ahead, a battered car crammed with boys and their dreams of adventure. Elmer Chenowith, leader of the Wolf Patrol, knows these woods. His friends Rufus and Alec do not, and that's precisely why they're here. Raccoon Bluff awaits, a realm of pine-scented mornings and fire-light secrets where city boys will learn to read the wilderness like a book. But the woods hold more than raccoons and timber. There's Jem Shock, a suspected poacher whose shadow falls across their camp, and Conrad, a boy of uncanny skill whose past remains shrouded in mystery. This is Boy Scout fiction at its most earnest: a story about growing into competence, about the bond between boys who learn to trust each other when the map runs out and the fire dies down. Alan Douglas writes with affection for the scouting movement and genuine warmth for the messy, brave work of becoming someone your friends can depend on.