The Boy Scouts in the Saddle
1914
Gus Merrivale thinks he's too important for the rough boys in uniform. A wealthy young man cruising through a small village in his automobile, he barely glances at the local Boy Scouts, just another bunch of kids playing soldier in his mind. But when he volunteers to deliver payroll to his father's quarry, his confidence curdles into something far more primal: terror. Two hobos ambush him on a lonely road. They steal his car, his money, and leave him dangling on a precarious ledge. As hours pass in that terrifying position, Gus has plenty of time to reconsider everything he thought he knew about usefulness, courage, and character. The Scouts he dismissed? They have skills that might just save his neck. What follows is an old-fashioned adventure in the best sense: a story about a young man learning that wealth and arrogance aren't the same as worth, that character matters more than circumstance, and that sometimes the people you overlook are exactly the ones who matter.
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