Underground Rivers - University of New Mexico

Chapter 20 -- More Boys Club Serials
CHAPTER 20
MORE BOYS CLUB SERIALS
As prolific as was the Stratemeyer Syndicate, that organization was by no means the sole source
of Boys Club serials. This chapter notes such series produced by other publishers, some of the
sets likewise hack-written to formula specification, others the product of a consistent author who
may yet be familiar to us. The chapter to follow will alphabetically gather together Boys Club
tales not written as sets.
Willard F. Baker
According to the publisher's advertisement, Willard Baker's Boy
Ranchers series are,
Stories of the great west, with cattle ranches as a setting,
related in such a style as to captivate the hearts of all boys. In
each volume there is, as a background, some definite historical
or scientific fact about which the tales hinge.
In The Boy Ranchers in Camp, or The Water Fight at Diamond X
(1921), two eastern boys visit their cousin, whose father owns
the Diamond X ranch, and become involved in a mystery
involving a mysterious river.
"Doesn't that sound like rushing water?" asked Bud.
"Yes," agreed Dick, after a moment of intentness; "it does."
"Look out!" quickly yelled Nort. "It is water, and on the rush,
too! Jump for your lives! It's a flood!" and making a grab for
one of the lanterns, that they might not be left in total
blackness, he sprang toward the rocky side of the tunnel, an
example followed by his companions.
And the rush of waters filled the underground cave with a
mighty, roaring sound.
Stumbling, slipping, sliding, half-falling, bruising themselves on
the sharp rocks, but ever leaping forward toward the sides of
the tunnel, and away from the depressed centre down which
they could see the rush of waters coming, the boy ranchers at
last managed to reach the granite wall. Nort had succeeded in
grabbing up one of the lanterns, but there was no time for Dick
or Bud to take one, and the food had to be abandoned.
"Climb up! Climb up, if there's a ledge!" shouted Bud. "We'll
be drowned if we can't get above the water!"
He had, somehow or other, brought up in the rear. Though he did not admit it, this was
because he had shoved his cousins ahead of him, hoping thus to enable them to gain a safe
place.
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