Ranger Boys #3 Border Smugglers, #4, Timber Thieves, and #5 Their Reward

In The Ranger Boys #3, The Ranger Boys and the Border Smugglers, Garry, Dick, and Phil are sent to the town of Hobart on the Canadian border to work undercover in search of smugglers.  The boys soon learn that their nemesis, Jean LeBlanc, is working with the smugglers, so the boys have a dangerous task ahead of them.

In this book, La Belle teaches readers how to make a lean-to and how to make stew.  La Belle also includes a complete biscuit recipe!

I enjoyed the inclusion of Ruth in the story, who is a strong female who likes adventure.

This is a very good to excellent story.

In the Ranger Boys #4, The Ranger Boys Outwit the Timber Thieves, Mr. Boone is having trouble with his timber business.  Equipment keeps breaking, and work is moving much slower than it should.  Garry, Dick, and Phil are sent to the lumber camp to try to figure out who is working against Mr. Boone.

I really like the setting of this story where the mystery and action occurs in and around a lumber camp.  I always enjoy books the most when the characters have adventures in a localized setting.

This is an excellent book.

In the Ranger Boys #5, The Ranger Boys and Their Reward, the boys return to Hobart to investigate who keeps stealing checks out of the mail.  Meanwhile, Ruth and her father receive threatening messages, and the boys soon realize that both cases are connected.  Before the case is solved, the boys will have one last showdown against their arch enemy, Jean LeBlanc.

On page 63, a man insults the boys by calling them a "parcel o' dime novel reading boys."

I enjoyed the inclusion of Ruth in a couple of the books in the series.  Unfortunately, the author makes a sexist statement on page 176.  "Ruth let him free her, and then stood erect for a moment, and being only a girl, dropped over in a dead faint."  Ugh.

This book ties up a few loose ends from the beginning of the first story.  One of those loose ends was something mentioned at the very start of the first book that I had forgotten and didn't think about as I read through the series.

This is an excellent story.

The entire Ranger Boys series is set in the state of Maine.  The boys are in Maine for the entire duration of the series except for when they briefly cross the border into Canada.

This is an excellent series, and I greatly enjoyed reading the books.

Ranger Boys #1 Rescue and #2 Find the Hermit

The Ranger Boys series was written by Claude A. La Belle and was published by A. L. Burt.

1.  The Ranger Boys to the Rescue, 1922
2.  The Ranger Boys Find the Hermit, 1922
3.  The Ranger Boys and the Border Smugglers, 1922
4.  The Ranger Boys Outwit the Timber Thieves, 1922
5.  The Ranger Boys and Their Reward, 1922

These books are scarce but not anywhere near as scarce as the Bailey Twins series.  These books were printed years before the Bailey Twins books, so these books went through more printings.

In the Ranger Boys #1, The Ranger Boys to the Rescue, Garry Boone and Dick Wallace plan to attend a military academy in the fall.  Their friend, Phil Durant, cannot afford military school, so the chums will be separated.  In the meantime, Mr. Boone hires the three boys as rangers to watch over his vast property in the woods of Maine.  The boys' job is to watch for wildfires, but they soon have to watch for Jean LeBlanc, who is a criminal.

This book sets the stage for the rest of the series.  It is a good to very good book, but the rest of the set is even better.

In the Ranger Boys #2, The Ranger Boys Find the Hermit, Garry, Dick, and Phil must again watch for Jean LeBlanc, who has escaped from jail and now seeks revenge against the boys.  The boys also look for their hermit friend who continues to leave them cryptic notes.

Over the years, people who have disapproved of series books have always stated that series books are not worth reading and have little of substance in them.  Those people never read any of the Ranger Boys books.  La Belle made these books educational and in a way that is very interesting.  In this book, La Belle teaches readers how to build a log cabin, how to make a fireplace out of a barrel, and how to climb a tree with the use of a wire loop.

This is a very good book.