Scouts to the Rescue (1939)

Filmed in the Sierra Nevada mountains near Sonora, California, this Universal serial (made in that short two-year span of time when they chose to be identified as The New Universal) is Universal's 40th sound-era serial, made and released between "Red Barry" and "Buck Rogers", and has Eagle Scout Bruce Scott, leader of Martinsville Troop Number One, and his pack setting off in search of lost treasure, using a map provided by Tenderfoot scout Skeets Scanlon Scoutmaster Hale leaves the expedition to rush home to an ailing wife, but Bruce and the scouts push on and the map leads them to "Ghost Town", where the treasure turns out to be a large cache of counterfeit $20 bills and the plates used to print them. The troop also discover a lost branch of Inca Indians living in the mountains and still undetected in 1939. The tribe gives ferocious efforts to keep the scouts from discovering their Temple cave because it contains a huge radium deposit known to them only for its ability to heal wounds. Joined by G-Man Hal Marvin, on the trail of the counterfeiting ring led by Pug O'Toole and Doc, the scouts face many battles and opposition from both the gangsters and the tribe.