Ernest Ray is a young boy who sets out to reclaim the inheritance that was unjustly with held from his father and given to a cousin. Horatio Alger, Jr. (January 13, 1832 - July 18, 1899) was a prolific 19th-century American author, most famous for his novels following the adventures of bootblacks, newsboys, peddlers, buskers, and other impoverished children in their rise from humble backgrounds to lives of respectable middle-class security and comfort. His novels about boys who succeed under the tutelage of older mentors were hugely popular in their day.