“I don’t want to hear why,” Captain Hakes was saying. “Just get out here and exchange it. I’ve looked the other way for the last time, Schieling. Low-grade coal, spoiled meat, late supplies, bad counts—I could balance some of that against what you saved the camp’s budget. But endangering lives . . .”

I was more disgusted than I’d ever been with anything in my life.

Here the guys had been working their hearts out on their CCC jobs, while all along they were being shortchanged by a camp commander out to skimp at their expense. And not for the good of the camp, that was for sure, but for how it would look good on Hakes’s record.

I guessed I shouldn’t have been surprised at Hakes. He’d never given reason to expect more.

But Mr. Schieling . . . I’d liked him. I’d trusted him.

I kicked a rock hard as I could. The Depression. The endless, blasted, blasted Depression. All it did was make people be less than you expected, until it took them away from you altogether.

I was so mad I barely registered Mr. Caldwell’s driving up and going inside. But I did hear what he said.

“I don’t want to raise a false alarm,” he told Hakes. “But I was just up at the project site, inspecting the spillway. It looks good enough, but if you hit an edge with a hammer, concrete chips off. It shouldn’t do that.”

“It’s probably still curing,” Hakes said.

“No. That’s not how concrete cures. Either the mixing proportions were off or, just possibly, the cement we used was bad. I just hope it’s only the top lift that’s a problem. We can patch that.”

I was lucky with the trains, and able to ride boxcars pretty much one right after another as far as Bozeman. Then a guy driving an empty logging truck took me the rest of the way, a dreary drive through rain that lasted until we were almost to the park.

I didn’t get into the town of West Yellowstone until after dark, but I didn’t have any trouble finding Beatty. She and Annie Boudreau had set up a tent on the airport grounds and were finishing up a supper they’d cooked over a small fire.

As fast as the firelight flickered, expressions chased across Beatty’s face when she saw me. And then she scrambled up.

“Moss!” she said, hugging me. “I was hoping so much . . . I’ve missed you so much, and I’ve been so worried about you. And then I was afraid you wouldn’t get my telegram in time to get down here. But you must have.”

“I got your letter,” I said, “not a telegram.”

Annie clanked some dishes, and I turned, late with my manners.