I waited until there were just me and the major left. “Sir, I want to thank you for choosing me,” I said. “But, I was wondering . . . That is, I got into some trouble yesterday, and I was kind of thinking—”

“I heard about it,” Major Garrett said. “I have to tell you that if anything like it happens again, you’ll be out of the CCC so fast you won’t know what happened.”

“But I’m not now?”

“No.”

“Then I guess I need to thank you for giving me a second chance,” I said.

Major Garrett shook his head. “That was your company commander’s decision. I just suggested that if you were to be allowed to stay on, the Monroe camp might be a good assignment for you.”

“I see,” I said, though I didn’t, really. “Well, anyway, thank you.”

“As I said, you’re thanking the wrong man.”

I skipped breakfast so I’d be waiting outside Captain Strom’s office when he got there.

“Sir,” I said, “I’m Enrollee Moss Trawnley—”

“I know who you are.”

“Major Garrett said you’re letting me stay in, despite yesterday, and I wanted to say I’m grateful. Also, that I’m sorry for what happened.”

“You came within a hairsbreadth of being thrown out. And you’re going to have to make good on the broken fixture. A replacement’s going to cost the corps around seven dollars, and that’s money you won’t see come payday.”

“I don’t mind, sir,” I said.

“Since the other two are gone, you’re going to have to pay it all yourself.”

“I understand. I will.”

“Frankly, my first inclination was to get rid of you. The CCC doesn’t need hotheads causing dissension and maybe giving the communities where we put our camps a reason not to welcome us. But I respect what others say, and you certainly had a lot of people going to bat for you. Sergeant Mackey, especially.”

“The sergeant?” I asked. “He was on my side?”

“He said you didn’t make excuses for yourself. And that you finished the job you’d been given, despite the other two skipping out. That showed character.

“Though, of course, you should have gone to your junior leaders when the trouble with Klein and Lukowski first started, instead of taking matters into your own hands. If your friends hadn’t explained things to Leader Reese last evening and gone with him to track down Sergeant Mackey at the NCO club, we’d never have heard the whole story.”

So that’s where they went!

I considered saying that one of the junior leaders, Bill Compton, did know a good part of it, but I let it go.

“And finally,” Captain Strom said, “Major Garrett suggested I review your case carefully. He said anybody in as much trouble as you were yesterday, who’d still notice a tree that needed protecting, belonged doing conservation work.”