Romeo jumped about a mile, and then looked from one to the other of us sheepishly. “Everybody’s so let down over the camp not getting done like we’d hoped, and here I’ve been messing in the kitchen instead of helping build. So I was just going to see if I couldn’t figure out something I could do to move things along.”

I was at a loss for words, and for once, Sam seemed to be, too. Briefly. Then he said, “That’s a good thought, Romeo, but maybe it’s one best acted on tomorrow morning.”

“You think?” Romeo asked.

“Yes, I do,” Sam answered.

We’d almost gotten back to our tent when I halted. “You two go on,” I told them.

“Where are you going?” Romeo asked.

“Over to the barracks.”

“I’ll roust the others,” he said happily. “Just our tent, I mean.”

“Nate and Apple aren’t going to like it,” I said. “Apple especially.”

They came over, Apple still rubbing his eyes when he got a hammer and headed for the coatrack he’d been working on earlier. “I must be crazy to let myself get talked out of a good night’s sleep,” he told me.

“I didn’t talk you out of anything,” I said.

“And likely as not, whatever I do is going to need redoing, because I’m not downright sure I understand just how this is supposed to go.”

“The blueprints ought to show it,” I said.

“Yeah, if you can read blueprints.”

I went over to the makeshift table where plans were laid out, and shuffled through them till I came to one that showed the details of the rack. “This doesn’t look too hard. If you just take that long piece . . .”

The door opened, and Riley Maxwell and Hal Linchfeld came in. “Someone having a party?” Riley asked.

“You want to give me a job?” Hal said.

“Get in line behind me,” Apple told him. “Moss can only boss one person at a time.”

I was showing Hal where a window frame needed finishing when his and Riley’s tent mates arrived, and then, by ones and twos, the fellows from the remaining tents showed up. Pretty soon everybody but me was working hard—even Romeo, who was sanding down a railing. But every time I picked up a hammer or screwdriver, I got stopped by someone asking, “Trawnley, what should I do next?”

“Look!” I finally told them all. “I’m not the boss of this job.”

“Someone’s got to be,” Riley said. “And it wasn’t my idea to come back to work.”

“I didn’t—”

“Trawnley!” he said. “Just tell us what to do and let us do it, and then we can all go to bed!” But he said it joking-like, and I realized that none of the guys actually expected to get any sleep.