Gardiner MT, just outside Yellowstone National Park, Winter, 1933 Three people—each with the toughness and desire to survive whatever adversity fate throws in their path. But will that be enough to overcome a financial Depression in its third year with no sign of abating or the brutally cold wilderness that is Yellowstone in winter? Millie Chase is fourteen—and an orphan. Other than a stepfather she neither knows nor likes, she has no one. She sets out to find her mother’s childhood friend who she believes lives in nearby Yellowstone National Park, hoping the woman might take her in. Of course it’s winter and the park is pretty much shut down so it’s a long shot, but…. Nate Baker admits he’s getting too old for the arduous work of maintaining the buildings in Yellowstone, but with the depression going into its third year and showing few signs of abating, a man with a job doesn’t easily walk away. Besides life in the park is all he knows. So when he finds runaway Millie, half frozen and demanding to speak to his wife, Nate risks his future—and Ginny’s—when he decides to take her in. Ginny Baker comes from money—a fortune she has been assured has not been threatened by the Depression and one she has counted on as the nest egg that will sustain Nate and her in their old age. But when she receives word that the money is gone and her sister, Gert is in dire straits, she drops everything and heads to Chicago.