what seemed, at best, a country town. Groves of
old trees, pasture lands and orchards of large size surrounded the few
houses. It was hard for Chris to realize that this was the core of the
capital of the vast and teeming country into which he had been born.

With difficulty, for the streets all had different names if they
existed at all, Chris looked for his own street. Going back along what
he had known as M Street, not even the Pep Boys' or Iron Horse Grill
was to be seen. Instead of two wide stone bridges, now there was only
a rickety one crossing Rock Creek Park.

The boys walked to the bank above the park and looked down. The broad
asphalt traffic lanes were gone, and so was the tidiness of the park
lawns. Below him, Chris saw the tangled thick forests that had always
stood there. The creek itself, in the quiet of this earlier time,
could be plainly heard running over its stones.

Chris turned and led Amos to where he half expected to see his
mother's house. But where his house would stand in some future year,
nothing was to be seen but a dense grove of trees growing along the
top of a little rise of ground. Someone had once built a fire at the
corner, where his front door would one day be. Chris kicked idly at
the ashes and picked up a metal button blackened by the fire.

"What you-all looking for?" patient Amos asked.

"Just something I hoped I'd find," Chris answered, filled with a sense
of desolation.

Then he made himself remember that his house had yet to be built, and
aware of the hollowness of his stomach, he said to Amos: "Must be
lunch time. Let's go down to the creek to eat."

They scrambled down the bank near where, in his time, there was a
children's playground, and weaving in and out of the thick wood, found
the creek, clear and fresh. Here they ate their lunch, and then,
running and leaping, followed the turns of the stream until they
neared the marshes and the river.

CHAPTER 15

The two boys came out toward the mouth of Rock Creek and as the woods
thinned, they saw ahead of them a sandy sloping bank on which a small
boat was drawn up. Around the coals of a fire nearby, three men were
crouching. Remembering Mr. Wicker's warning to be cautious, Chris put
out a hand to touch Amos and the two stood still.

"Let's climb up a little above them," Chris suggested. "We're beyond
the bridge--they might be--well, we'd better be careful. I want to see
what they're doing before they see us.