CHAPTER VIIISpring came on; March was bright with clearing skies and glorious sweeping winds that were not too cold. The snow drew into patches under the lilacs and the carefully ranged conifers in front yards; vanished entirely. Children’s voices began to ring out in the lengthening twilight again; and one day Hilary Collier called his attention to a real sign of the breaking season.
He had walked out the Merchantsville road one Saturday afternoon, over bare brown roads and whipped fields, breathing deep of the wild and stirring airs. There was an old cut through here, somewhere near the forlorn and deserted brown porches and fences of the Amusement Park, and past an old quarry. Craig struck into the woods, trying to find it.
He had almost reached the oyster shell road into Rancocas whe
