ly it's slow--Sayings of Si Sylvanne.

Twenty years went by. Rolf grew and prospered. He was a man of substance
and of family now; for store and mill were making money fast, and the
little tow-tops came at regular intervals.

And when the years had added ripeness to his thought, and the kind
gods of gold had filled his scrip, it was that his ampler life began to
bloom. His was a mind of the best begetting, born and bred of ancient,
clean-blooded stock; inflexibly principled, trained by a God-fearing
mother, nurtured in a cradle of adversity, schooled in a school of
hardship, developed in the big outdoors, wise in the ways of the woods,
burnt in the fire of affliction, forced into self-reliance, inspired
with the lofty inspiration of sacrificial patriotism--the good stuff
of his make-up shone, as shines the gold in the fervent heat; the hard
blows that prove or crush, had proved; the metal had rung true; and in
the great valley, Rolf Kittering was a man of mark.

The country's need of such is ever present and ever seeking. Those in
power who know and measure men soon sought him out, and their messenger
was the grisly old Si Sylvanne.

Because he was a busy man, Rolf feared to add to his activities. Because
he was a very busy man, the party new they needed him. So at length it
was settled, and in a little while, Rolf stood in the Halls of Albany
and grasped the hand of the ancient mill-man as a colleague, filling an
honoured place in the councils of the state.

Each change brought him new activities. Each year he was more of a
public man, and his life grew larger. From Albany he went to New York,
in the world of business and men's affairs; and at last in Washington,
his tall, manly figure was well known, and his good common-sense and
clean business ways were respected. Yet each year during hunting time he
managed to spend a few weeks with Quonab in the woods. Tramping on their
ancient trapping grounds, living over the days of their early hunts;
and double zest was added when Rolf the second joined them and lived and
loved it all.

But this was no longer Kittering's life, rather the rare precarious
interval, and more and more old Quonab realized that they were meeting
only in the past. When the big house went up on the river-bank, he
indeed had felt that they were at the parting of the ways. His respect
for Nibowaka had grown to be almost a worship, and yet he knew that
their trails had yearly less in common. Rolf ha