His business grows and multiplies, and he becomes a strong man among men; always reserved, always cautious, a man whose self-poise makes people take him for a cynic, though his heart is full of hope and of the joy of life to the very last.

Let us lift up one more rag--one more painted rag in the scenery of his life--and see him a reformer of national fame; see him with an unflinching hand pull the wires that control a great national policy of his party, and watch in that scene wherein he names a president--even against the power and the money and the organization of rich men, brutally rich men like John Barclay.

Hendricks' thin hair is growing gray in this scene, and his skin is no longer fresh and white; but his eyes have a twinkle in them, and the ardour of his soul glows in a glad countenance.

And as he sits alone in his room long after midnight while the bands are roaring and the processions cheering and the great city is ablaze with excitement, Robert Hendricks, turning fifty, winds his watch--the same watch that he holds in his hand here while we pause to peek under the canvas behind the scenes--and wonders if Molly will be glad that his side won.

He has not seen her for months, nor talked with her for years, and yet as he sits there winding his watch after his great strategic victory in national politics, he hopes fondly that perhaps Molly will know that he played a clean hand and won a fair game.
Now let us crawl out from under this rubbish of the coming years, back into Sycamore Ridge.